Chapter 5 - ch 12-13

Chapter 12: JynChapter TextIt's a very long way from Kamino to Naboo. Jyn and Ahsoka haven't been back into this sector since they took charge of the Lady Luck ; going back to the same planet feels risky to Jyn, even knowing that nobody who would recognise the ship for what she used to be, or them for who they used to be, will be around. She is somewhat comforted by the knowledge that they'll be on the other side of the planet, and that the rendez-vous will take place deep within Gungan territory, which has been compromised over the many years since Queen Amidala's famous accord, but which is still the safest place on Naboo for a Rebel, especially in the places where the human population can neither mine plasma nor build houses. If they can't make money out of it, the Gungans can keep it. And they do - underestimated, underserved, and understudied.

Okay, so possibly Jyn has been listening when Ahsoka talks. Ahsoka knows a lot about some truly random shit. It makes Jyn, whose formal schooling came to an abrupt end when Krennic showed up on her doorstep, wonder what it must have been like to grow up a Jedi. Did they all get the wide-ranging education Ahsoka seems to have picked up, supplemented by her years kicking around the galaxy, serving the Rebel Alliance? And how did Ahsoka manage to fit it in alongside fighting for the Republic?

"I used to study at some very odd places and times," Ahsoka says, when Jyn asks this. She's awake and piloting; Jyn, on a human's more rigid circadian schedule, is about to go to bed. "You know, we fought all across the galaxy, but that did mean we had to get across the galaxy. I spent a lot of time in hyperspace. And education was always communal, for Jedi - I mean, not necessarily for every Jedi, but for lots of Jedi that I knew. If your master's master or their sibling-padawans were still alive, they would often take an interest. Or your master's friends, or just Jedi of the same generation who had a skillset that might suit you. Anakin was never a fan of jar'kai, so I learned a lot from other masters. Aayla Secura, mainly."

"Never a fan of what?" Jyn leans against the back of Ahsoka's chair, watching Ahsoka's hands dance across the control panels.

"Jar'kai. Dual-wielding. Mine is non-standard because I use a reverse grip, but jar'kai is a catch-all term." Ahsoka leans back in her seat.

"What's the advantage?"

"Two lightsabers are better than one," Ahsoka suggests facetiously. 

Jyn snorts into the hot drink she's holding. "Next you'll be telling me size isn't everything. Can you fight with just the one lightsaber?"

"Of course. Rex had a fit when he realised my preferred form used two and that I would be vulnerable if I lost one or it broke. He insisted I train with a single saber as well, in case I lost one, and then Cody - he was Obi-Wan's commander - backed him up, and all four of them had an argument over whether I was as careless as Obi-Wan and Anakin, and the end result was that yes, I trained with a single lightsaber at least as often as both."

Jyn laughs. She can kind of imagine it, if she tries. She has no mental image for Anakin or Obi-Wan, except that they were both taller than Ahsoka, Anakin wild and reckless, Obi-Wan controlled and cultured and (so far as Jyn can tell) just as much of a dipshit as Anakin, but better at hiding it. Rex she can visualise twenty years younger, and Cody must have been his mirror image. And then a tiny Ahsoka, full of guts and bravado, montrals half-developed and patterns not yet properly formed.

"So basically," Jyn says into a yawn, "what you're telling me is you had four dads and all of them were mother hens."

Ahsoka does not bother to waste time explaining to Jyn, again, that Jedi don't really have families, but Jyn can see her thinking it in the roll of those bright blue eyes, the shrug of those expressive shoulders. "Get some sleep before you pass out on top of my head," she says.

Jyn goes to bed.

The journey to Naboo passes quietly, despite the amount of fancy footwork involved in getting there without either looking suspicious or risking too much exposure to the better-travelled hyperlanes. Jyn and Ahsoka have been careful - more careful than Jyn would have been alone - and there are no warrants out for them, despite the sheer weight of ryll and bacta they've moved, but Ahsoka is still a Jedi. Jyn still has whatever mysterious use to the Empire that led Orson Krennic to scream they had a daughter - find her while Jyn herself scuttled through the mossy undergrowth on Lah'mu. And of course, the last identities they used in this quadrant are supposed to be dead. It doesn't pay to be incautious.

Ahsoka pulls out every trick she's got to keep them flying below the radar, and Jyn fronts as the human captain whenever they have to speak - a trick they learned from Chewbacca: human-led crews, or crews that look like they're led by humans, garner less official attention. In their long off hours Ahsoka goes over the ship, and Jyn builds up a store of forged documents and credit chips, just in case. As a back-up, or a gesture to Ahsoka's loyalty, or something, she puts some of them in the names given on Fulcrum's wretched documents.

They also meditate a lot. Or at least Ahsoka does, and Jyn… sort of starts joining in. It's obvious to her Ahsoka isn't completely happy. Something has her off-balance, whether it's Naboo or Kamino - which gave even Jyn the creeps, and she doesn't remember it full of life and people - or just leaving Rex behind. Jyn can understand that, sort of, if she squints and tries hard. She has complicated feelings about Saw, and towards the end she didn't really have any comrades in the Partisans; certainly, no-one bothered to come back for her on Tamsye Prime, or, from what she could tell, tried to search for her. There are no bittersweet edges to Ahsoka's love for Rex. He saved her life several times over, and the only reason they went their separate ways was to protect each other: it's a choice Jyn hopes she will never be forced to make. Clearly Ahsoka cares about him, and she misses him now he's gone wherever he's going. She's pretending to be calm and focused, but calm and focused isn't compatible with the sheer amount of lightsaber practice she's putting in, or meditation twice daily. Probably more often than that, if she meditates while Jyn gets eight hours' sleep every night cycle and itches because Ahsoka's unhappy and she herself is coasting. 

Jyn finds small, practical tasks she can do quietly while Ahsoka meditates, and sticks with her, and it seems to help. It seems to. Maybe those powerful shoulders relax a millimetre or two.

"You know," Ahsoka says, eyes still firmly closed, the fourth time Jyn does this, "I could just teach you how to do this. Call it team bonding."

Jyn snorts. "I'm not that great at sitting still."

"It's more than sitting still. And you don't have to start by doing it for hours at a time." Ahsoka cracks one orange eyelid. "You might hear that crystal of yours a bit better." 

"I still don't think it sings," Jyn says, contrary. She listens out for the crystal, occasionally, remembering Ahsoka mentioning its song, wondering if this is something her mother heard. The crystal does behave strangely sometimes, if a lump of rock can ever be said to behave in any way at all: unexpectedly hot or cold when it should be a consistent blood-warm, living next to Jyn's heart. Every now and then she thinks she picks up, on the very edge of her hearing, some hint of a clear bright note. 

But a faint sound like that could be anything. They live on a ship in space: something's always making a noise.

"It sounds like skates ringing on river ice, if I listen for it," Ahsoka says poetically. "It's pretty."

"I've never seen river ice and I don't skate," Jyn says, and nudges Ahsoka with one toe. "Go back to your mystical Jedi woo."

Ahsoka laughs, and settles once more into stillness.

But it's not… the worst idea, is it.

It's not the worst idea she's ever had.

Jyn reads about meditation while Ahsoka sleeps on the ready room bench seat, because sometimes she feels like napping and she just curls up places - much more than Jyn remembers her doing before they got the Lady Luck , and only when it's just Jyn around, or maybe at a pinch Chewbacca. It turns out meditation is supposed to have a shit-ton of benefits. Jyn doesn't know how any of this crap relates to the kind of meditation Ahsoka does, because the holonet has been pretty much scrubbed of any kind of reliable information about Jedi and Jyn doesn't feel like doing the kind of carefully masked deep dive into the holonet that's necessary to find the combination of rumours, stories and actual historical fact that's still preserved. Not for something that's supposed to be just a casual query. But it can't that be far off, surely.

It would be nice, to hear her mother's crystal singing. Her mother's lightsaber crystal. Jyn is no Jedi, can't do whatever Lyra Erso may or may not have been able to do.

But -

But Jyn remembers the sweet clear voice of the holocron singing on Glarean. Jyn's crystal is like skates on river ice, Ahsoka said. Jyn would like to hear what that sounds like. She wonders if her mother could hear it too. If her mother ever wondered if she was listening.

"If I wanted to figure out how to meditate," Jyn says, when Ahsoka wakes up, tears through an entire packet of jerky, and then wanders through to the cockpit still crumpling the wrapping. Jyn makes a note to buy more. Maybe Ahsoka likes fish jerky, if you can get that on Naboo. The Gungans are more likely to have it than meat.

Ahsoka leans against the side of her chair, heavy warm weight against the edge of Jyn's upper arm where it lies against the arm rests. "I could teach you."

Jyn nods. 

"How long have we got in hyperspace?" Ahsoka asks. 

Jyn glances at N-8, who helpfully flashes a timer. "Three hours before our next drop."

Ahsoka chucks the packet of jerky into a bin and stretches. She's so tall her montrals almost brush the ceiling when she does. "I feel like sparring," she says, "if you want a go."

Jyn considers herself, the stagnant feel of muscles that need movement, the wasted energy cooling around her spine and turning into boredom. She's never really liked spending extended periods onboard ship.

"Sure," she says, and then the same thing she always says: "Don't go easy on me."

Ahsoka grins with all her sharp teeth bared, like she could eat Jyn all the way up.

By the time they get to Naboo Jyn can meditate for five minutes at a time without getting a cramp in her thigh or losing patience. According to Ahsoka, this is pretty good going. But Ahsoka can float off the ground for hours at a time, so frankly, that's banthashit.

Ahsoka merely smiles. "I've had thirty years of practice," she says. "It's a way of life."

"How the hell did you do this when you were going through a war?" Jyn demands. Ahsoka looks serenely amused. It's kind of annoying, but also kind of comforting. She looks much more at ease than she did before Jyn busted in on her mindfulness practice, or whatever. 

"It was hard." Ahsoka shrugs. "But there are always moments. And there's battle meditation."

Jyn circles her ankle, wrings a cramp out of her foot. "What?"

"It's not like this." Ahsoka waves a hand. "It's where you're so good at meditating you can sink into the Force and let it guide you in battle. It's a last-resort kind of thing."

"It sounds like a terrible idea."

Ahsoka grins. "Rex would agree with you. Obi-Wan tried it once and followed the Force instead of the tactical plan and got separated from Ghost Company, who were trying to watch his back. Cody gave him hell for it." She stretches out her legs and back and flips to her feet. "It's also very costly, energetically speaking."

"Sure," says Jyn, as if she knows what any of this means. "Have you done it?"

Ahsoka's jaw tightens with pain, and regret punches hard through Jyn's ribcage. She looks away.

"Once or twice," Ahsoka says, very softly. "When I had no other choice."

The island they land on is a deserted atoll in the absolute middle of nowhere. This will have to be a quick visit: even though the rock of the atoll itself baffles the Imperials' sensors, staying for more than a couple of hours would be far too dangerous. They're flying under the radar as it is, using a disguised transponder that doesn't transmit their real details to anyone looking for identification, since they've collected a lot of the kind of misdemeanours the Empire usually rewards with a firing squad. The vegetation is thick enough that they have to land in a clearing and then fight their way through to the great sunken depression in the centre of the atoll, where there's a brackish lake, and the Gungans have carved a network of tunnels that allow access to the sea and Boss Nass's secret roads. Jyn scrambles after Ahsoka, who is humming to map the integrity of the rock in the echoes and find a safe path. All Jyn can think is she's glad she's not doing this alone. Aftershe finds the path she can see subtle markers, but she's not familiar enough with Gungan wayfinding to pick them out otherwise, and they climb better than most humans. The cargo of opals is still up above; it's a thin cover story, of course, and largely useless now they're on the planet's surface somewhere opal traders shouldn't be, but they'll carry out the trade nonetheless. Still, Jyn took one look at the route and said they would be getting the locals to help. It looks like a straight fall into the lake below, and Jyn wouldn't have tried it alone.

Ahsoka leads her unerringly down the cliff face and along the lakeshore to where a great cavern opens up before them, invisible from above. Within the cavern is an elegant submarine ship, surfaced in the turquoise water with its iridescent viewport open at the top, several Gungans, and a single human woman. Jyn immediately writes off three of the Gungans as bodyguards, and a fourth, still visible in the cradling pilot's bubble at the raised stern of the ship, as the pilot. The fifth is taller and broader; he might be elderly by Gungan standards, if the prominent jowls are anything to go by, but Jyn wouldn't care to pick a fight. Though plainly dressed by Naboo standards, he carries an ornate plasma staff, and bears himself with authority and the air of someone who knows how to make the fullest use of both staff and authority. The human woman, who seems probably twenty or thirty years younger, has her own air of authority and a certain cool reserve, but she defers to him: Jyn can see it in the way they stand as Jyn and Ahsoka approach.

She can also see that something about the sight of the human woman is painful to Ahsoka, but she can't figure out what. Jyn scrutinises her as they walk - early forties, pale skin, brown eyes, brown hair, classily dyed and made up in one of these elaborate Naboo styles with a silver headpiece, but not one of the ones that looks like you need a brace just to keep it on your head. She wears fawn and purple, and a pair of blasters holstered at her hips. Naboo make. Elegant, they don't pack much of a punch for their size, but they have a great range on them. She's also watching Jyn back. Jyn breaks her gaze, and stays half a pace behind Ahsoka.

The woman - Dormé, Jyn assumes, the head of the Painted Ladies cell; Jyn isn't supposed to know that, but Ahsoka let it slip with her usual deliberate casualness - smiles at the sight of Ahsoka. Her solemn, well-carved face and shuttered eyes make it look like she hardly ever smiles, but Ahsoka smiles back.

"Ahsoka," she says, inclining her head. Ahsoka actually bows; Jyn tries to remember how Saw used to have her handle this, but Saw wasn't as courtly as Ahsoka, or as prone to twistiness. Not that Ahsoka's deceitful - she just always has several motives, and she tends to talk in layers it takes Jyn a while to unpick.

In the end, Jyn stands off to the side like the bodyguards, and makes a shallower bow. A courtesy detail.

"Jedi Tano," says the lead Gungan, who must be Boss Nass. Unusually, Ahsoka doesn't disclaim her Jedi status; she'll usually brush it off, but here it seems she prefers the title. "Well met. I trust you and your friend had a safe journey."

"Liana and I had no trouble," Ahsoka says, glancing back at Jyn, who nods at her. "A safe journey."

"And a fruitful one, I hope," Dormé says. She may be a spy but she sounds like a politician. Which makes sense, since Jyn troubled to do her research in advance and knows that Dormé officially holds a low-status position in the Naboo government which effectively means she's the liaison to the entire Gungan population. Not an enviable post by Imperial standards, but a very valuable one to someone who needs to move things and people quietly, without being seen. Jyn saw it on their last visit to Naboo: most humans don't take Gungans seriously.

Ahsoka smiles diplomatically. "In some ways," she says, lilting gossamer-light over the words, and there's the tiniest flash of recognition and wistfulness running across Dormé's face before the split second before Jyn blinks and it's gone. "I hope you all enjoy good health and safety."

"Acceptably so," Boss Nass says. "Former Senator Binks sends his regards."

Ahsoka's smile dips and slides. "How is he?"

"Little change," Boss Nass says, his voice heavy. He doesn't sound altogether sympathetic, though it's clear that this former senator, whoever he is, is someone he takes responsibility for. Whether he likes the guy or not. Jyn makes a note to look up former Senator Binks, in case he turns out to be relevant.

"He shouldn't blame himself," Ahsoka says, sounding old and tired. Jyn considers moving towards her, but holds herself in check. "Everyone was completely fooled, including the Order's most experienced political operatives. We were all manipulated into a death-trap. Even if Jar-Jar had acted otherwise, the Emperor would have found some way to turn his actions to evil purposes."

"A generous view," Boss Nass replies, neutrally. "Not all Jedi would be so forgiving."

"I'm afraid I have no recent news of our particular friends," Ahsoka says, without picking up this obvious conversational gambit. "Riyo remains safe in hiding. Liana and I saw her briefly. But since that was nearly a year ago you will have heard from her since, I expect."

Jyn did not like Pantora, and something about the lilac-haired exiled politician and her easy rapport with Ahsoka - and her tendency to break off mid-reminiscence at any hint of Jyn's presence, laugh, and touch Ahsoka familiarly and say "but I'll finish that story later," - irritated the living shit out of Jyn. She was glad when Chuchi's escort arrived and took her off their hands to an unknown destination. Now, Jyn keeps an impassive face.

Dormé nods. "Motée has been released to house arrest." Her jaw tightens. "She does not look well. We've had no recent losses. Sabé remains… out of contact. We're watching her. The Displaced Peoples' Bureau isn't one of Palpatine's favourite tools… However." She shakes her head. 

"I would not advise attempting to make contact," Boss Nass says. His voice is low, and rumbles like underwater volcanoes. "My informants in Gungan territorial waters around Xarxas say she's completely devoted to her son; the two are seldom seen apart unless Lady Sabé is off-planet, if then. Between her position and her dependant she could easily be compromised by Imperial security services, and since she was particularly close to Amidala, she is an obvious target for them."

Ahsoka bows her head. 

"We have much to discuss," Boss Nass says. "I am pleased to see you no longer work alone," and adds a proverb in the Gungan tongue that Jyn frankly has no idea how to translate. 

Dormé smiles. "Walk alone and make good speed," she translates, "walk together and make good time - is that right?"

"Close," Boss Nass says, with something that's almost a smile.

Ahsoka does smile, and looks back at Liana, who takes a few paces forward until she's standing at Ahsoka's shoulder. "Liana has my absolute trust."

"Flatterer," Jyn says automatically, and Ahsoka laughs like she means it. Jyn catches Dormé's amused eye, and clears her throat. Saw taught her better than this: she used to stand in the back of his meetings, favoured warrior, trusted companion, all the time, one hand on a knife, perfect composure. "It's mutual."

"But can the Alliance trust you?" Boss Nass says. 

"Yes," Jyn says, meeting his eyes. She thought Dormé was the dispassionate one, but she can see decades of hard choices and harder blows in his stern face. 

"I see you don't bother to justify yourself," Dormé observes. 

Jyn thinks of Saw again and raises her chin. She saw people question him like this, too. "Ahsoka knows my reasons, and she trusts me. If you don't trust her judgement, there's no point in me saying anything. If you don't trust her, I don't trust you. And if I can't trust you, we're leaving."

"Bold words," Boss Nass says dryly. 

"Liana isn't a woman for grand speeches," Ahsoka says, even drier. "What you see is what you get." 

"Clearly," Dormé says. She smiles like she's entertained, which is - irritating, but fine. "I respect loyalty. We trust Ahsoka, and if we didn't trust you on her word, you wouldn't be here."

"Thanks," Jyn says. "You have things to discuss. I suggest a couple of your men come and help swap round the cargoes while you do that."

Boss Nass raises both heavy eyebrows. "I would have thought you would want to be present."

"I would have thought you'd want this handover to be efficient, sir," Jyn says, careful to keep her tone respectful. Ahsoka will tell her what she needs to know, and let her figure out what she wants to know.

That earns a faint twitch of his lips which could (almost, perhaps) be a smile. Fine. Jyn will take it.

She also takes two of the Gungans up the cliff path to unload opals. They don't speak to her much for the trip up, talking to each other in their own language. Which is fine; she gets no sense of threat off them, and she's pretty sure she's faster than they are. What's more, she's not leading the way. Turning her back on them really would make her itch.

At the top of the cliff she lets them into the Lady Luck and they unload the cargo: three small cases of top-quality Ryloth opals. They're not valuable on Ryloth - the Rylothi Twi'lek word for them is best translated as 'pebble' - but here on Naboo, they're worth their weight in coaxium. The socialites like to set iridescent chips of opal into their dresses and robes. The current queen apparently wore a gown, headdress and full cloak made of many layers of gauze and fine slices of opal at the Festival of Lights. Jyn's interest in fashion ends with the quality of her boots, but it was in the briefing.

"So," says one of the Gungans. "What's it like, working with a Jedi?" 

Jyn stares at him.

The other Gungan is looking around, like there's going to be some kind of mystical shrine in a loading bay.

"Like working with anyone," she says, strapping a case to her back. 

"Jedi are supposed to have magical powers," says the other Gungan, taking a couple of curious steps further into the ship.

"I have the magical power of shooting you if you go trespassing," Jyn says. "Just pointing that out."

"Hey, it's only a question," the first Gungan says peaceably, as the curious one exits the ship at speed. 

"Yeah, well. It's just life. Jedi are just like anyone else." Jyn hands the third case to the last remaining interloper on her ship and chases him out. "So maybe she has a few special abilities. She still burns dinner and forgets to restock the medkit."

"She could just heal you," suggests Mister Curious. "Or sustain herself with the Force."

"The Force burns energy," Jyn says, irritably. "You can't use it instead of food. And I've never seen her heal anything bigger than a bruise. Look, if you're done with your questions, I want to get on."

Ahsoka looks round in a leisurely sort of way when Jyn picks her way down the cliff, dumps her cargo with the Gungan pilot, and starts packing up the watersilk they are theoretically trading for on a Gungan hoversled.

This is ridiculous , Jyn thinks, as loudly and clearly as she can. They think you spend all your time levitating and preaching wisdom. 

Ahsoka grins.

Jyn rolls her eyes. I hope you're having fun. 

When she gets back, the main business has obviously been concluded. Boss Nass, Ahsoka, and Dormé are sitting down drinking tea. The third bodyguard, the one who remained behind, is standing by the wall; his comrades, who have had enough of Jyn's surly answers, go to join him. Jyn aims for a spot along the same wall, neither quite with them nor apart from them, and prepares to stand still and look professional until Ahsoka decides it's time to leave.

"Liana," calls Dormé. "Please. Join us."

Jyn sets her foot down more heavily than she intended to, and (instead of freezing, like she wants to) turns around and treads cautiously back to the small group. Chairs have appeared from nowhere. As have a table and a teapot and small cakes, plus a plate of something that looks like - no, that is raw fish. Or shark. Jyn eyeballs the tea service, but keeps her tongue between her teeth. Ahsoka said the Naboo like things elaborate.

Personally, Jyn likes things fast, effective, and with a risk that's proportionate to reward. But maybe when you've been fighting for as long as Ahsoka, any carefree moment spent with friends is worth any kind of risk. She likes to share meals with people she chooses to call friends; Jyn remembers the first thing they did after leaving the Zabirliss was go and get something to eat.

Jyn sits down on the fourth chair.

"Ahsoka was telling us you're an excellent forger," Dormé says. "We may have work for you in the future, if you're interested."

"I'm always interested in paying work," Jyn says, and pushes back a flicker of hesitation before adding: "And Naboo has the best tools and materials for forgery I've seen."

Dormé's smile flashes. "It comes with an appreciation for art and beauty. Imitation is, after all, the sincerest form of flattery."

Or something , Jyn thinks. There are ironic layers in those sentences that Jyn recognises from some of Ahsoka's more cryptic and technically accurate pronunciations; it reminds her a little of realising that she and Ahsoka had similar tactical approaches, and finding out much later that the Republic had (one way or another, at a considerable remove) trained both of them. 

"I'm curious," Boss Nass says. His gaze is heavy; it's not that he isn't willing to extend trust to Jyn, she thinks, on Ahsoka's word, but he is still watching her. Jyn can respect that: he reminds her of Saw. "What led you to go into partnership with an Alliance operative if you are not yourself Alliance?"

And that - that Jyn doesn't know the answer to. She never has done. She looks at Ahsoka, as if she can read the answer from the patterns on Ahsoka's face.

Ahsoka smiles at her, which is not helpful, but is reassuring.

"I was a lone agent for a long time," Jyn says finally. "Ahsoka was… trustworthy. That's rare. I value it." She takes a defiant sip from the cup of tea Dormé has just poured her, which tastes - okay, it tastes like fish piss, if Jyn knew what fish piss tastes like, which she does not, but she can imagine. "I hate the Empire as much as the next person. I don't mind taking lumps out of them."

"Then why not make it official?" Boss Nass suggests, almost cordially. "The Alliance could use your talents - forger or otherwise."

There are so many things Jyn could say to that. A couple of years ago she would have said all of them and would probably have ended up smashing her way out of here with both fists and a black eye. She has a lot of reasons, and they are hers. No-one else's. Even Ahsoka doesn't know the full truth, though she can probably piece together most of it, and if Jyn hasn't trusted Ahsoka with it, no-one else is getting a look-in.

"I'm satisfied with my status," she says at last, voice tight. "If that changes, you'll be the second to know."

"I'm flattered," Boss Nass says.

"Ahsoka lives with me," Jyn explains, like it's just common sense. "It would be hard for her not to know."

"I have faith that you could hide it from me," Ahsoka says, placid with an undercurrent of amusement. She's enjoying the fish. And the tea. If it's tea. 

Jyn shrugs. "What for?"

"Surprise value," Ahsoka suggests.

Jyn rolls her eyes. "Sure. I'll save it for your next birthday."

"I'm honoured." Ahsoka's teacup clinks delicately on the table, which is a semiprecious mosaic under lacquer. Jyn can't quite catch the pattern, but it looks like some kind of friendship between humans and Gungans type thing, featuring a queen in a red dress.

Dormé's smiling. Jyn can't see a reason why. "I'd be interested to know your impression of your recent mission."

Jyn wonders how much the bodyguards are allowed to know. Presumably not much, given the distance they've now retreated to.

"It was important," she says finally. "Needed to be done, hope some good comes of it. But I think the rumours were just rumours. If there was any backing to them, the Imps would have cleared the place out a decade ago." She shook her head. "If they are planning something big, it's something else."

Dormé nods. "There are several possibilities. I think a conscription drive more likely than a new clone army. Palpatine prefers to work through manipulation rather than blunt force - as a rule."

"Is he active on Naboo?"

Boss Nass shakes his head. "Rarely, since he became Chancellor. He seldom visits, doesn't favour Naboo trade or Nubians much, and fortunately, he leaves his favourite bodyguard at home."

Jyn glances at Ahsoka.

"Darth Vader," Ahsoka says grimly. "Sith. Not to be underestimated."

Jyn was under the strong impression that Sith were fairytales, but hell, she eats breakfast with a Jedi every morning. And anything that makes Ahsoka look that haunted is not okay with her.

"Luckily for us," Dormé says dryly, her jaw tight, "he won't set foot on Naboo - which is one problem less."

Jyn thinks it's weird for a literal nightmare to take against an entire planet which he could probably crush if he put his mind to it, but there's no accounting for taste or phobias. And if Darth Vader isn't going to show up here, then there's one less thing to worry about protecting Ahsoka from.

"Sith or no Sith, we do occasionally receive visits from the Imperial presence - though that's principally a problem for my human colleagues. However uninterested Palpatine is these days, there are still people alive who remember his ways from before." A sour look passes across Boss Nass's face. "Including myself."

"Condolences," Jyn says, meaning I bet you wish you'd just drowned him a few decades ago .

Her meaning gets across. She can tell in the way Boss Nass snorts and shakes himself. 

She glances at Ahsoka. "I don't know how much more time we have on-planet."

"Enough for you to eat cake," Ahsoka says, like she's granting her an enormous treat. Jyn boggles at Ahsoka sometimes. This is a serious parlay that she should not be seated at, not a tea-party, and if they're done with the important stuff - Jyn saw a thumb-drive of data disappear into Ahsoka's belt ages ago - then they should leave . This is still the Emperor's home planet.

Ahsoka smiles like she knows what she's thinking. Jyn gives in.

"It's excellent cake," she says.

"Thank you," Dormé says serenely. "A regional delicacy, like the tea."

 Jyn says absolutely nothing about the tea.

They lift off maybe forty-five minutes later. Ahsoka lingered, to talk to Dormé; Dormé touched her cheek and shoulder lightly, like some kind of a benediction, though Ahsoka is possibly a metre taller than her and had to bend her head to the blessing. The Gungans all walked away to give them their privacy, including Boss Nass, and Jyn is sitting here in the co-pilot's chair wondering why that was. She's strapped in, in case they have to do some fancy flying to get out of range of the Naboo Security Forces, but Ahsoka's smooth flying and whatever tricks Dormé's friends in the Painted Ladies have played mean that they slide below the radar.

It's still nervewracking. It was bad enough coming here when the Lady Luck was still the Liseeth , but there have been crackdowns recently, unease. Jyn picks up a lot on the grapevine, mostly from Amira and Matariki but also from the quiet moments in cantinas or the bits of independent news that make it onto the holonet before being snuffed out, and she knows enough about how the Empire works to do the maths on the fear and resentment. The Imperial grip is still tight, but little rebellions flare here and there, and as the Empire lashes out with capricious brutality - Palpatine needs to leash Tarkin - pampered Mid-Rim and Core planets that have never felt the Imperial whip before wince and bridle under the sting. Something is coming. If Jyn has to place a bet, she'd take what Dormé said about a conscription drive and manipulation and guess that the Emperor plans to engineer some grand provocation that he can blame on the Rebels. An excuse to harden Imperial support, get the waverers in line, and double the size of the Imperial fleet, feeding the economies of chosen worlds and rendering them dependent on him.

Jyn does not like politics. She lets out a breath when they idle halfway out of the system and hit hyperspace, and wonders how long she's been holding it. They've been in flight, in silence, for hours - jumping to hyperspace is not stealthy - and she can't have failed to fill her lungs for that long. But the silence doesn't feel uncomfortable or tense. She just doesn't like the faraway look on Ahsoka's face as she watches the stars streak to blue, and then sets the autopilot and unstraps herself from the pilot's seat.

"Where next?" Jyn says, surprising herself with how loud her voice is.

Ahsoka halts, surprised. "We've got a handover for the information but I thought we'd do a couple of supply hops and then stop and offload the watersilk with Amira and Matariki first. I plotted out a route."

"One of your midnight specials?" Jyn asks. Jyn sleeps shallowly, but given Ahsoka's Togruta sleeping and activity patterns she's got used to waking to the sound of Ahsoka's featherlight footsteps and falling straight back to sleep. She knows Ahsoka isn't just watching holomovies turned down so low Jyn can't hear them.

"One of my midnight specials," Ahsoka agrees. "It's logged in the navicomputer if you want a look."

Jyn pulls up the route and goes through it. She can do short hops, but mapping their longer routes remains the preserve of N-8 and Ahsoka; cartography is a discipline all of its own. The planets Ahsoka's chosen for stops are nothing special, out of the way with little or no functional Imperial presence; she recognises none of them by name, and when she looks them up none are heavily developed, but they do all have minor trade hubs. Reasonably plausible stops for a small freighter like any other small freighter in the galaxy. 

"Anything important about these?" she asks.

"Nothing mission-critical," Ahsoka says. "There is a possibility that some Jedi artifacts may be hidden on those planets - historical rumours more than anything else, and a couple of tidbits I picked up from a few people like me - so I might do a couple of little day trips to see if there's any truth to them." 

"We might do a couple of little day trips," Jyn corrects. 

Ahsoka looks at her with obvious surprise. 

"I'm not hanging around waiting for a distress signal this time, like in the Bardottan system." The moon had been mostly abandoned and Ahsoka's exploration of a crashed Jedi long-haul one-man yacht had ended with one broken ankle for Ahsoka, one lightsaber and some mundane files and objects rendered precious by scarcity for Ahsoka's collection, and a headache for Jyn, who had had to drag Ahsoka back to the ship over her shoulder, Ahsoka hopping on her one good foot. Ahsoka is a lot taller than Jyn, and she's filled out and toned over the years they have worked together, eating regular meals and exercising hard. She is no longer the collection of bones and sinews Jyn met in Maz's cantina. Jyn is strong for her size, but she just about wrenched her back getting Ahsoka back to the Lady Luck .

Ahsoka smiles. "Well, that's fair." She looks down at her hands and then away. "We probably won't find anything and it will be very boring."

"Sure, whatever, just don't get me eaten by a - Sith serpent, or something."

That startles a laugh from Ahsoka, and Jyn smiles in response. Emboldened, she waits until the laughter dies, and then, before Ahsoka can leave the cockpit says: "Ahsoka."

"Hmm?" 

"There was something that bothered you about Dormé."

Ahsoka goes quite still. 

Jyn licks her lips. "Are you all right?"

"Yes," Ahsoka says, a little distantly, and then repeats herself more clearly. "Yes, I - it's not that she bothers me. She reminds me."

Jyn lets that hang in the air. 

Ahsoka sighs. "My master knew several senators. He was close to Padmé Amidala, who used to be the Senator for Naboo. One of Palpatine's best-known opponents, before the fall of the Republic."

All Jyn remembers in connection with that name is Saw growling about people making martyrs out of unlucky dead women, but she holds her peace.

"You could fit everything Anakin understood about politics on a thumbnail and still have room left over," Ahsoka says. "He asked Padmé to mentor me, as a favour. A lot of Jedi had diplomatic duties, and he didn't want me to limit myself. He didn't really care about schoolwork, but learning was different. And I acted as her bodyguard a couple of times, so - I knew her well."

"Dormé acts like her?"

"Not really," Ahsoka says. "But Padmé served two terms as Queen of Naboo. She had handmaidens chosen for their intelligence, bravery, physical strength, and their ability to substitute for the queen. Dormé was one of them. In the royal costumes they could disappear into Amidala, and Padmé could move freely, pretending to be just a handmaiden." She sighs and rubs her forehead. "Seeing Dormé - it makes me think what Padmé would have looked like now, and how much more she might have done if she'd lived."

Jyn winces, and gets to her feet. "Ahsoka…"

"Yes?" says Ahsoka, quietly.

Jyn turns her hands palms outward and lifts her arms slightly. It seems too hard to ask any other way. But the way Ahsoka steps willingly into her arms and curls into the hug Jyn offered her is worth it.

Ahsoka's breath comes harsh for a second in Jyn's ear, and then evens out. Jyn holds her tight; sometimes comfort is not about softness.

"Now I'm okay," Ahsoka breathes, and Jyn smiles.

Chapter 13: Ahsoka iNotes:The next few chapters are all going to be from Ahsoka's POV because, uh, I counted the words and... no, 16k is too long for a chapter. Sorry!

Chapter TextEven from the cockpit Ahsoka can hear Jyn moving around in the cargo bay. She must have left the hatch in the ready room cabin open again, on the basis that it's more convenient and the Force will prevent Ahsoka from falling into it. Ahsoka has pointed out that the Force won't stop Jyn from falling into it, but Jyn just says that she looks where she's going.

Setting course for Alderaan, the memory makes Ahsoka smile.

Booted feet clatter on the rungs of the ladder, and the hatch slams down. "I'm in here," Ahsoka calls, and is rewarded with Jyn's quick footsteps into the cockpit. She almost collides with N-8, and pats the little astromech by way of silent apology, and that makes Ahsoka smile too, turning her head to look at Jyn.

"All right?" she asks.

"Yeah, it's running fine," Jyn says. They have six tubs of bacta bubbling gently in the cargo bay; quality stuff, loaded with anaesthetic. Alderaan buys only legitimate Imperial bacta with the Emperor's seal of quality, of course, but Bail Organa is a bolder man than Ahsoka ever gave him credit for in the Clone Wars, and he certainly has a use for two of those vats. The other four are destined for Mon Cala, their next stop after this visit.

Well, this visit and the twistiest, trickiest route Ahsoka can contrive, in case of pursuit or surveillance. She has several options plotted out, just in case.

"Are we getting paid for this run?" Jyn demands, leaning against the back of Ahsoka's chair. "We need to resupply again."

"Handsomely," Ahsoka assures her, leaning back to look up at her. "Bail pays over the odds for bacta. Our commission will be significant."

Largely, she thinks but does not say, because it will be so much easier to explain that someone Alderaanian bought black-market bacta than that Bail Organa traded information with a Jedi and Rebel spy. The former doesn't even count as a scandal. Bail knows the risks Ahsoka runs and he compensates her for them appropriately. 

"Good," Jyn says, staring down at the control panel. When she feels Ahsoka's eyes on her she glances into Ahsoka's face and her lips twitch into a recognising smile. "You know this guy well?"

"Another of Anakin's friends," Ahsoka says. "Well, Padmé's, rather." She stretches, careful not to hit Jyn. "A founding member of the Delegation of Two Thousand."

"And what's that when it's at home? Sounds like a complaint society."

"The first interplanetary political resistance to Palpatine," Ahsoka corrects, trying to be stern.

"Complaint society," Jyn repeats. "I was right the first time."

Ahsoka taps her wrist, too light to be a smack, and Jyn smirks. She bumps her thigh against Ahsoka's shoulder.

"We've been doing a lot of Alliance runs," Ahsoka says. "Do you mind?"

Jyn shakes her head absently, and her fingers go up to touch her crystal. "Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to be signing on the line. But I don't mind."

"I've never expected you to sign up." Ahsoka flips through her cartography files and then minimises them on the screen with a flick of her fingers. "I'll never ask you to."

"Not even if a mission asks for it?"

No , Ahsoka thinks. I know what your dealbreakers are, and I know when I'm onto a good thing . "No," she says aloud. "I'd find another way."

"They can't like that."

"They don't, which is their problem, not mine." Ahsoka grins at the memory of their last encounter with Cassian Andor, which had been a surprise exfiltration. They'd pulled him out and he and Jyn had hissed around the ship like angry tookas for four days until they could drop him off. Ahsoka hadn't previously been aware you could squash that much disdain into the word 'Fulcrum'.

Jyn lets out a short, scoffing laugh. "There's a reason why I stick with you, Ahsoka."

"And I appreciate you for it," Ahsoka says. Jyn clasps her shoulder briefly, and when Ahsoka reaches up without looking back, Jyn takes her hand.

Alderaan always seems to Ahsoka like the furthest thing from war in the galaxy. She knows that is an impression Bail and Breha cultivate.

Both the social and the legislatory season on Alderaan are complete for the year, so Queen Breha has called a recess and taken her family into the mountains, away from the stifling summer heat of Ciudad Alderá. Ahsoka can see late moonlight glinting on its spires far in the distance as she spirals in to land on a clandestine landing pad, their arrival concealed both by the radio chatter of heavy traffic over Ciudad Alderá's main spaceport and by the steep, knife-edge mountains themselves, which bounce signals around until they hardly exist any more.

"Not much of a welcoming committee," Jyn says, tapping her fingers idly on her knee. 

"I didn't expect one." Ahsoka leans back in her chair. "Did you pack a bag for tomorrow?"

Jyn nods - shortly, a little uncomfortably. This will be the first time either of them has slept off the Lady Luck since - well, Ahsoka's visits to Jabba's palace on Tatooine have necessarily included some sleep, but she couldn't call it rest. Bail has kindly offered the use of rooms in this summer mountain lodge (a palace, but a small one) to Ahsoka and Jyn: more spacious and luxurious surroundings than either of them have experienced for decades, if ever. Ahsoka still doesn't know Jyn's true background, but there's a world of difference between the misty backwater planet Jyn claims as home and the crisp Coruscant accent that rolls out of her mouth.

Anyway, it's safe to say that Ahsoka at least has not been somewhere as comfortable, comforting and safe since her childhood in the Jedi Temple, although she remembers the creche more as a place of crayon drawings on walls and soft blankets than of luxe, and though her rooms as a teenager were mostly assorted cramped cabins on star destroyers. 

"We won't disembark until tomorrow," Ahsoka points out. "You have time to change your mind."

"It's almost tomorrow," Jyn says, with a glance at the ship's clock. Neither of them is attuned to a planetary day/night rhythm now, accustomed rather to the shipboard sleep/wake lighting.

"Bail kept me safe for almost a year," Ahsoka points out. "A long time ago now, I grant you."

Jyn shoots her a curious glance, but doesn't ask what Ahsoka was doing on Alderaan for a year. "I know," she says instead, and huffs a sigh.

"Sleep," Ahsoka suggests. "Think about it when your head's clearer."

"Oh, I've decided," Jyn says. "I'm going with you. I just don't like it."

"You'll like it better when you get a hot bath," Ahsoka says, unmoved.

Jyn rolls her eyes. "What? With water? I thought those were a myth," she snipes.

Ahsoka wiggles her fingers at Jyn's face, like Jedi villains do in today's holomovies when they're going to warp your mind. Ahsoka keeps a running list of all the ways those holomovies are wrong, and sometimes it makes her laugh. "Sleep."

"Serve you right if I passed out here and hit my head on the console," Jyn observes, and then goes back into the ship to the bunkroom. Ahsoka gets up but doesn't follow her for a moment, staring out into the velvet night beyond the plasteel, the pearly landing lights around their ship, the high grey blades of the mountains rising above them.

The Lady Luck has three bunkrooms, intended for a larger crew. One is turned over to droid maintenance, and one is for Jyn, a separate one for Ahsoka: but they are back to back, with thin walls, and Ahsoka can always sense Jyn in the night. It's comforting. She thinks that goes for Jyn too, since there are nights when Jyn will wake to nightmares, and roll over and tap old Republic code on the walls to get Ahsoka's confirmation that she's still alive, still there. Ahsoka knows that her nightmares have woken Jyn, occasionally. If Jyn remembers them she hasn't said anything about it.

For the sake of galactic peace Ahsoka turned over her bunk to Cassian when they had to exfiltrate him, and shared Jyn's bunkroom. There was no need for them to share a bunk, not like on Lah'mu, but Ahsoka lay in the bunk opposite Jyn's and watched her fumble her way through a sleep meditation Ahsoka had taught her. Jyn still prefers to sleep with a light - and Ahsoka has bought back-ups, because as uptight as Jyn is about food, she is visibly more afraid of being left in the dark, and she hates lights that don't hold up.

Maybe it's not so surprising Jyn doesn't want to be left to sleep on the ship.

When Ahsoka herself goes back to snatch a few hours of sleep before the morning, Jyn is already out cold. Ahsoka can hear the regular rhythm of her breathing, low and soft, almost undetectable to the average human's hearing. It used to change as Ahsoka passed by, Jyn's sleeping mind rousing her in the face of potential danger, but now she knows Ahsoka's footsteps and sleeps on. The light of the small safety lamp plugged into the corridor spills into both bunk rooms.

Ahsoka hardly bothers to unbuckle her boots. She curls up on top of her covers and lets the cool, refreshing ease of a planet at peace rock her to sleep.

Jyn is awake before Ahsoka. Ahsoka opens her eyes to the sound of Jyn moving as quietly as she can in the galley: she shuts her eyes and listens to the echoes until she detects the caf pot going off, at which point she gets up, pulls on a fresh shirt over her exercise top, and heads for the galley.

"One of these days I'll get past that Togruta hearing," Jyn says, without looking up from the toast she's buttering. 

"And I'll still be able to feel you in the Force," Ahsoka says agreeably, pulling a container of hard boiled noona eggs from the fridge. Jyn huffs. "You look nice."

Jyn typically dresses the way she always has done, since Ahsoka met her: nondescript, hard-edged spacer kit, battered clothes, torn and well-mended. The boots are better quality than they used to be, and sometimes Jyn wears muted colours rather than stained greys and browns now, but she prefers to spend her money on weapons rather than clothes, and she has one hairstyle which she likes and sticks to; a bun at the nape of her neck, loose strands escaping to frame her face. She sheds other styles as quickly and easily as she cycles through the many names and identities she's worn since she and Ahsoka met.

Today, though, she seems to have felt the need to dress up a bit. She's wearing clean, unstained clothing, and her hair has been braided off her face; her boots, too, are the cleaner, newer ones, and her weapons are better concealed than usual. Almost respectable, Ahsoka thinks, suppressing a twitch of her lips. 

"Alderaan's fancy," Jyn says, loading up her toast with kori nut butter. "It was your idea to show up at a queen's holiday house."

"I admit my errors." Ahsoka flicks little flakes of pale green eggshell off her fingertips. "We likely won't see either the Queen or the viceroy until this afternoon, though."

"I don't want to stick out like a stormtrooper in a desert." Jyn eyes Ahsoka pointedly; the shirt Ahsoka's wearing is very comfortable, but it's old and worn so thin it has holes in places. Her sports bra may or may not be showing through. The Lady Lucktends to run quite warm when they're not in the chill of deep space, and now that Ahsoka is fed more regularly and with more protein than she used to be able to get access to, her metabolism has the fuel to run as hot as she should for her species baseline. Jyn, by contrast, wears a lot of layers. Not quite as many as Anakin used to, but Jyn wasn't raised in a desert.

"I'll change," Ahsoka says dryly. The caf pot whistles, and Jyn reaches for it.

"You're listed as the captain for this run," Jyn says, pouring two cups of caf and sliding one over to Ahsoka. It might be a reminder. Quite often, in the grimmer places they go, Jyn takes the lead - because that is what people expect to see, a human in charge. But here on Alderaan, where the whole reason they've been allowed to see - never mind berth in - this tiny spaceport is Ahsoka's old friendship with Bail Organa, Ahsoka's taking charge.

Ahsoka rolls her eyes at Jyn. "Aye-aye, captain."

Jyn grins into her caf.

Ahsoka takes Jyn's point about clothes. She doesn't bother to swathe herself in one of her cloaks - everyone she meets will be a droid with clear instructions not to register her presence, or a committed Rebel under Bail's protection - but she does change into trousers and a split tunic, navy blue over a grey blouse with loose sleeves. The tunic conceals her lightsabers - not because she expects to use them, but because unless she has no choice she will not let them out of her sight. She has a long black spacer's leather duster that goes neatly over the top, and she settles a string of beads where her headdress would have gone normally. Most prosperous Togruta off-planet will wear some kind of a headdress, though on Shili it's considered embarrassing to wear anything other than akul teeth you hunted yourself: Ahsoka's silka beads are long gone, her akul teeth too immediately identifiable to wear, but she has cylindrical shell and Ryloth opal beads that do the job of making her look like a reasonably well-to-do ship's captain.

Jyn's startled look, when she reappears, is poorly concealed. Ahsoka raises an eyebrow marking.

"We match," Jyn blurts, and then says, as if covering for herself: "We look like a team."

Ahsoka blinks at Jyn, and then realises: Jyn has dressed herself in shades of blue and grey, and so has Ahsoka, whether she meant to do it or not. Ahsoka's favourite colour used to be red, but that's taken, these days.

"We are a team," Ahsoka says. 

"I wasn't complaining," Jyn says, and presses her hand across the place on her chest where her kyber crystal hangs loose over her heart. It looks as if she doesn't know she's doing it, so Ahsoka doesn't comment.

When Organa's employees show up, they turn out to be a single human loadmaster - a man Ahsoka recognises from previous service with the Rebellion but not from his GAR work, his hair grown out long, tattoos concealed, clone features subtly altered both by cosmetic surgery and age - and a trio of droids with a loading platform. He greets her as Captain, his face carefully neutral, and nods to Jyn, who nods back, hands braced on her belt within reach of her vibroblades. Ahsoka wants, for a second, to stop and talk, to ask after his life and tell him of the few clones she's seen lately, but he doesn't give his name and neither of them is here for small talk, however homesick she feels in this comparatively safe space. The closest she gets comes when she entrusts the vats of bacta to him while Jyn checks that the others will remain in stasis for their time away.

"Class work," he says, ticking something off on a datapad and waving the droids forward. 

"I learned from the best," Ahsoka says, and catches the quick acknowledging flicker of his eyes. I learned from the best on Kamino . "You been on Alderaan long?"

"A few years," he says. "Couldn't pass up the chance at a Core education for my kid."

That punches Ahsoka hard in the chest: firstly, for all the people who should have had a chance to settle down, and secondly because she knows that here education stands just as well for citizenship as it does for anything else. The clones were legal non-persons under the Republic, and under the Empire they are more than ever property. This little ad , however old they are, has Alderaanian citizenship. But none of the clones, or the vast majority of their children, have any citizenship rights at all. 

"Good for them," Ahsoka says. "Good for you."

"The viceroy's a good boss," the clone says.

"It's always good doing business with him," Ahsoka replies. "Excuse me. I need to close up the ship."

The loadmaster leaves them with another droid, a protocol droid far quieter and less fussy than Threepio used to be; the droid leads them down a corridor cut deep into the rock, and Jyn paces close enough to Ahsoka that their arms brush together. Ahsoka can feel her tension; she reaches out with her mind, and brushes calm over the surface of Jyn's roiling thoughts. Jyn knocks her knuckles lightly against Ahsoka's thigh.

A light monorail which winds through the mountains serves the Alderaanian royal family's summer lodge. It's entirely private, droid-operated; Ahsoka and Jyn are given keycards for its use with a map printed on them. The glass has the sheen that shows it's been treated to repel cameras, and as they whiz smoothly along the tracks Jyn gets out of her seat and leans against the window to see where they're going.

"Like it?" Ahsoka asks.

"Those mountains look like they would be hell to climb," is all Jyn says in response, but her voice is not as critical as her words, and her eyes are fixed on the greenery that clings to the knife-sharp peaks stretching high into the blue sky above them, and the pale green of the temperate forest in the valleys. It's a beautifully clear, crisp spring day.

They're closer to the royal residence than Jyn anticipated, from the way her eyebrows fly up as the monorail slides to a halt.

"You have reached your destination," the droid announces.

"Thank you," Ahsoka says automatically, and picks up their bags and disembarks.

The monorail leaves them in a courtyard open to the sky, a covered walkway surrounding a garden and a fountain playing softly in the centre. Jyn steps out into the courtyard and glances up and up again, into the sky hundreds of metres above. Balconies and windows are visible, and a hanging terraced garden. 

"This place is built into the rock," Jyn breathes. "It must have taken decades."

"Longer," Ahsoka says, stepping out into the sunlight to join her. "Senator Organa was an Antilles, before he married the Queen and she gave him her name. This is the original Antilles home. It's been here five hundred years. The family has more holdings on other parts of Alderaan, and interests elsewhere in the galaxy too, but this is where they were first." She trails her fingers in the fountain. "Queen Breha has pulmonode replacements for her heart and lungs. When she needs recovery time, she spends it here. It's the closest they get to a family home."

Jyn's eyebrows shoot up. "Assassination attempt?"

"Climbing accident, I think."

"How do you even know?"

Ahsoka mulls over exactly how much to tell Jyn. Here is probably the safest place to do it, and Jyn, who has kept Ahsoka's secret for years, won't betray the child Bail somehow retrieved from the wreck of the Jedi Temple and smuggled into the Alderaanian royal line. But Ahsoka has spent so many years keeping the secrets of the few children she has managed to save from the expanding blast radius of the Jedi Purge that she doesn't know how to phrase this now, or if Jyn would prefer to remain ignorant. "I knew Senator Organa during the war," she says at last. "And I tutored the princess for a while. Bright kid."

"Huh," Jyn says, and doesn't say anything more.

"Most of the royal rooms look over the plain to the city," Ahsoka says. "But there's also a beautiful hanging garden we might get to see."

"I look forward to it," Jyn says. 

Another droid leads them to their rooms, which are in a wing not too distant from the family's, turned away from the plain and facing out into the mountains. There's not much of a view - the garden balcony is under a rock overhang - but they are well-shielded from the outside world, and the balcony clearly gets afternoon and evening sunlight. The rooms themselves are generous and familiar, not because they are the same ones Ahsoka stayed in when she tutored Leia as a child - Breha wouldn't risk any possible association there - but because they have the same look. Understated opulence, space, soft, muted colours. There are parts of Alderaan that are more extravagant, but Breha and her court favour a kind of elegant simplicity that's often more expensive than heavy adornment. Rosewood designs are set into the rich blue walls, rippling cloud-like swirls; Ahsoka brushes them softly with her fingertips. 

The droid announces that lunch will be served to them in an hour if they care to make their choices on the data pad provided, and that Senator Organa has invited them to tea in the Great Garden at four in the afternoon. Ahsoka's lost in thought, so it's Jyn who accepts the invitation and ushers the droid firmly out. Ahsoka doesn't come back to herself until Jyn sits down with an emphatic thump on one of the soft armchairs before the expansive fireplace and pulls her boots off.

"I feel like I could get this place grubby just looking at it," Jyn says, and wiggles her toes in the pile of the carpet. "Fucking hell, Ahsoka, I could disappear in this up to the ankle. How rich are these people?"

"Welcome to the Core," Ahsoka says dryly. "Didn't you grow up on Coruscant?"

"Believe me, it wasn't like this."

Ahsoka remembers Trace and Rafa Martez, and the first time she lived in the undercity. "Fair point." She unlaces her own boots, and walks barefoot out onto the garden balcony. It's well cared for: soft grass, native plants, a climbing trellis. The first rays of sunlight are just starting to encroach upon it, and a few discreet solar lights show how it must be lit in the evenings. Leaning on the brass railing and looking out, Ahsoka can't see a soul, not another living thing, except for a raptor circling on the thermals far away. She takes a deep breath, and finds the air clean and cool. She wonders if Queen Breha finds it so much easier to breathe here purely because so many fewer people are willing to climb all the way up a vertiginously steep mountain in order to annoy her.

Jyn is exploring inside. Ahsoka turns and walks back in to join her. 

The central room decorated in blue is equipped with a dining table, a sunken seating area, and a work desk; there are two bedrooms, both plush and enormous, and a corridor that Jyn has already picked the lock to get into which contains further bedrooms and bathrooms, slightly smaller and less well-equipped. Both bedrooms come with full bathrooms, one of which has an immense tub made of pink crystal set into the floor, overlooking a window onto the ravine. Like the balcony, it's overhung; you wouldn't be able to see the stars. But nonetheless the view must be spectacular. 

One bedroom is a dusky purple: the other sage green. They both only have one bed in, but the beds are four times the size of Ahsoka and Jyn's usual bunks. They are separated from each other by considerable distance.

Ahsoka thinks about Jyn tapping Republic code on the paper-thin walls between their bunkrooms and bites her lip, but says nothing aloud. 

"If that's what passes for a fresher," Jyn says finally, "I want to see what they do by way of lunch around here."

"Welcome to the high life," says Ahsoka. 

"Was it like this when you were growing up?"

Ahsoka thinks of the walls of the crèche, scribbled on by generations of younglings, the padawan room in the Temple she hardly ever spent any time in, the clinical bunks in various cruisers that became her home. Jedi might be adjacent to this kind of luxury, sometimes, through the status an accident of birth and thousands of years of history had brought them, but they didn't own it - and more often than not the people who did had some fixation on tempting Jedi with it, not realising how empty they rang to a Jedi's other senses. She doesn't bother to restrain a snort. "Not even close," she says.

Lunch is delicious. They order probably too much food, not that anyone's around to judge them - a mix of things they both like and things neither of them have run across. A discreet chiller cabinet set into one of the rosewood cupboards takes the leftovers, which are packed away by quiet droids, and then Jyn sits back in her chair and yawns unexpectedly.

"Didn't sleep well last night?" Ahsoka enquires. She knows Jyn didn't; she drifted off to the rhythm of Jyn's restless sleep.

Jyn frowns at her. "I slept fine."

"There's no reason not to take a nap." Ahsoka always has enough to eat, these days, but she can't remember the last time she ate so much she actually thought she might get indigestion. She's never liked most kinds of synth protein, and most of the time there isn't enough of the real thing for her to eat as much as she wants; maybe the closest she's got would be feasting with the Cloudriders, but her memories of those days are fuzzy, the haze only lifting once she reels forward to Lah'mu. 

Here, she can gorge herself.

Jyn taps her fingers restlessly on the table, and then shrugs and stretches. "I ate too much, I guess," she says. "Makes you sleepy. Which room do you want?"

"Green," Ahsoka says, closing her eyes and slouching back in her chair. "Purple will clash with my colouration." 

"The purple one has that ridiculous tub, and you were looking forward to a hot bath." 

Ahsoka cracks an eyelid open. "The other one has a tub too," she points out, though it's true it doesn't have quite the same view, just a blue dome over it patterned in stars which Ahsoka profoundly hopes are made of glass and not jewels. 

Jyn shrugs. "Up to you," she says, and gets up. She glances out at the balcony. "You want to spar for a bit afterwards?"

"If we have time before tea," Ahsoka says.

"In the Great Garden," Jyn mutters, slightly disparaging, or possibly just feeling out of her depth. Ahsoka ignores her, which seems like the kindest thing to do.

She collapses into the bed and sleeps for a full hour. The bed itself is comfortable, the curtains around it muffling any sound at all even to her sensitive hearing. She feels safe, though she does find herself reaching out once or twice with her mind to check Jyn is there, in a way she doesn't have to when they're onboard ship and Jyn's head is approximately a foot from hers on the other side of a thin partition. Jyn is fine. Jyn is also out cold.

Ahsoka wakes feeling lazy and slow: sparring is a relief. The lightsabers stay hidden, of course, and Jyn sticks to pure hand to hand rather than pulling a weapon on Ahsoka by way of one of her entertaining surprises, but it makes a change to fight outside rather than in the hold, and the fresh crisp air is good to breathe, better than the recycled stuff they live off. The pure adrenaline of fighting Jyn, trying to counter her moves without doing sufficient damage to leave a mark - embarrassing, when they're about to go and meet a senator and a queen - sets Ahsoka's blood on fire, has her baring her teeth in a way that freaks everyone but Jyn out. Jyn, who grins back, green-grey eyes wild and fierce, and punches her very hard in the kidney. 

The sparring match ends with both of them on the floor; Jyn, the smaller, is worse at grappling, but she's slippery and mean and she will use every tool at her disposal. Ahsoka always has a hell of a time pinning her, and Jyn always fights until the last second of the countdown, because she doesn't know how to give in. The thought makes Ahsoka smile.

"You smug fucker," Jyn says in disgust, going limp. "You realise we're supposed to be going to see your senator whatever and we're both covered in grass stains. And I think you've bruised the shit out of that side of my face."

Ahsoka climbs off her, and hauls Jyn to her feet. "Yielding would have been an option."

Jyn calls her something unrepeatable in Huttese.

"Oh, thanks," Ahsoka says, and reels Jyn in. There is a bruise forming on Jyn's left cheek, reddened skin blooming colourful beneath the surface; Ahsoka tucks her palm against it, and draws on the Force, just a little, just enough, soothing broken blood vessels, turning everything back into its proper course. Jyn stares up at her with suddenly wide eyes.

"Sorry," Ahsoka says, letting her hands drop, guilt twisting at her. "I should have thought it would come as a surprise. I don't use the Force around you a lot."

"I'm not shocked," Jyn says. She touches the side of her own face almost gingerly. "I'm not - hey, it beats being bruised for a week."

Ahsoka snorts. "Well. Any time."

"You have really warm hands," Jyn says irrelevantly, then catches herself up on something and stamps indoors to shower. When she reappears to meet the protocol droid sent to guide them to the Great Gardens, she's much the same as ever; just a little more strangely curt.

"All right?" Ahsoka murmurs, as they follow the protocol droid through the quiet corridors. It's striking that they haven't seen any organics yet besides the loadmaster; but Bail was always determined to keep Ahsoka's visits extremely quiet, and Breha determined to keep her sanctuary tranquil and as free as possible of the pressures of her position. Whatever the risks or difficulties of Ahsoka's own situation, she thinks, at least she doesn't have to steer a whole planet and a Force-sensitive, headstrong daughter through the dangerous waters of the Galactic Empire. With the additional handicap of a husband so deeply implicated in the Rebel Alliance he was present at its founding. If Bail got caught out, there's no way the Emperor would believe Breha had been ignorant of his activities for the last seventeen years.

"I'm fine," Jyn says, and adds: "Waiting to see an actual person."

"Droids are sentient," Ahsoka replies; an old argument, and one she's had with everyone in the galaxy she trusts enough to argue with. Jyn treats their droids with more consideration than she used to, but to her, they are still just droids. 

Jyn shoots her a glance. "You know what I mean."

"Bail keeps things very quiet round here," Ahsoka says, because she does know, even if she doesn't feel it or express it the way Jyn does. 

"There's quiet, and then," Jyn says, and breaks off as they round a corner and encounter a Kiffar majordomo, who dismisses the droid and leads them along a further corridor, up a repulsorlift so quiet even Ahsoka can hardly sense it humming along, and through a discreet door in the same rosewood used to decorate their suite.

How big is this place , Ahsoka can hear Jyn thinking. She suppresses a smile.

The door opens onto a sunroom of some kind; it looks like a quiet study or a family room, well-lit, warm, and painted in soothing shades of cream and soft stone. Floor-to ceiling windows slide open at a touch to open onto a quieter part of the Great Garden, one reserved for the personal use of the family. The Great Garden, Ahsoka remembers, is huge, and covers several terraces projecting out from the rock. Only the top one is fully private; the rest are open, subject to restriction, to the staff and to others who live in the lodge. Ahsoka taught Leia to meditate here, insofar as such a small child can be taught to meditate, and built up shields for her that Leia's mind has grown around, reinforcing them with a combination of inborn strength of will and the Teräs Käsi Bail arranged for her to learn. 

Leia is here now; Ahsoka can sense her presence clearly, shields or no shields, now she's in the same room. She stands with her mother, both relatively informally dressed, talking to her father. Ahsoka blinks, and for a second she's thrown back to the Senate Rotunda, what feels like a hundred years ago. Though the resemblance to Padmé is a superficial one - Ahsoka can't help but be reminded of Padmé by small, slight pale-skinned human women, with long brown hair and elaborate styling - seeing her standing next to Bail is something else.

Leia isn't Padmé's daughter. Padmé died still pregnant, by everything Ahsoka could ever tell, and Ahsoka is confident Bail would have told her outright if Padmé had given birth and it had been concealed, the baby raised as Alderaanian. Leia's certainly familiar to Ahsoka's Force senses, but Ahsoka passed through the crèche often enough that all the younglings had a degree of familiarity to her.

Ahsoka remembers how the younglings died - cut down in their cradles by the 501st, her boys' minds torn asunder - and swallows back bile. At least Bail saved Leia: and possibly others, though it would be too dangerous to ask. 

Queen Breha and Leia finish whatever their discussion was with Bail, and move to leave; Ahsoka, Jyn and the majordomo step smartly out of the way as they sweep past. The majordomo bows elegantly: Ahsoka just inclines her head, and Jyn copies her. Queen Breha returns the salute, as does the princess, but the princess's eyes catch oddly on Jyn, and something flares so bright and rings in Ahsoka's hearing so loudly that she blinks sparks away from her eyes.

What? Jyn thinks, careful and deliberate, a second later. So it was nothing anyone else heard, but her reaction is visible. Ahsoka composes herself.

Nothing , she replies, knowing Jyn will only get a vague sense of reassurance. She turns and proceeds into the sunroom, down the three shallow steps to the lower level where Bail is waiting by comfortable chairs and a fireplace. Even with the great windows shut and the sun pouring in, it's slightly cool. 

Ahsoka's got stuck on the way Jyn and Leia's eyes met, and how the Force reacted. Leia is a Jedi, though only partly trained and not conscious of the significant power she bears: Bail has kept it quiet throughout her childhood. It's not strange that the Force would react to her. And much as Ahsoka sometimes forgets it, after all these years of familiarity, Jyn is carrying around a kyber crystal, a lightsaber blank, handed down from her mother. More than that, the Force has always moved a little strangely around her; just because Ahsoka is accustomed to the eddies of it doesn't mean that the currents beneath aren't deep.

Ahsoka is strangely reminded of the first time she met Jyn, six years ago in a bunker on Tamsye Prime. That sense that the Force was pushing Jyn on: that she would either sink or swim. 

Ahsoka takes a deep breath and covers herself with a smile at Bail, who is smiling back, though a little warily - Bail is as shrewd as he needs to be, and he will have seen her hesitation. "Bail," she says, and accepts his embrace warmly. "Was that really Leia on her way out? She's grown so much."

The wariness steps out of Bail's stance. "It strikes us all," he agrees with a smile. "Sometimes I ask myself where the years have gone. Welcome, Ahsoka. And this must be Liana?"

Ahsoka half-turns; Jyn, a few steps behind, bows her head to Bail. "Liana Hallik," she says. "Pleased to meet you."

"Likewise. Any friend of Ahsoka's is a friend of mine."

Jyn darts Ahsoka a glance, and smirks very slightly. "You must have some strange friends, senator."

"And I appreciate them all," Bail says genially. He gestures at the sofas. "Please. Take a seat."

The messages Mon Mothma entrusted to Ahsoka are verbal only. She, like Dormé, and like Jyn when Ahsoka asked her about it, fears that the Empire is planning some great provocation, creating another war (or at least Ahsoka thinks, another open war, in which acknowledged armies take the field without hiding behind words like police action and counterinsurgency. As matters stand, people are dying anyway. The Rebel Alliance's technocrats fear what has already come to pass). Mon fled Coruscant long before, and since Riyo is now in exile too, Bail is the only one of the original Delegation of Two Thousand to retain both his Senate seat and his life. There have been a lot of suspicious deaths.

Bail listens without replying as Ahsoka makes her report. The priority will now be for him - and possibly Leia, on the verge of taking up her seat as a junior senator - to gather information in the senate, see which way the legislators are drifting. They have little real power now, but they reflect Palpatine's true plans. Whatever information they and Draven's desk-based analysts can pick up will guide the Rebel Alliance's preparations.

"There's certainly something coming," Bail says at last, when Ahsoka has finished. Jyn remains completely silent, tense and watchful. Her eyes are shuttered. "Something in the air. Dormé is right. The Emperor is on the move." He sighs. "I am considering sending Leia to a certain mutual friend of ours. It's not safe for her to be in the Senate as matters stand, but I fear she is in prime position to become a hostage. And if she were to fall into Imperial hands -"

Ahsoka can complete the sentence for herself. She has met her fair share of Inquisitors. Anyone can be broken by torture, given the right time or tools, and eventually the Emperor's men would likely force Leia to reveal the powers she doesn't understand. With catastrophic consequences.

"Mon won't be able to protect Leia, if she has to go on the run," Ahsoka says. "We'll need to think bigger than that. It's a wide, wide galaxy - it can be done."

Bail frowns, puzzled. Jyn remains quite still. The air is as heavy and as cold as crystal.

"I'm not talking about Mon," Bail says. 

Ahsoka frowns in return. "Then you'll need to be clearer who you are talking about."

"I assumed you would be in closer contact with him than I," Bail says. "I mean Obi-Wan Kenobi."

Ahsoka's head is ringing. Her voice breaks on an uneven laugh. "Bail. Master Obi-Wan is dead."

"I thought he had told you," Bail said, his forehead heavily creased. "I assumed you knew." He leans forward, out of his seat, reaches to lay a steadying hand on her knee. "Ahsoka…"

Ahsoka rolls jerkily to her feet. Her mind is spinning, tight and stunned circles, and her only thought is of getting out. Getting away. She turns to the windows, and stumbles blindly towards them; they swish open at her approach, and she trips out into the cool air, hardly catches herself before she falls flat on the grass.

"No," she can hear Jyn saying - Jyn, whose still and waiting presence has begun to roil with rage. "Stay there. You've done enough."

The doors swish open again as Ahsoka sits heavily down on the grass and drops her head into her hands. Jyn's familiar, definite footsteps sound on the stone paving, and are muffled on the grass; when she stops, she kneels down next to Ahsoka. 

Ahsoka , she says, but it's not just the word that is her name. It's every shared meal, every sparring session, every insomniac night; the cave on Glarean, the flash of white lightsabers, the rockfall among the Cloudriders, pulling glass from cuts after the riot on Bestine. It's Ahsoka's light footsteps and her predator smile. Her blue eyes, seen through someone else's.

"Ahsoka," Jyn repeats aloud, and folds Ahsoka clumsily into her arms as tears roll down Ahsoka's cheeks.

Ahsoka lets out a trembling breath, and presses her face into Jyn's shoulder. Jyn's hands are clumsy around her montrals, ginger and tentative, but her grip is tight and this close Ahsoka can feel her protective anger, her fierce affection, the flipside of every time Jyn has flinched visibly at the thought of being left behind, the legacy of that bunker on Tamsye Prime.

Ahsoka's breathing is coming in scratching gulps, and she can feel tears leaking from her face. She isn't sure if they are relief or anger or just the cry of a lost child, of a frightened teenager who now knows that at least one of her teachers left her through choice, not necessity. She thinks of the last time she saw Obi-Wan in hologram format, the scratched and skipping recording of his message from the Jedi Temple beacon that she abandoned only when forced, and still regrets throwing away: a warning - a reminder - a warning - a reminder - trust in the Force - trust, faith - new hope, new hope - 

And she thinks, too, of that last meeting, Obi-Wan hooded and cloaked talking of the assault on Utapau where Cody would kill him - or maybe didn't kill him. She thinks of the last time she saw him in person, all the things she wishes she had said, all the things she wishes unsaid. 

In the end it comes down to this: her sense of Obi-Wan on Tatooine was no mirage, but truth. And if she sensed him, he must have sensed her. Not once on the many occasions she and Jyn have visited Tatooine has anyone, in any guise, reached out to her on his behalf.

This long separation has been Obi-Wan's choice . At the very least, he has never lifted so much as a finger to reach out to her. He has allowed her to believe he is dead for seventeen years. To believe that Cody, who had spent three years threatening to lay down his life for Obi-Wan, had murdered him under the influence of Order 66. Ahsoka has mourned that a thousand times over, not only for the death of her grandmaster, but for the ruination of one of the best men she's ever known. One of the best men in the GAR.

Neither Ahsoka nor Rex has ever been able to reach Cody. The Emperor liked to keep him close, for a while. And then they lost track of him.

"I thought he was dead," Ahsoka sobs into Jyn's neck. "I thought he was dead ."

"I know. I know," Jyn whispers. She's smaller than Ahsoka, built narrower and nearly a foot shorter, but there's a completeness to her comfort; she wraps herself around Ahsoka like she wants to shield Ahsoka from the entire galaxy. She rocks Ahsoka slightly back and forth. "I know, Ahsoka, I know."

Ahsoka hears it in the bitter ring of her voice: she does know. Saw Gerrera is still alive too, and in the six years she and Jyn have orbited around each other Ahsoka has never seen Saw reach out to Jyn either. 

Ahsoka clings to Jyn until her breathing evens out, and then lets her grip loosen on the back of Jyn's shirt.

"You're all right," Jyn whispers, her face tucked against Ahsoka's cheek. "You're all right. You're all right." She unwinds one of her arms from around Ahsoka, and yanks at her shirt until she can pull her necklace loose from her shirt and the sports bra it's tucked into. "Here," Jyn murmurs, "here," and the crystal falls loose between the two of them, and Jyn fumbles for Ahsoka's hand and draws it up to wrap her fingers and palm around the crystal. 

It's warm. Blood warm. It should be, of course; Jyn wears it next to her skin. But there's more to its warmth than that; it's the warmth of an embrace which is not just Jyn's, and in the slide of the chain against Ahsoka's palm she hears a whisper in a voice she doesn't know, but which hits a low, rough, urgent note like Jyn's does -

Trust the Force - 

Ahsoka curls her hand tight around the crystal, and Jyn's hand curls tight around hers, and Ahsoka stops, and listens to the Force.

So often, since the Empire rose, the Force has been clouded. Ahsoka's purpose has been clouded. She hasn't seen the way forward, or sensed the path beneath her feet. Her sight is no clearer now. But holding Jyn's crystal between their shared hands, she listens to the Force, and she hears peace.

Ahsoka breathes out. She doesn't know why Obi-Wan made the choices he has made; she must trust that he has his reasons for not reaching out to her. And if he doesn't… if he didn't…

Ahsoka doesn't know what to think about that.

She remembers the story she'd heard from Boil, who deserted as fast as he could after Utapau: the cannon that Cody ordered to fire on Obi-Wan, the way both man and the varactyl he'd been riding fell from a cliff, the sound of bodies hitting the water. They never found anything, Boil said, but even human bodies may sink before they float, and they didn't linger beyond a basic search. It was as if Cody didn't want to find anything, Boil said: didn't want to waste any chance Obi-Wan might take to get away. They both knew it to be wishful thinking - whether Obi-Wan's survival or Cody's motives, neither of them ever said aloud.

It wasn't wishful thinking after all. Obi-Wan is alive. Ahsoka tries and fails to come to terms with that, but lying in the Great Garden with a worried Bail pacing just inside is not the ideal venue, and she can't. She takes a deep breath, and sets it aside to think on at a later time.

Ahsoka takes another deep breath and relaxes in Jyn's arms. She allows her hand to fall loose around the crystal. Jyn removes her hand, and wraps it around Ahsoka's back instead.

"I must be squashing you," Ahsoka murmurs.

Jyn, contrary as ever, wraps her arms even tighter around Ahsoka. "Bollocks," she says.

Ahsoka laughs into Jyn's ear. It's weak and raw, but it's laughter and she means it. She can feel Jyn smile against her skin, and it's grim and small, but Jyn means it too.

All right? Jyn thinks at her, with the same care she did earlier.

"I'm okay," Ahsoka replies, and squeezes Jyn's upper arm reassuringly. "I'm all right."

They sit like that for a minute longer; Jyn slips her necklace back into its hiding place. It feels like an aeon has passed, but Ahsoka knows it hasn't been more than about half an hour, if that. Though Alderaan's spring days are short, evening is only just touching the sky, and although the chill in the air is gathering, Ahsoka's not cold yet. Not draped over Jyn's lap.

Jyn gets cold more easily than Ahsoka does - a human's metabolism doesn't work the same way - but she still gives off heat like a thermal detonator, and her temper is not dissimilar. 

Ahsoka swallows. "I hope you didn't shout at Bail."

"Snapped at him, maybe." Jyn glances over Ahsoka's shoulder back into the sunroom. "He looks worried."

"He is worried." Ahsoka can feel it; Bail has excellent natural shields, and she knows more than one Jedi tutored him in improving them, but he is afraid now. Afraid, Ahsoka thinks, of what he's done. Not afraid she will be angry, but afraid that he has interfered where he shouldn't have done.

Ahsoka lets out a deep sigh. She's a professional: she belongs to the Alliance to Restore the Republic. Her emotions are her own, but her reactions to them should be under her control. She certainly isn't going to shout at Bail for having revealed someone else's shortcomings. Or perhaps, she thinks, reminding herself to be charitable, their tactical choices. 

She gets to her feet, and pulls Jyn up. "You'll have grass stains on your good trousers," she says.

Jyn rolls her eyes, and says something thoroughly unrepeatable in Huttese. She's light on the balls of her feet like she thinks a fight is imminent, and though her rage has cooled, it has only settled into purpose. 

"This isn't his fault," Ahsoka says.

"He should have told you before," Jyn says. "You can't seriously tell me your teachers never came up."

Ahsoka hesitates. "There are things we have always - spoken around." She straightens her tunic. For instance, she thinks, Leia. She doesn't truly know where Bail found Leia, or how. Only that Leia is a Jedi orphan, adopted by Bail and Breha. Everything else has lain in implication. "There is much that has not been safe to discuss openly." She shoots Jyn a look. "You know how it is."

Ahsoka did tell Jyn to keep quiet about Obi-Wan and Anakin, and she has never mentioned them anywhere someone else might have overheard. But Jyn didn't need to be told not to say anything, and she never needs to be steered away from dangerous topics. 

Jyn tilts her head from side to side, calculatedly ambiguous. Their feet hit stone paving, and a second later the window whistles open. Within the lights have been lowered and a tea has been set out on the coffee table, and Bail is standing by the fireplace, looking anxious.

"Ahsoka," he says, coming towards her. "Forgive me." 

She finds a smile for him. Bail didn't choose this secrecy: that much is clear. "There's nothing to forgive."

"It seems to me," Bail says, and then, uncharacteristically, stops and hesitates. "It seems to me," he repeats after a long moment, "that there are many things I assumed senior members of your order told you, and I have never clarified whether or not they truly did."

Ahsoka's skin prickles in alarm, but she still holds out her hands to him and grips his fingers in token of forgiveness. "I haven't spoken to a Jedi older than me since Order 66," she says. She's encountered a few - a very few - Force-sensitives over the years, most of whom don't lay claim to the title Jedi. 

Bail's face falls; he has dropped his politician's mask. "Ah."

"It's possible they didn't know where to find me," Ahsoka says, deflecting. She can hear Jyn thinking except for this Kenobi guy quite loudly in the background. Ahsoka sighs. She means it for Jyn, who huffs and manoeuvres round her to the table. "I have moved around a great deal." And the Rebellion operates in cells, which means there is much information that has been kept sequestered from her - and rightly so. It just seems that that information has been more extensive, and the sequestering harder to justify, than she knew.

"Eat something," Jyn says. "You had a shock."

"Yes," Bail says, "and please. Sit down." He takes a seat himself as Ahsoka does, next to her; Jyn makes up a plate of food and pours a cup of tea obviously chosen at random, and hands them to Ahsoka in a way that leaves no room for objections. Even though they ate only a few hours ago.

Ahsoka is still hungry. She picks at her food, sips at her tea. Jyn has taken pieces of cake - she has a real sweet tooth; Ahsoka gets the feeling she denied herself treats like that for a long time, for lack of credits to buy them with - and is sitting across the table, the better to watch Ahsoka's face. Her eyes are glittering, her jaw and her rose mouth set. 

Bail will need to talk fast.

"I think I should tell you everything I know," Bail says. "From the beginning - which is to say, from the end of the Clone Wars." He raises one hand. "Now, note that I don't say I will tell you everything. There are things I don't know and many things I don't know for sure."

"Is it safe to talk about this here?" Ahsoka says, wariness raising patterns on the skin of her neck and shoulders.

"As safe here as anywhere," Bail says wryly. "And far safer than most."

"Well, then," Ahsoka says. "Please. Enlighten me."

I sound like Master Obi-Wan , she thinks. It stings.