Chapter 20: Jyn vChapter TextShortly before dusk they get ready to leave the hideout. They are close to the outer city walls, it turns out, a short distance from where Jyn cached the speeder; just outside the Holy City proper, and into its suburbs, so they may hope to escape any checkpoints by the walls themselves. But there will be patrols in the suburbs, too.
Chirrut says his goodbyes at the safehouse. He's too well known to the authorities, and too likely to fit their profile of a Jedi sympathiser, for the risk to be worth it. Bana cries and clings to him for a while, and Jyn feels bad tugging her away, but Bana's sadness and the way she wedges her face unhappily against Jyn's neck will pass very well for an overtired child. With luck - and Bana's rucksack on Jyn's back - they might pass for a young family. Jyn could really do without Shresth's arm slung awkwardly over her shoulders, but it sells the scam and leaves the arm that isn't carrying Bana free to go for a blaster or a knife, if need be.
Baze guides them out of the warren of streets and brings them to a point where they can join the slow trail of pilgrims exiting the Holy City for further destinations, or to reach hotel rooms somewhere in these twisting lanes, or just to stop for a bite to eat. He pauses there.
"Safe travels," he says, "all of you." Then he grumbles, and his eyes rest on Jyn. "And you, little sister, watch your anger. I believed mine served me too." His glance up at the Holy City, towards the stolen Temple where a Force-sensitive child who had probably once been just as sweet as Bana roams the corridors searching for kyber crystal, tells Jyn more than she already guessed about where Chirrut learned to speak of anger.
And yet he was once the most devout of us all.
"I'll keep it in mind," she says. "Safe travels."
Baze nods, and melts into the shadows, and is gone.
"Don't look back," Jyn reminds Shresth. "He was never there. Remember."
Shresth nods uneasily. At least he isn't sweating with nerves again, Jyn thinks, and guides her little group out into the flow of traffic.
It goes flawlessly. No-one gives them a second glance. Bana keeps quiet, and Shresth relaxes a bit: no-one in this crowd is interested in anything but finding their way back to their lodgings, or maybe to get some food. There are troopers about, though; just a few pairs, here and there, not looking particularly interested in the mass of people making their way slowly down the central route thronged with souvenir shops and takeaway joints. Jyn keeps herself consciously relaxed, knowing she can't risk communicating her tension to either of the civilians she's watching over.
One of the troopers is watching. Jyn's spine prickles, and Bana mumbles.
"Ssh," Jyn says, bouncing Bana slightly on her hip and hoping she sounds maternal. Kid's heavy. Really too heavy to carry this distance, but she doesn't want anyone looking too closely at Bana's face, and Shresth tends to clutch her in a way that makes it obvious he's afraid. "Nearly there, honey."
It sounds so wrong she wants to cringe, and the trooper is still watching.
Bana mumbles a bit louder.
"What is it, precious?" Shresth says, leaning into them a bit. He's noticed the trooper, and Jyn can feel him trembling.
"I'm hungry," Bana says quite loudly.
Jyn takes it all back. Kid is a genius. "We have food at home," she says.
"Want a snack ," Bana says, louder still.
"Tired," Shresth says knowingly.
"If you can grab something we can eat while we walk," Jyn says, trying to match the tone of every hassled parent she's ever heard and ignored because the kids were annoying.
"Sure," Shresth says, and squeezes her shoulder lightly. Jyn wishes this particular charade involved less touching, not because he's unpleasant, but because (she's coming to realise) the only person she's accustomed to touch is Ahsoka.
"Fried pies," Bana says, into Jyn's neck.
She rolls her eyes at Shresth. "Did you get that?"
"Loud and clear," Shresth says, adding with a little laugh: "and predictable."
"Ha ha," Jyn says. She lets her eyes drift back to the trooper, who's entirely relaxed now, but still watching. She shakes her head and rolls her eyes again. "Kids these days."
"Tell me about it," the stormtrooper says. It sounds weird through their vocoder, but maybe they're amused. "My own go crazy for fried pies too. Sweet kid; how old is she?"
"Are you going to tell the officer how old you are, sweetheart?" Jyn says to Bana, who hides her face. Very smart kid. "She's six, sir. And pretty shy when she's tired."
"Wish I could hitch a lift when I'm tired," the stormtrooper says.
"Don't we all," Jyn says. She hopes her laugh only rings false to her; she's grateful when Shresth gets back, carrying a paper packet of small steaming hot pies. "Have a nice evening, officer."
"You too, citizen. Bye-bye, kid," says the stormtrooper, and then they can finally move away, walk slowly and unhurriedly down the lane eating fried pies. Jyn remembers these from her childhood, too. They're as good as they always were, sharp with mustard seed and greasy.
Shresth and Bana focus on the pies. That's probably for the best; Jyn is mapping out the route to the cached speeder in her head, planning the long walk across the desert if the speeder's gone. And she's thinking, too, about the stormtrooper, who wouldn't have been so friendly if they'd known who Jyn was, or who she was carrying. They aren't the first stormtrooper Jyn has spoken to, not by a long shot; she's asked troopers for directions and then shot them in the back before, and she'll do it again. This one being nice to a tired child won't stop her smashing their head in, if she has to. But she wonders, sometimes, what is it that makes ordinary people willing to do terrible things, in the name of the Empire. Believing all the time that it's only what's right.
Evil might be Sith lords and tides of fate, to Ahsoka, to history. In Jyn's eyes there's a greater and more terrible evil in the person who gets out of bed each day and does nothing but follow orders.
She pulls her group off the road into side streets, once most of the pies are eaten, and walks on, leading them a winding route back to the cache. There are lanterns hanging from the gutters now, flickering or glaring with poor-quality lamps, and people hanging about in the shadows.
"I'm going to need you to walk, kid," Jyn says, and Bana stirs and scrambles to get down. Jyn shakes out her aching left arm, and stares into the shadows, daring anyone to come out of them.
It's been a long fucking day. She wants to be at home, kicking the sonics in the fresher until they work and losing at dejarik to Ahsoka. But she would also quite like to punch someone.
No-one volunteers their face for breaking, and the cached speeder is where Jyn and Ahsoka left it, and hasn't been interfered with. It hasn't even been touched. For a second Jyn's heart quails, and she wonders why Ahsoka didn't take the speeder, or leave a sign. Then she remembers that Ahsoka had always planned to leave the speeder for her, with the larger group to move and a kid to transport, and hopes again.
It's a tight fit in the speeder, but no-one's complaining; Bana huddles tightly against Shresth and doesn't complain about the cold, even though the heating in the speeder is on the fritz and it's freezing in the darkness. Jyn doesn't risk the lights, trusting instead to the glow of NaJedha's other moon and the speeder's infrared, which is in much better condition than the heating, and by the time she gets back to the wadi where they left the Lady Luck, she's exhausted with frozen hands and strained eyes.
But she can't be incautious now. Don't ever drop your guard , Saw's voice growls in her mind, and nobody ever said she didn't learn his lessons well. She stops the speeder round a corner from the ship, and tosses the keycard to Shresth.
"If I don't come back," she says, "or you hear me shout to you to go… Get the fuck out of here, as fast as you can."
Shresth stares at her, wide-eyed; she can glimpse the whites of his eyes in the faint gleam of the moon, barely reaching this deep into the wadi. "I thought we were safe now," he whispers.
"Yeah, wait for me to tell you you're safe, and then you can feel safe," Jyn says. She glances at Bana, who's so tired and unnerved that she's actually fallen asleep with one of the last (now cold) fried pies clenched in her little fist. "You know how to contact the Alliance, obviously. We got here somehow. There are emergency rations in the speeder and a full tank of fuel. If you have any reason to believe I've been captured, get yourself and your kid as far away as you can."
"Kestrel," Shresth says, in a strangled voice. Jyn can't figure out if he's now scared for her to walk away, or scared of what might happen to her.
"Don't worry about me," she says, draws a blaster, and slips into the shadows to make her approach.
The Lady Luck looks quiet, but Jyn knows her ship, and a quick glance is enough to tell her it's running quiet but not abandoned. The viewports are shaded and the lights aren't visible, and any systems running are doing so on minimum power, but something is functioning onboard, and the usual anti-theft precautions - which have to be pretty fierce, given that they spend enough time on Tatooine for the Jawas to have a whole wishlist of parts from their ship - are turned off. Someone is onboard.
Jyn circles the ship slowly on silent feet, not caring how long it takes. She can't rush up the ramp to whoever's inside, hoping it's Ahsoka; she knows there's a chance it isn't, or that it is Ahsoka, and she's been captured by someone who's holding her there. But the ground around the Lady Luck is silent. Untouched. Nothing's been here since the morning except maybe a few lizards.
From behind a large rock, Jyn keys in the code to open the gangway. Its slide open sounds incredibly loud in the stillness of the night, and she winces and hopes that Shresth doesn't take fright and flee with his kid. But she waits, and nothing happens, and when she slips over to the gangway and treads up it silently, avoiding all the bits that creak, nothing shows up to jump her.
She clears the cargo bay, and enters the main crew areas of the ship. Here there are lights on, dim and soft, like a Shili late summer evening, and in the cockpit, Jyn can hear tuneless humming and the occasional bleep and whistle as Ahsoka argues with N-8 in binary.
She stops dead, and so does the humming: and then she hears Ahsoka's featherlight footsteps, and sees her, finally, come into view. And shit, she's beautiful on any given day, but tonight she's the most sublime living thing that Jyn has ever seen. Jyn's ears ring with something that sounds like high clear music but is probably just relief.
Ahsoka stops, probably because Jyn's still holding the blaster, but her smile is broad and welcoming.
"Clear?" Jyn asks. Her voice creaks and whispers with too much feeling.
Ahsoka nods, smiling. "I got clean away," she says, and Jyn hears truth sing in her words like the bells of the pilgrims.
"Good," she says. "That's good," and flicks the safety catch on her blaster, tosses it aside, and throws herself bodily at Ahsoka. Ahsoka catches her and holds her fiercely, all the warmth and security Jyn has been desperate for all day, and Jyn clutches at her, grabs and holds on tight until she's sure her grip will bruise.
"There you are," she mutters, stupidly, inanely, into the space between Ahsoka's lek and her throat where her head is nestled. "There you are."
She feels like she's taken her first solid breath in months.
For the few seconds they hold each other, it's perfect. Jyn feels like she never lost sight of Ahsoka, like she never had any reason to fear the Inquisitorius had got her. There's warmth and light and ease lapping at the edges of her mind, and Ahsoka's chin tucked over the top of her head. She lets a deep breath out, and then remembers Shresth.
"Shit," she mumbles, letting herself fall back down from her tip-toes and loosening her grip. "I left the kid and her dad outside. Are we good to go?"
"I was just waiting for you," Ahsoka says, fingertips trailing affectionately over Jyn's cheek as she lets go. There's an extra brightness in her sky-blue eyes. "I'll start the pre-flight checks."
She turns to head back into the cockpit, and it's almost physically painful to watch her walk away.
"Ahsoka!" Jyn says, involuntarily, and feels stupid when Ahsoka turns back, smiling at her. She swallows. "I'm sorry I kept you waiting."
"I knew you'd come," Ahsoka says, with that wry, smiling twist to her smile and voice, and a shrug of one shoulder.
Jyn swallows hard again. "Count on me," she says, and goes to collect Shresth and Bana.
Shresth is on his last nerve, but he's fine. Bana is asleep. Jyn hops back into the speeder, and starts it up. Shresth grabs her arm, and she shakes him off irritably. He should be glad she doesn't just stab him; in earlier years, she would have done.
"We're good to go," she says, and backs the speeder around the corner and up into the cargo bay. Shresth gets out as Jyn punches the controls for the ramp, and the Lady Luck closes up and seals. The speeder docks tight against the bulkhead; Shresth picks up Bana, who barely stirs, and Jyn picks up both rucksacks.
"Sonera's doing pre-flight checks," she says to Shresth. "We'll take off as soon as possible." She leads him into the crew areas, and opens the door to her own bunkroom, which they'd agreed would be turned over to Bana and her father - but for some reason, it's full of both her things and Ahsoka's. Jyn frowns, and tries the other bunkroom, Ahsoka's; this one looks neat and tidy, not emptied of everything that belongs to Ahsoka, but certainly everything interesting.
"You and Bana can have this bunk," she says to Shresth, dropping the rucksacks in Ahsoka's bunk. "We can sort out a truckle bed or something for Bana if need be. But in case things get bumpy on take-off you should be strapped in."
The ship is coming alive under her, the familiar hum of sub-light engines and the hyperdrive warming up. She leads the pair confidently through to the ready room and leaves Shresth to strap in, Bana cradled on his lap and still asleep.
"I'll let you know when we're in hyperspace," she tosses over her shoulder, as she heads to the cockpit.
"Where are we going?" Shresth says.
Jyn shakes her head. "We have a drop-off for you near Ord Pardron. It's about twenty-four hours' flight from here, in hyperspace. Beyond that, I don't know."
"Can Sonera tell me?" Shresth says, going for his seatbelt like he wants to ask right now.
Jyn stops herself from rolling her eyes with an effort. Civilians. There's a reason they don't do passenger jobs, as a rule, and it's not that Jyn doesn't get along with Willix and his wretched droid. "No. We don't know. And it's better if we don't." She raises her eyebrows at Shresth. "If we get caught, we can't tell the Empire things we don't know."
He subsides back into his seat. Jyn lets herself into the cockpit and buckles herself into the co-pilot's seat.
"You're going to frighten that man to death," Ahsoka says, her eyes on the controls.
"Banthashit," Jyn says. "He needs to get his head round reality."
Ahsoka snorts, and engages the thrusters. "Scans complete, no hostiles on the radar. Lift-off."
The Lady Luck makes her slow and steady ascent from the wadi, and Jyn holds her breath and folds her arms over her chest. The Imperials are not, as she's seen, precisely on high alert. But it never pays to assume they're sleeping.
Ahsoka takes it slow. Sub-light risks registering on Imperial scanners, at least for a less well-shielded ship, but jumping to hyperspace too soon is equally distinctive. She idles them round to the other side of the moon, and then into the shadow of NaJedha, and only then does she make the jump. It takes a nailbiting hour or so, but it's better than risking Imperial attention.
Jyn goes through to the ready room to tell Shresth they're in hyperspace. "You can use the fresher or whatever now," she says. "They're standard sonics, just don't change the settings or you'll give Sonera a migraine. Or if you want a hot drink, the galley's just through there and I'm going to make something." She shrugs. "Or you can sleep. Up to you."
Shresth has already unbuckled himself. "I should put Bana to bed," he says. "Thanks. Aren't you tired?"
Jyn shrugs. Tired is a word that doesn't always mean much to her. Yeah, she hasn't slept in too long. Yeah, she's hungry. But sleep is far off, and she feels like every second she isn't by Ahsoka's side is wasted. "You learn to manage it. Sonera and I will be in the cockpit. Let us know if something's on fire."
In the galley, she can't figure out what she wants to make for a second. She's cold - she often is, shipboard; she wraps up in all the layers she can get most of the time - and hungry, but at the same time, she doesn't know what she's hungry for. It's a weird luxury. A few years ago she would just have taken anything. Now her stomach is so accustomed to regular meals that her digestion is willing to prance about like some kind of princess needing its nerves soothed.
In the end she just makes caf, doses it heavily with chocolate and creamer, and then pours a second caf for Ahsoka, this one unmixed. Ahsoka drinks caf as black as Darth Vader's heart, and it has no noticeable effect on her sleep patterns; that used to confuse Jyn, until she met Rex. She reckons Ahsoka's been drinking military caf since she was a kid, which explains why the ordinary stuff doesn't touch her.
Jyn takes a piece of fruit and eats it in a few bites, hoping that will settle her stomach, and carries both mugs of caf back to the cockpit. Ahsoka has her feet up on the dash and is playing I Spy with N-8, in Binary. It's distinctly weird that Jyn now understands enough Binary to recognise the game.
"Caf," Jyn says, and hands Ahsoka's over.
"It's like you read my mind," Ahsoka says, breathing it in.
Jyn grins. She doesn't feel ready to laugh yet. "What happened with the bunkrooms? Change of plan?"
"I needed a nap," Ahsoka says tranquilly, leaning her head back against the headrest, and closing her eyes. "It was easier to sleep in your bunk. So I moved my things. Don't worry, there are no Jedi artefacts in there for Bana to discover."
Jyn doesn't flush, but her eyes catch on Ahsoka's, and she scrapes her teeth over her lower lip, thinking of Ahsoka curling up under the blankets on Jyn's bunk, setting the ones she doesn't need aside neatly, breathing in whatever scent of Jyn, whatever sense-memory Jyn left behind. And then she thinks of herself, waiting in Baze and Chirrut's safehouse, hoping.
She reaches out, and Ahsoka takes her outstretched hand and holds it.
"How did you get out?" she says.
"It was easy enough," Ahsoka says - dismissively, but there's a tinge of exhaustion to her voice, some sad weariness that's painful to hear. Jyn grips her fingers. "The Inquisitor wasn't there of their own free will. I'm not sure how much they understood of what was going on. They were… very young, I'm not sure how young but certainly sub-adult, and incompletely trained. They didn't recognise me, only the Force in me."
"Maybe the crystal in your sabers," Jyn says. "They looked at me too."
Ahsoka looks alarmed for a second, then shakes her head. "Maybe. I sensed no malice. Only… a response to danger."
"You wouldn't have hurt them," Jyn objects instinctively. "If they were just a kid, never did any of the Sith shit of their own free will. If they can use the Force, wouldn't they know that?"
"The younger Inquisitors have never known anything but suspicion and pain," Ahsoka says. She stares out into hyperspace and swirls her caf in her cup, and Jyn feels sorry for the Zabrak kid, wherever they are. Their only misstep was not being as lucky as Bana. "You don't train a Darksider by letting them feel safe and secure. No, I think they sensed a powerful Force-user, hidden or not, and merely reacted."
"I met a Guardian of the Whills who thought they'd been brought here to prospect for kyber crystal. Said the temple had been stripped of all the known objects and veins of crystal, and the kid was brought along to search for new ones."
Ahsoka's lips draw back over her teeth until she looks like she could rip someone's throat out.
"Ahsoka?"
"Sacrilege," Ahsoka says shortly, and doesn't say anything further for a while. Jyn rubs her thumb over the back of Ahsoka's knuckles absently, sips her caf and lets herself zone out. Ahsoka will talk when she's ready, and in the meantime, Jyn is warming up.
"All I had to do was get out of the stampede and lose the disguise," Ahsoka says eventually. "Simple, really. Though it came at a cost."
Jyn looks at her, hears the regret in those words.
"I don't think the garrison will be good to the Clan of Toribota," Ahsoka says, voice heavy. "I never meant to bring that on them."
"You couldn't have predicted this," Jyn says. "And we needed to save the kid. You getting safely on-planet meant a disguise."
Ahsoka squeezes her fingers, and doesn't reply.
"I'm sorry I didn't go after you," Jyn says. She's not sure how sorry she actually is, but there's guilt eating at her heart anyway, some part of her that still screams she should have plunged into the crowd after Ahsoka, sent Bana and her father on alone until they found Baze and Chirrut. But they wouldn't have found the ship by themselves, and there's no guarantee they would have found Chirrut.
"You did the right thing," Ahsoka says. "Don't apologise."
"I wouldn't… choose to leave you," Jyn says, with difficulty.
"I know," Ahsoka says, unclasping their hands and lacing their fingers together, palm to palm. "But you did the right thing. We had a mission, and there was a child's life hanging on it. You carried it out."
Jyn wonders, sometimes, how Saw justified leaving her behind. It wasn't, she's pretty confident, by saying that a child's life depended on it.
"I would never choose to leave you either," Ahsoka says. "If I left you, it would be under duress. And I wouldn't run off with no explanation if I had even a second to tell you what was happening."
Jyn remembers Bestine, and the lonely run to the docking station, and the shock that had rolled over her and weakened her knees when she realised Ahsoka had every intention of returning for her.
"I know," she says. "You've shown me before."
They sit there in companionable silence for a while, and then Jyn drains her caf and says: "N-8, could you give us a minute?"
The droid leaves. Jyn locks the door behind it.
"What have you got in mind?" Ahsoka asks, amused.
"Lots of things," Jyn replies. She takes the empty cup dangling from Ahsoka's hand, and sets it aside. Ahsoka is loose and relaxed in her seat, feet still up on the dashboard, smiling up at Jyn standing over her; Jyn rests one knee on the other side of Ahsoka's hips, leans down, presses her mouth to Ahsoka's. Ahsoka hums into the kiss, deep and satisfied, and her hands on Jyn's waist draw Jyn down to sit on her lap, her calves either side of Ahsoka's thighs. It's a tight fit, but there's room, and the pilot's seat reclines.
"Running from Imperials," Jyn says, sliding one hand along one of Ahsoka's lekku as Ahsoka gets her lips on Jyn's throat. "Not fun. Let's try not to do it again."
Ahsoka laughs, sharp teeth close and harmless, the predator Jyn loves.
"Sure," she says. "Not my favourite pastime either."
Jyn's warm all the way down to her toes, and that uneasy, frightened edge has settled right out of her heart, taking away a dose of adrenaline she hadn't even known was there.
This is better than sleep.
Chapter 21: Ahsoka iNotes:Sorry for the split chapter again, these segments are just too goddamn long.
Chapter TextOrd Pardron is a Rebel-friendly world, but with a Jedi and a Force-sensitive child on board it still wouldn't be smart to advertise their presence. Long before the rise of the Empire Force-sensitives were prey to too many people; Ahsoka's own life story attests to that. And now there is no Order to seek out their young and fight for them, just Ahsoka - and a few secret others.
It takes twenty-four hours to get to the drop point, plus the hours spent in sublight navigating out of Jedha's orbit and into Ord Pardron's. Ahsoka spends most of them either in the cockpit or working with Bana, a bright and charming kid who she knows will do very well, despite the tendency to boss Jyn around. It's very funny. There seems to have been some misunderstanding involving Jyn's ability to meditate, which she is, contrary to Bana's firm belief, perfectly capable of doing. Ahsoka's aware that she's been struggling lately, which concerns her less than Jyn's decision to struggle with whatever's upsetting her alone, but Jyn still knows how to meditate. And she's trying. Which is more than can be said for a lot of Force-users of Ahsoka's acquaintance.
Bossiness or not, Jyn's taken to the kid. She steps in when Shresth is tired or Ahsoka needs to fly the ship, and teaches Bana bits and pieces: basic lockpicking, handstands, simple self-defence, the rudiments of conversational Huttese. Bana wants to learn, full of nervous energy she's picked up from the adults, and she's bored: anything that can be turned into a game grabs at her attention. She won't listen for more than twenty minutes at a go, but twenty minutes is long enough to learn something, and she retains more of what she is taught than Ahsoka expected. She never had a padawan, and doesn't recall how initiates' performance was benchmarked. Nor does she know many young children. But Bana strikes her as quick and smart, and from what Jyn says, the girl did well on their departure from the Holy City. Jyn could have covered for her, of course, but it never hurts to have help.
Still, Ahsoka looks forward to sending Shresth and Bana on their way. For one thing, she has an urgent appointment on Tatooine. For another, the child isn't her padawan, the adult is visibly awkward on her ship and keeps asking questions Ahsoka can't or won't answer, and the Lady Luck is too crowded with four people onboard. Cassian Andor's presence was bad enough, and Cassian mostly stayed in his bunkroom with his droid in order to avoid Jyn staring directly through the back of his skull.
Rex would be a welcome visitor, but Rex has his own missions, his own priorities. Sometimes, in quiet moments in the cockpit when Jyn is asleep or elsewhere, and Ahsoka's only company is N-8, she swings in her chair and wonders about tracking Rex down, telling him Obi-Wan's alive, on Tatooine. But she wants to investigate first. Wants to know what Obi-Wan's made of himself, before she goes to Rex. She isn't even sure she wants Jyn to come with her all the way to Obi-Wan's hideout, wherever it is, though she knows Jyn will offer. She has to face him herself, and she has yet to decide whether that means alone or not.
Ahsoka thinks she has a right to ask questions. But it may be that there are no answers, however painful that is. Ahsoka would like to meditate on it again properly, and certainly she'd like to get some more sleep, but the journey to Ord Pardron is not a straightforward one and she needs to be vigilant. Moreover, it's not easy for her and Jyn to sleep comfortably in the same bunk. Those definitely need to be upsized.
Ahsoka drinks more caf, cat-naps while Shresth tries to teach Bana the Aurebesh alphabet (she's much more interested in badgering Jyn for Huttese swearwords) and Jyn monitors the ship, and waits for the twenty-four hours to be up.
Ord Pardron is inhabited, but it's far from as populous as Naboo. It's about as quiet and peaceful as Rebel planets get, which is to say that its military base is large enough to put the Imperials off buzzing the place for fun but small enough not to be worthy of major attention. (Yet.) It's not a popular posting, not because it's insignificant or unglamorous, but because the thinness of its atmosphere makes for a wild climate: nine seasons in one day, scraping mould and ice off X-wings on alternate weeks.
They avoid the base, since it may be monitored by Imperials, but they avoid likewise the wide grasslands: too empty, too little cover. Instead, they set down at a small informal spaceport in the north-eastern quadrant of the planet, where most of the air traffic actually never leaves the stratosphere but traders do occasionally pass through. Hondo Ohnaka hasn't come down in the world so much as slunk into the shadows, the better to preserve his money and his fleet from the Empire, and in his more toned-down outfits he doesn't stand out too much. Neither do Ahsoka and Jyn; they're exactly the kind of people the townsfolk expect to see around, so no-one bats an eyelid.
Hondo did not tone his personality down when he ditched the gold-faced coat, and though he slimmed down his entourage, he is still accompanied by one of those wretched monkey-lizards and by one bodyguard: a pirate in her early thirties, Tholothian, wearing a red headwrap over her tendrils. Her electric blue eyes brighten as she spots Ahsoka, a wave of familiarity sliding against Ahsoka's senses, and she alerts Hondo. He flings his arms wide at the sight of Ahsoka, and exclaims: "Sonera! My, how you've grown!"
Shresth and Bana give Ahsoka identical looks of confusion.
"It hasn't been that long, Hondo," Ahsoka says, suppressing a smile. She has no intention of telling Hondo Obi-Wan is alive - less because she doesn't feel he would like to know and more because… well, Hondo is Hondo, and although Ahsoka's confident he wouldn't give over the information to the Empire, he does like to talk.
"To me it seems only yesterday that you were knee-high to a rancor!" Hondo assures her. "And - well, well, who is this?"
Ahsoka assumes for a second he means Shresth and Bana, which is strange, because Hondo knows exactly which passengers he's supposed to be picking up: Shresth looks somewhat overwhelmed by him and Bana is staring at the Tholothian with a curious, fascinated head-tilt. They should have drawn Hondo's attention, and they haven't, but then she realises: he's looking directly at Jyn, who is lounging behind Ahsoka with her favourite truncheons, looking flat-eyed and impassive. Ahsoka recognises Jyn's distinctive attitude from a number of important meetings: she retreats into herself, and lets people draw whatever conclusions they like, when she suspects something of significance might be about to take place. There are people who believe she's made of stone, and others who think she's an insolent brat, and not insignificant crossover between the two. It's one of the reasons Draven can't stand her. He expects her to be more accommodating, or at least susceptible to intimidation.
"The hired help," Jyn says, without flickering an eyelash or moving a muscle. She has a specific sarcastic deadpan that never fails to make Ahsoka laugh, and she's using it now. Ahsoka suppresses her amusement.
"Kestrel," Ahsoka says. "My right-hand woman."
"You never settle for less than the best! This Kestrel must be impressive."
Jyn lets one eyebrow twitch, but doesn't otherwise move.
Hondo claps his hands together, bows dramatically to Shresth and Bana, and gestures floridly at his ship. "Welcome to my most prized vessel. My first mate, Nina -" he waves at the Tholothian - "will be glad to escort you aboard, and show you to your quarters. Sonera, I simply cannot allow you to leave without showing you my latest acquisitions, and I hope the lovely Kestrel will accompany us?"
Jyn, who has never really taken to any of the compliments Ahsoka's given her on her raw beauty, remains unimpressed.
"I'm sure Kestrel will be happy to," Ahsoka says, exchanging nods with Jyn. "And we'd like to see our passengers safely on their way."
"It's been a long road," Shresth says diplomatically. Bana, whose eyes have gone as wide as saucers, is still staring at Nina. Ahsoka bows her head.
"Travel can be challenging, these days," she says.
"Oh, don't I just know it," Hondo says - not subdued, exactly, Ahsoka hasn't seen Hondo subdued since she told him that although Obi-Wan's name remained at the top of the Emperor's kill list, she hadn't been able to reach her grandmaster since Order 66 and believed him to be dead, but sufficiently quieter that when he brightens up for his next sentence it's noticeable. "But Ohnakas are unconcerned by lawlessness!" He waves his hands and shoos them all towards the ship. "Come, come."
Hondo's ship is well-made and well-run; as much as he likes gilt and baroque detailing, his eye for quality is genuine. Pickings are no less rich under the Empire than they were under the Republic, but with the rule of law tilted heavily in favour of summary justice, the risks are higher. Hondo laughs at risk, which is why he has a covert sideline in helping Force-sensitives escape Imperial persecution.
That, and Katooni. The Tholothian leads Shresth and Bana deeper into the ship without a backward glance, Bana already holding trustfully to her hand, and Ahsoka pretends not to have noticed her, the way she always does. Katooni lives in half-truths and shadows, and hasn't used her real name since she fled the Temple on Coruscant. When Ahsoka found her, two years later, she was already with Hondo, and using the name Nina. She's never told Ahsoka how she got from Coruscant to Florrum, or why Hondo agreed to take her in, but her knowledge of the Undercity is unusually detailed, and Hondo's melodramatic references to the softness of his heart and his compassionate nature disguise genuine concern for her. Neither Hondo nor Katooni ever talks about her arrival, or her decision to join the pirate crew: they just take it for granted that she has always been there, and always pushed Hondo to rescue other children like her.
Katooni has, likewise, never told Ahsoka if she has a student of her own, a padawan, nor has she ever mentioned a knight-master who might have taken her on in that brief period when Ahsoka was separated from the Order before its brutal end. Ahsoka doesn't think Katooni will take Bana as a padawan, but she does think that Katooni had a student somewhere who taught her how children learn, and she hopes Katooni will have time to teach Bana what she's best at. Like many Jedi who are still alive, she is exceptionally good at hiding.
"Wait!" Bana's yelp takes Ahsoka by surprise. She turns, and sees that the little girl has dropped Katooni's hand and is rushing back towards them. To Jyn's visible surprise, it's her Bana flings herself at.
Jyn catches her, awkwardly.
"Are we gonna see you again?" Bana says.
Jyn gives Ahsoka an absolutely helpless look.
"Maybe," Ahsoka says. "But not very soon. I'm sorry, Bana."
Bana turns her face into Jyn and clings for a second. "Thank you," she says, very muffled.
Jyn pats her head awkwardly. "Thank Sonera, kid. I'm just along for the ride."
"That's not true," Shresth says. When Jyn and Ahsoka look at him, he gives them a faint smile and a tiny acknowledging jerk of his head.
Jyn looks down at the kid attached to her. "Well," she murmurs. "Maybe."
"I knew you'd get us out," Bana says. "You're made of kyber."
Jyn stiffens, for reasons Ahsoka doesn't quite get. "Be nice if I were, Bana. I could use being blasterproof." She pushes lightly at the kid's shoulders. "Go on. You go with Nina."
Bana lets go only to throw herself at Ahsoka, who can't resist the temptation to pick her up and swing her around; Jyn ducks swiftly out of the way, but a smile flashes across her face. Bana giggles.
"May the Force be with you," Ahsoka says, and then - as if she knows it for sure, which she doesn't - "We'll see each other again. I believe it."
Bana squeezes tightly, then drops to the floor and runs back to her father. Her smile as she turns her head back to wave at them is full of confidence, not one shadow in it.
"A charming child," Hondo says, as he closes the door to the captain's cabin behind them.
"She's a good kid," Jyn says gruffly. Hondo glances at her for a second, then looks back to Ahsoka.
"Did you have any trouble?"
"A brief run-in with the Inquisitorius," Ahsoka says, dropping down into one of the overstuffed chairs. Jyn sits down next to her, more warily. "Nothing to write home about. They weren't a fully-fledged Inquisitor, and they didn't try to attack me. Their handlers did, but they were just stormtroopers."
"It's true stormtroopers lack the imagination and panache of their predecessors," Hondo acknowledges. Ahsoka smiles, but it's unexpectedly painful. She killed at least one trooper to escape, and there are two or three others who probably won't survive their injuries; the Empire doesn't trouble with quality medical care for junior troopers when there are always more starving and desperate young people to take their places. The care available to non-human auxiliaries, whose service may or may be voluntary, is worse.
"Well," she says. "The Empire doesn't invest in them. Lucky for us."
"Is that what those truncheons are for?" Hondo says to Jyn. "Stormtrooper heads? I always prefer a blaster, myself."
"I'm happy to get up close and personal," Jyn says, with a shrug. "Blaster fire always brings law enforcement running. And a lot of places that don't let blasters in will accept blunt weapons."
"Which is a mistake," Ahsoka adds. "You should see Kestrel fight with them."
Jyn's answering smile is the thinnest of new moons, but Ahsoka can tell she's pleased.
"Maybe one day I will," Hondo says. He claps his hands together and seats himself behind his desk, which is grandiose and doesn't look much used. Hondo has little interest in writing, but he does have an exceptional head for figures. And he employs a good accountant. "Anything I should know about this most interesting young lady Nina will be taking care of?"
"She's a normal kid, so far as I can tell," Jyn says, shrugging again. "Smart. Practical. I mean, she's six, but she's not a liability. Likes to be active, though, so… good luck with that."
"Young Jedi need to be kept busy," Hondo says nostalgically. "Or they get into all kinds of marvellous trouble. Well, we will deal with that as it comes." He puts his feet up on the desk. "We intend to leave very shortly. Our mutual friends are concerned that the Empire was on Jedha when you arrived."
Ahsoka has already discussed this with Draven. He wasn't pleased at all; Ahsoka wouldn't want to be the intelligence officer who was responsible for passing on the tip. "We weren't thrilled either," she says. "It's possible it was a simple scheduling switch. They may have considered it more convenient to bring the Inquisitor onto the surface the night before." She shakes her head. "It wasn't a trap. A trap would have been better planned."
"I am glad to hear it," Hondo says. He's always a little inscrutable, but Ahsoka thinks he's frowning slightly, troubled. "But I have never been a fan of coincidences! You are sure your ship is clean?"
Jyn straightens, clearly offended. Ahsoka presses the back of her hand against the side of Jyn's thigh, the movement hopefully covered from Hondo's view, and feels Jyn subside.
"Certain," she says. "I checked it thoroughly."
"We weren't followed," Jyn says roughly.
"Forgive an old man's little ways," Hondo says, with false penitence. "Running from the authorities is inconvenient - and so often very bad for business!"
"You're telling us," Ahsoka says dryly.
"I was forgetting you have become an entrepreneur!" Hondo's eyes glitter. "Bacta, chiefly, I believe?"
They make small talk for a while, mostly about the perils of commerce. Hondo doesn't run bacta, but he does have a lot of tall tales to tell, some of them possibly true and a few of them instructive. Jyn keeps quiet and watches him through slightly narrowed eyes. Ahsoka relaxes, almost - Hondo isn't entirely safe, of course, she's known that for a long time, but he isn't malicious. He reminds her of a galaxy where she was safer, and where most dangers could be solved quite quickly by Anakin's arrival. Or Obi-Wan's.
Obi-Wan. Half of Ahsoka's mind has wandered to the route to Tatooine she mapped out while waiting for Jyn to return to the Lady Luck from the Holy City, mostly because it means she doesn't have to think about what she'll say when she finally sees him, when there's a sharp knock and Katooni slips in otherwise unannounced. Ahsoka very carefully doesn't jump.
Katooni nods to Hondo. "All settled in, captain, and ready to lift off on your order."
"Excellent, excellent," Hondo says genially, clapping his hands together. "See our guests back to their ship, won't you?" He turns his beady eyes on Ahsoka and Jyn, and rises to give a flourishing bow. His words have weight when he says "Until next time."
Ahsoka smiles as she takes her leave of him. Jyn falls in behind her, and (to Jyn's visible suspicion) Katooni falls into step with Jyn, casual and easygoing. Ahsoka is told that Katooni plays excellent sabacc, and she can believe it. They make their way off the ship - for the first time Ahsoka sees other crew, mostly but not entirely Weequay, preparing the ship to depart - and walk the few hundred metres to the Lady Luck . Ahsoka senses Jyn giving the ship an anxious once-over, as if something could have happened in the half an hour they've been gone, but she doesn't say anything aloud.
"Coming round for tea?" Jyn says to Katooni, extremely sarcastically.
"If I'm invited," Katooni says, with an inflection she clearly learned from Hondo: no actual manners, but plenty of courtesy.
Ahsoka laughs.
"I am trespassing on your time," Katooni says, soulfully, "without new information to give, and yet -"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Jyn says, rapidly losing patience. Still, she's actually talking, which is a good sign. Riyo has never heard more than three words in a row out of Jyn. "You want to talk to Sonera, fine."
The gangway closes behind them.
"Not like I can't figure out why," Jyn adds, awkward but sincere. "There can't be all that many people like you two out there." Ahsoka misses a step with surprise, and senses Katooni's focus narrow and sharpen even as Jyn snaps: "Don't fucking shoot me!"
Katooni has drawn a blaster: Jyn has both truncheons out, and Ahsoka knows from experience that she can break at least one of Katooni's wrists before Katooni has the chance to fire. Ahsoka flexes her fingers and pulls Katooni's blaster from her hand with the Force. "Nina," she says, trying to be steadying and calm. "Kestrel's known about me for years. Do I look like I've been handed in?"
"No." Katooni's hackles aren't settling. "But you still should have kept your fucking mouth shut. Ahsoka -"
"I didn't tell her anything."
"She didn't need to. I guessed." Jyn sheathes her truncheons. "When Bana latched onto you like that."
Katooni gives her a hard look, which Jyn reciprocates.
"Hey," Jyn says. "I've got secrets too. You want to make some spare credits, try handing me in." She spares a glance for Ahsoka. "I'm going to put the caf pot on." She pushes past, and slips into the crew quarters.
It's an empty threat - Katooni can't risk her safety by going anywhere near the Empire - but it's not a meaningless one. Jyn's willingness to show her own vulnerability is an exchange, of a kind. A trade.
Ahsoka is left looking into Katooni's eyes. Katooni is still shorter than her, but she's taller than Jyn, and her eyes are an electric blue not found in unmodified humanity. Still, there's a quality to her stare that reminds Ahsoka of Jyn several years ago. Untrusting. It's painful to see, because Katooni was sweet and open-natured as a youngling, but at the same time Ahsoka respects it. Those of them that have survived have done so because they learned the hard logic of survival.
"You trust her," Katooni says.
"Implicitly," Ahsoka says, and knows at once that there is too much weight to her words. She thinks of Filyns and her papers, Bana and her talents, Ahsoka herself, hungry and tired on Takodana. Jyn paints herself as a cynic, but her essential fabric remains the same. She wants to protect the lost and vulnerable.
"This is probably the time when one of the old masters would start talking about attachment," Katooni says, and almost automatically, Ahsoka thinks of Anakin and Padmé.
It's not the same. The closer she gets to Jyn, the better she understands that: the more she reexamines her memories, and sees them in a different light. Painful, but necessary. What was it Aayla Secura used to say to her, about attachment? Quinlan Vos didn't make the same mistakes Anakin did, to Ahsoka's knowledge, but mistakes there were nonetheless. And Aayla knew how to hold him accountable for them without blaming him, and she had tried to teach Ahsoka. Ahsoka had been too young to listen, perhaps. Or too foolish.
Ahsoka wishes Aayla were still alive; Ahsoka could use a lesson or two now. But Aayla is gone, and so is anyone who might remember her well enough to pass on her principles. Ahsoka doesn't know for certain that Quinlan Vos is dead - he had a better chance than most of disappearing - but Aayla had no padawan, Kit Fisto was killed by the Chancellor, and Bly didn't survive the removal of his chip.
"Trust precludes attachment," Ahsoka says. This much she does know. "Attachment requires selfish control. To trust is to relinquish control."
"Sounds like you've thought a lot about this," Katooni replies, which isn't an answer. "How long?"
"Ask me an easier question," Ahsoka says, because one of the things she's come to realise over long hours of meditation is that that is a question to which she has no answer, either.
Katooni snorts. "Your wife promised me caf," she says, turning away.
"She's not my wife," Ahsoka says, following her up to the galley. "We're not married."
"Sure," Katooni says. "Whatever."
Chapter 22: Ahsoka iiChapter TextJyn and Katooni are getting along better by the time Katooni leaves. She doesn't stay long, and she doesn't say anything important - as she mentioned, she has no special news to pass on - but it's like sitting in the sunlight after days of endless rain, talking to someone else Ahsoka knows to be a Jedi. Or to have once been a Jedi. She and Katooni have talked about that, but they've never come to a conclusion. Katooni follows the precepts of the Order, as the Force leads her; Ahsoka is fairly confident that she has trained students and taught younglings. She doesn't carry a lightsaber - Ahsoka's in an excellent position to know she has one, but Ahsoka hasn't seen it since the Purge - and she probably lists her occupation as pirate , but she also probably makes a better Jedi than Ahsoka.
Funny how that goes.
"We'll see each other again," Katooni says to Ahsoka, as she drains her caf cup and sets it aside. "If you meet anyone else like us…"
"... Don't tell them you exist?" Ahsoka guesses, and gets the gift of a razor-sharp smile.
"Exactly." Katooni hesitates. "But if something happens… Hondo knows where to find all the important stuff."
The important stuff . Objects or relics Katooni collected, perhaps. Or the names and details of other escaped Jedi; the whereabouts of her initiate class - although most are likely dead, if Katooni escaped, she probably wasn't alone. Or the names and abilities of her students.
It's Ahsoka's turn to raise an eyebrow marking. "You trusted him with that?"
"I've trusted him with a lot of things," Katooni says.
"And what do you want me to do with this important stuff? Wipe it? Preserve it?"
"Take better care of it than you took of yourself," Katooni says, sly and sharp, and Ahsoka's breath stops on an exhale.
Jyn laughs, harsh but clear. Katooni winks at her, and Ahsoka realises, to her surprise, that Jyn's grinning.
"Like you can talk," she says to Jyn.
"Takodana," Jyn says in reply. "Bestine. That one weird moon near Bardotta -"
"Those were not my fault," Ahsoka says, with as much dignity as she can muster. She should never have introduced Jyn to Rex: his attitude has rubbed off on her.
"Sure," Katooni says, pickpocketing the blaster Ahsoka took out of Ahsoka's belt so smoothly she doesn't notice until she sees Katooni holster it. Maybe Ahsoka should be concerned about how well-suited Jedi skills are to a life of crime. "Until next time. Kestrel. Sonera."
Katooni lets herself out, and Ahsoka watches through a porthole as Hondo's ship takes off. She has to shield her eyes from the sight of the engine backwash, and the floor rumbles; she leans her head against the wall and sighs.
"You knew her well," Jyn says, washing up the caf cups.
"Fairly." Ahsoka stretches her legs out on one of the long padded benches. "She was a few years younger than me."
"How'd she get away?"
"I don't know," Ahsoka says, and silence spreads between them like an oil slick. There's a lot unspoken in those three words, and while Jyn doesn't know all of it, she knows enough.
"Shit," Jyn says, eventually.
"Pretty much," Ahsoka says, and closes her eyes.
"Are there a lot of you?" Jyn says. "A lot of people like that?"
"No," Ahsoka says. "Maybe. I don't know what you mean by 'a lot'. And I don't know how many there are. It's a big galaxy."
Not every Jedi served with clones; a few Jedi who did escaped the initial Purge, and many Jedi who didn't were caught and killed in the intervening years. Ahsoka heard from the Alliance when Darth Vader murdered Eeth Koth and stole his child before the baby could be evacuated, but she only knows about that because the Empire, for some reason, allowed Mira Koth to escape and she told her story. Jocasta Nu died on Coruscant a few months after the Purge, though they only know about that because Riyo found out how Commander Fox was killed. Still, they were famous names. Ahsoka remembers the scandal when Eeth Koth quit the Order, and everyone knew Madam Nu. Younger Jedi, knights or padawans and a few initiates, might have escaped scrutiny more easily.
There's a possibility - a possibility they have never talked about - that Jyn's mother, with her lightsaber blank, was among them. Jyn is about ten years younger than Ahsoka; conservatively, Jyn's mother must have been about ten to twenty years older than Ahsoka, and presumably, if she was a member of the Order, she left when Ahsoka was an initiate. Ahsoka doesn't remember a knight or padawan by the name of Lyra quitting the Order, but she was mostly wrapped up in lessons, getting into trouble, and hunting whatever she could get her hands on until she was ten or eleven. She might not even have noticed.
Jyn's hand lands lightly on top of Ahsoka's, and Ahsoka winds her fingers with Jyn's and grips. Eyes still closed, she smiles.
"What do you want to do now?" Jyn says.
"Throttle Palpatine," Ahsoka says facetiously.
Jyn doesn't miss a beat. "What do you want to do right now that's actually achievable?"
"Meditate," Ahsoka says. "And then sleep. And then take off."
"I saw you made a flight plan," Jyn says.
Ahsoka did. Destination Tatooine.
She sighs and opens her eyes. "I'm not putting it off any longer," she says. "I don't need to know why he did it to move on from his choices. Or at least the effect his choices have had on me . But I want to see him again."
Jyn scrapes her teeth over her lower lip. "I get it," she says eventually, and in the flicker of her eyes - silvery, in this light - to Ahsoka's and back, Ahsoka sees, as clear as daylight, the memory of Saw Gerrera.
There's a pause. "I'll meditate with you, if you like," Jyn says.
Ahsoka draws her knees up, and rests her arms loosely on top of them. "I thought you preferred to work through your meditation alone?"
Jyn looks away and folds her arms tightly across her chest, discomfort written large on her compact frame.
"I don't ever want you to feel you're not welcome," Ahsoka says gently, spikes of anxiety protruding from her heart.
Jyn tucks her chin hard into her chest, then sucks in an enormous breath and says: "I kept getting angry, and it kept wrecking your meditation."
Ahsoka blinks. It's true that since Bail told Ahsoka of Obi-Wan's continued existence, and Ahsoka had a breakdown in the Great Garden of the Organas' mountain palace, Jyn's anger has welled up and spilled over every time they meditate together. And yes, it's noticeable to Ahsoka. Jyn's anger has a flame-like quality; it reminds Ahsoka of flash fires on the grasslands of Shili. It flares sharp and harsh, and scorches. But Ahsoka has seen much less of it since they signed on with the Lisseeth , which became the Lady Luck , and she's never seen it recur repeatedly the way it recurs when Jyn's mind strays to Obi-Wan, who she's never met. It's anger with deep roots. Ahsoka doesn't even know if Jyn remembers the dreams she's had, dreams which spill across the fine metal partition between their bunks until Ahsoka wakes remembering a bunker she visited only once and a bunker she's never seen, and in both cases, a light that will not stay lit. Except that the figure in the dream is never Jyn: it's Ahsoka herself, seen through different eyes.
Ahsoka doesn't know if Jyn has realised that the roots of her anger with Obi-Wan lie as much in her abandonment by Saw as her love for Ahsoka.
"I didn't mind," Ahsoka says belatedly. "I'd rather you feel you can share your troubles with me than that you feel you have to hide them away."
Jyn blinks those luminous eyes at her, and her mouth falls slightly open. She closes it with a snap, and swallows, and says: "I didn't want to fuck up your meditating. It's not that I didn't think I could talk to you."
"Good," Ahsoka says, and lets her feet slip to the ground, leaves one arm open to the side for Jyn, so she can come and curl into Ahsoka, if she wants to. Jyn is much smaller than Ahsoka, and discovering the ways their disparate angles fit together has been revelatory.
Jyn doesn't immediately accept the invitation. "We met a Guardian of the Whills," she says. "I mentioned him before. His name was Chirrut Ȋmwe. He was blind, but he knew I was wearing a crystal."
Ahsoka blinks in surprise. "Some Guardians of the Whills were Force-sensitive," she says. "At least, Force-sensitive in the Jedi sense." She thinks hard, but she only visited Jedha as a child, and she met few Guardians. She remembers only one distinctly: tall and bulky and gruff, with long dark hair, he scolded her for wandering away from her group without telling her teacher because she wanted to hear the echoes of the crystals singing. But she doesn't remember what his name was. She doesn't think it was Chirrut.
"He was… wise," Jyn says. "He offered safe harbour in return for a sight of the crystal. I showed him."
Ahsoka catches a stunned noise behind her canines. Jyn's reticence about that necklace has been a defining characteristic for… well, for years now.
Jyn hesitates.
"He wouldn't sell you out," Ahsoka says. "I'm confident of that."
Jyn ignores her. "He said Bana dreamed of a woman cloaked in white, and another made of kyber, who would rescue her."
Ahsoka stares at her for a second, a slight frown pulling tension into her forehead. This explains Jyn's hesitation when Bana said she was made of kyber, but it throws up a number of new concerns. "I hope Shresth thinks to tell Nina that," she says. "Visions are difficult. I once spent a week walking into walls because I kept having visions of an assassination on Alderaan. As for the kyber crystal…"
"Do you think it was real?" Jyn says, in a rush. "Do you think it meant anything?"
"Something, maybe," Ahsoka says, leaning forward and reaching for her hand so she can tug Jyn towards the bench. Jyn moves almost distractedly; she folds against Ahsoka's side and swings her legs over Ahsoka's lap like she's somewhere else entirely. Ahsoka wraps an encompassing arm around her shoulders and back. "You never know, with visions." She leans her head against the top of Jyn's; Jyn tangles her fingers with Ahsoka's opposite hand, and runs a thumb over Ahsoka's blaster callouses.
"The strongest stars have hearts of kyber," Ahsoka says, after a second, without quite meaning to. Jyn's head jerks, and she accidentally squashes Ahsoka's lek. Ahsoka winces. As small as she is, Ahsoka has previously observed, Jyn appears to be made entirely of plascrete and rubber, and her skull is particularly hard.
"Sorry," Jyn says. "Sorry, what?"
"It's something I picked up in my lessons, I think," Ahsoka says. "Years ago." She tugs at Jyn's hair until it falls loose, and then runs her fingers through it. "You were telling me about Chirrut Îmwe."
"I talked to him about my anger," Jyn says. "He asked me what was wrong. And I told him. And he asked me… if my anger helped you. And I said you deserved someone to be angry for you."
Ahsoka remembers Anakin's anger on her behalf, and how it had once comforted her, and her arm around Jyn tightens.
"He asked me if you needed my anger to know I cared about you."
Ahsoka lets that sit for a second, and then says: "I don't. I know you care, Jyn. I know I matter to you."
Jyn's hand closes very tightly on Ahsoka's. "I don't think I know how to care about things without getting angry for them."
Pain and pity well up in Ahsoka's heart, and (not for the first time) she wishes she could confront Saw Gerrera, who had the raising of Jyn. Galen and Lyra Erso are shadowy figures to Ahsoka, but presumably they contributed to this too, somehow. Still. Only Saw is alive for Ahsoka to shout at.
"I know you care when you make me eat," Ahsoka says. "I know you care when you make back-up plans for me. I know you care when you check I'm sleeping, and when you wake me from bad dreams. I know you care when you smile at me. I know you care when I wake up, every day, and you're still here. I know you care when you keep my secrets, and trust me with your own. I don't need your anger, Jyn. Still less do I need if it it hurts you."
There's a long pause.
"Chirrut said my crystal was loved," Jyn says, an apparent non-sequitur, until she adds tentatively: "Like me."
"I do love you," Ahsoka acknowledges, and it's easier to say than she thought, as easy as it is to feel. "I've loved you for a long time."
Jyn slides over until she can straddle Ahsoka's lap. Her eyes are very bright, but not burning, and now they look green, the pale green of oceans and rockpools on Naboo.
"I love you, too," she says, and cups Ahsoka's jaw in both her hands and kisses Ahsoka like it's the last chance either of them will get to touch.
When they meditate, Jyn sheds her anger not without difficulty but deliberately. And while Ahsoka sleeps, Jyn sits up in the cockpit with N-8 and keeps watch.
If Jyn thinks Ahsoka can't hear her saying to N-8 "Want to play I-Spy?", she's mistaken. Ahsoka falls asleep with a smile on her face, listening to N-8 bleep and whirr, and Jyn guess at N-8's words.
They take the journey to Tatooine slowly. There is little to no chance of any pursuit, but Ahsoka doesn't play games when lives are at stake, and she watches anxiously for any sign of Imperial tracking. She and Jyn go over the ship regularly, and double-check it every time they land; Jyn, a far better slicer, combs patiently through the ship's code and their droids' systems. She's much more careful with the droids than she used to be.
It's not as if they can't afford to take the time - a very handsome payment for their work retrieving Bana and her father has landed in their bank accounts, roughly contemporary with a commendation from Draven. It contains only a few words of praise and no comments on the information Ahsoka passed on about the stripping of the kyber from the Temple of the Whills or the child Inquisitor. It also reads like it was written through gritted teeth, which it probably was. Draven's deep dislike for Jyn aside, he's never been a fan of Ahsoka, either. Not every Republic officer, whatever became of them after the rise of the Empire, was a fan of the Jedi they worked with.
Apparently Mon Mothma has awarded Ahsoka another medal. She may see it one day, Ahsoka supposes, if she's very lucky.
They need the time, Ahsoka thinks, as their routines return to normal, as they shuffle their bunkrooms back into place - as reassuring as a couple of nights spent sleeping face to face are, the lack of elbow room is still a problem - as Jyn works on letting her anger go, as Ahsoka tries to think of what the hell she's going to say to Obi-Wan. Because one day quite soon she'll get to look him in the face, assuming he hasn't fried to a crisp on Tatooine and Bail just not been made aware of it. She knows where to look, now she knows what she sensed on Tatooine was truth rather than grief; she sleeps more frequently and for shorter periods, and almost every time she does the Force shows her the Jundland Wastes, which she's only seen from the air, and a home carved high in the reddish yellow rock of the canyons. The dream always ends before she opens the front door, but sometimes it starts with two suns rising, and becoming so bright, their orbits crossing in the sky, they look like a single overwhelmingly bright star.
Two suns. Like something about that is significant. Ahsoka puzzles over it as she peels herself out of bed and reheats the caf Jyn made earlier, yawning wide and leaning her forehead against the chiller as she tries to think it through. Two suns. Is Anakin one of them, and Obi-Wan the other? Or, no; Anakin and Leia? Anakin and Luke? Luke and Leia?
Two suns. Why is that so important? Why are suns so important? What about the star? Is Anakin supposed to be the star?
Jyn drops something in the next room. Ahsoka jumps, spills caf everywhere, and swears in pungent Mando'a. Rex would be proud. Padmé, the first person to get stuck with Ahsoka's visions, would be resigned. Ahsoka still flushes with embarrassment when she remembers that truly awful week spent crashing around a conference centre on Alderaan, plagued by visions of someone assassinating Padmé which were far more of a hindrance than a help. She made a tremendous mess, embarrassed Padmé, and narrowly avoided missing Aurra Sing entirely.
"Okay?" Jyn calls.
"Just clumsy," Ahsoka sighs, waving the caf into a puddle and the puddle into the waste disposal. There's enough left for a mug; she fills it. "I spilled caf everywhere." She leaves the galley to find Jyn cleaning weapons; she'd dropped a deactivated blaster cartridge, hands slippery with oil.
Jyn only has to catch Ahsoka's eye for Ahsoka to know she's come to some kind of decision. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," Jyn says, like she's surprised, and eyes Ahsoka up and down. "I was going to go to bed in an hour, but - look, drink your caf, I want to talk to you."
It's with a vague sense of foreboding that Ahsoka takes her caf into the cockpit to drink it. They're in orbit near A-Foroon, passing handily for part of the asteroid belt; bands of electromagnetic interference play out as an attractive yellow and blue light-show around its nearest pole, and Ahsoka watches while she sips at her drink, feet up on the console. Behind her, she can hear Jyn finishing her work, packing her weapons away, and - Ahsoka leans back and focusses on the echoes she gets through her montrals - walking away to clean her hands. It's always harder to sense these things onboard ship, with so much competition, but knowledge of Jyn fills in each little gesture.
She doesn't need that knowledge to know Jyn is returning to the cockpit.
"You were thinking," Ahsoka prompts, feeling much more able to deal with whatever's about to happen now she's finished her caf. She's not actually sure caffeine has that much effect any more, but her mind tells her body she should feel more awake despite her wildly disrupted sleep, so she is.
Jyn drops into the co-pilot's seat. "Kids like Bana," she says, and the words sound hesitant, but there's a certainty behind them. "Are there a lot of them?"
"A few," Ahsoka says. "Why?"
"If there were more missions," Jyn says. "Like that. I'd take them. You don't have to ask."
That takes Ahsoka by surprise. She lowers her cup slowly to her lap. "There aren't many," she says cautiously. "There are others, linked, related to the Jedi artefacts I look for when I can, or to other people like Nina, or myself." Ahsoka thinks of what she knows of Hera Syndulla, and the first mate who flies with her, about whom Ahsoka knows very little and has a strange feeling she should know more of. "They're rare. I've always wanted to do more, but, well… Any nascent Jedi Order would be crushed by the Emperor, at the present state of play."
"Maybe it won't always be like that," Jyn says. She's not looking directly at Ahsoka. "And in the meantime… I'd be on board, for missions like that."
Ahsoka's touched, but she also knows there's something else behind this. "You realise that in order to take those missions on a planned basis, the Rebellion would insist you sign up," she says, probing as carefully as she can. "As an affiliate member, at least."
"I thought of that," Jyn says. She folds her arms and shrugs. "I can live with it."
Jyn picked Bana up like she was - not her own child, Jyn isn't exactly maternal, but like she saw something in Bana that she wanted to protect. Ahsoka watches her profile, trying to find the words. She still knows little of Jyn's past; Jyn still knows little of hers, unless she's actually done a proper search on Ahsoka Tano, disgraced Jedi padawan (her exoneration is always written in small print). The thing is that they know more of each other than anyone else living does - even Obi-Wan; even Saw.
Jyn wouldn't have held Bana like that if she didn't see some important echo in the child. Jyn has always been careful of children, on every mission they've taken, but this is not mere care for younglings. It's particular to Jyn.
"Someone had to get us off Coruscant," Jyn blurts, sharp and harsh edges to the words.
"Before Lah'mu?" Ahsoka asks carefully, and watches Jyn nod.
"I think it was Saw," Jyn volunteers, after a while. "I was Bana's age. Maybe a bit older."
A long pause.
"I'll see if it can be done," Ahsoka says. "I think it's a good idea." She looks back out at the planet; the electromagnetic interference has changed to purple and orange. "Something's changing - everyone we've talked to over the last few months has had more proof of it. Something's coming. Running bacta isn't going to be enough."
"More doom-mongering," Jyn says, but now there is uncertainty in her voice.
"If it is the will of the Force," Ahsoka says sententiously, purely to hear Jyn snort and tell her to shut up. She smiles. "Get some sleep. You have bags under your eyes like a Mon Calamari."
"Rude," Jyn says, and kisses the top of a montral as she goes past.
"I'm going to put us into hyperspace," Ahsoka calls back over her shoulder.
"Well, see you on Tatooine, then," Jyn yells back, and curses as she trips over the edge of the crew hatch.