This is an Ahsoka fanfiction. It kicks off before the show, will extend through the end of season one, and hopefully conclude with post-show content before season two of the real thing airs. Let me know how I’m doing in the comments!
I’ve started loading chapters into Archive of Our Own. Let me know if you follow over there!
Rating: General, Spice Level: None
Characters/Tags: Original Character, Master and Apprentice Relationships, Original Female Character, Original Jedi Character, Ahsoka Tano, Huyang
Read Chapter 18: Right Reasons
Chapter 19 – Hospital Hangovers
Kendra opened her eyes and found herself in her bed aboard Ahsoka’s ship. She thought she felt better the morning after the fight with the Tarnox. She swallowed, her mouth feeling dry and her throat sore.
“You are awake.” Huyang’s voice was far too loud.
Kendra pulled the blanket up around her shoulders and closed her eyes again, hoping it would help her splitting headache. It did not. “What happened?”
“You exhausted yourself healing Sabine Wren after she was attacked by the woman we assume to be Baylan Skoll’s apprentice.”
Images of the night before flashed in her memory, and she would have sworn she still smelled burnt flesh. Sabine had fallen, Kendra had healed her, and medics had taken her away. “Is she okay?”
“Yes, thanks to you,” Huyang said. “She is in the hospital and expected to recover.”
“What happened before all that?”
“Sabine opened the map, but was attacked. The map is now gone.”
“Oh.” She thought she might throw up, though that was unrelated to the news about the map. Master Edith and Ahsoka had both warned Kendra against expending too much of herself while healing, but she was alive, and not in the hospital. Everything did hurt, however. “Am I okay?”
“Yes. You have been asleep for many hours. Ahsoka recommends you eat on rising, taking care to hydrate. Then she suggests you take a nap.”
Kendra rolled to her side, muscles protesting with each move. “Sounds like I am a toddler.”
“By comparison to her, you are, when it comes to using the Force.”
“Thank you, Huyang.”
“I am sure she will have more to say when she sees you.”
“I look forward to the lecture.” Kendra’s headache flared as if in response.
Huyang bent forward and straightened the blankets around her. “While there are doubtless many ways to improve your technique, what you did is very impressive. Not many are gifted with such an ability to heal, and Lady Wren may not have survived without your aid.”
Kendra closed her eyes. “What if I skip to the napping part now?”
“That will work,” Huyang replied. “I will bring you some water.”
~~~
Kendra squinted against the bright sunlight streaming through the large window at the end of Sabine’s hospital room. Everything still hurt, but Ahsoka needed the ship to fly somewhere to investigate, and she’d left Kendra and Huyang to watch over her wounded former padawan. She poked at an overcooked carrot on her tray from the cafeteria with a fork and tried to ignore the woman glaring at her.
“No carrots from where you are from?” This was Sabine’s longest sentence since Kendra had sat down across from her bed.
“No hospitals,” Kendra said. “So no cafeteria food. Would you like them?”
“No. Something about having plasma bore a hole through my gut has ruined my appetite.”
The lightsaber did not hit anything overly critical, Kendra had learned. The medics were able to save almost all of the intestinal function, thanks to a variety of Imperial and Clone War tech. She didn’t mention that now, of course, as a recovering rebel didn’t need to hear about the Empire. Instead, Kendra set the tray on the floor next to her chair. She’d find crackers later.
Sabine scooted up in the bed and grimaced. She straightened the drab blue patient scrubs around her and pulled the blanket up.
“Does it still hurt?” Kendra asked.
Sabine rested her hand over her stomach. “Not exactly. It isn’t comfortable and feels weird when I move. I’m also sore all over.”
Kendra had been sore after the Tarnox and again after the droid on Arcana. Apparently, that didn’t go away with more experience. “How did it, uh, happen?”
“How did I lose? Well, she swung her lightsaber, and I swung mine, and she was just better at it.” Sabine looked out the window as a cargo ship flew past. “Huyang told me… Thank you, for healing me.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Is that why you’re hungover now?” Sabine asked.
“What?”
Sabine smirked. “You look and act like you had enough Corellian whiskey last night to knock down a bantha.”
“Oh.” Kendra rubbed her hands on her pants. “I don’t know. I overdid it, I guess. I expect to hear from Ahsoka about it later.”
Sabine’s smile faded. “Are you her padawan now?”
“No,” Kendra said. She didn’t need the Force to sense the hurt coming from Sabine. “My master is Edith Galloway.”
“So what are you doing?” Sabine winced as she waved her arm to indicate here, the planet.
“Getting experience,” Kendra remembered healing Evan, how she’d lost connection with everything else and nearly gotten herself killed by the Nexu. She had done the same thing when healing Sabine; if the dark Force user had returned, she wouldn’t have known or been able to protect herself.
“But she didn’t take you today?”
Kendra tried to avoid the hint of accusation in Sabine’s voice, but some defensiveness crept into her tone. “Apparently, she thinks your healing is more important.”
Sabine rolled her eyes. “Or somebody needs to keep an eye on me.”
Ahsoka had only said “stay with her” when she departed. Kendra assumed that meant to help with any healing or if she needed anything. She wasn’t sure what she’d do if a Mandalorian no longer wished to remain in the hospital or get into more trouble.
Unsure of what else to say, Kendra looked at the floor. “I am glad you’re okay.”
“Lot of good it did us,” Sabine said.
Silence fell between the two women. Sabine continued to stare out the window. Kendra looked at the floor. This wasn’t going as well as she’d hoped her first conversation with Sabine would go. Maybe the fight and stab wound was making her more surly.
“Hera said hello,” Kendra offered, finally. “I got to meet Jacen, too.”
Sabine’s soft smile returned. “I miss them. How tall is he now?”
“Almost up to my shoulder.” Kendra guessed; she hadn’t been standing at all when Jacen stood.
“I bet he’ll be tall, like his dad, Kanan.”
Kendra recalled the painting at the memorial. “He was Ezra’s master, right?”
“Yep.”
“Did you paint the mural?”
“I did.”
“I like it,” Kendra said.
Sabine grunted and resumed looking out the window.
“How is Ahsoka doing these days?” Sabine asked. “She said she’s still living on that ship.”
How was she doing? Kendra hadn’t ever really considered the question. Ahsoka had been the same since she met her on Celestoria. Few things seemed to bother the older woman. “I don’t know, really. She seems fine?”
“Same old Ahsoka, then. Must like training you more than me if she hasn’t left.” Sabine didn’t attempt to hide the sarcasm. And hurt.
The ever-present question of what had happened between master and apprentice surfaced again, and Kendra considered asking. Was there ever a good time to ask that question, especially with a stranger? She decided against it, and another silence took hold of the room.
Maybe what had happened didn’t matter. There wasn’t anything to do about it now anyway, at least for Kendra. The only skill she had was healing… “She didn’t chase the map.”
Sabine’s head snapped to look at her. “What do you mean?”
“She could have chased that woman, maybe stopped her,” Kendra said.
Another grunt.
“She stopped for you,” Kendra said. “You two are still connected, through the Force.”
“You talk to Huyang at all about that? I have no Force abilities.”
Kendra said, “Everyone is connected to the Force, and through the Force.”
“Oh? If you could’ve unlocked the map yourself, would Ahsoka have come here? Was I part of the plan? Was she going to tell me about Ezra or was this little reunion Hera’s idea?”
Kendra inhaled and stared at her shoes.
“See. She wasn’t even thinking about me,” Sabine said. “I never had the talent, the abilities. Not like Ezra.”
The Force stirred when she mentioned Kendra, like a rock thrown into her mental lake. “You are connected to him, too. I can feel it.”
“That hasn’t done me any good either, now has it?”
This wasn’t going well at all. “Would anything help today?”
“Maybe some Corellian whiskey.” Sabine stifled a yawn. “What’s your story, anyway?”
“I’m from Celestoria. Master Edith took me in when my mother died and trained me while we avoided the Empire.”
“Avoiding the Empire was probably pretty hard. But that’s why you need more experience?”
“I’m not good at anything. Other than healing.”
“That came in handy,” Sabine said.
“I am… no good at fighting.”
“Yeah? Get stabbed recently? Lose a war-starting map? Get abandoned during your padawan training?” Even laying in bed with a recently healed lightsaber wound, the Mandalorian’s sarcasm held a level of confidence Kendra did not think she could match. “See, I’m considered good at fighting and still lost. It ain’t everything.”
“Well, I’m not sure I would have even tried to fight that woman. I ran away from one of the droids on Arcana.”
Sabine glanced at Kendra’s lightsaber. “Why don’t you know how to fight?”
“Master Edith is,” Kendra paused, “old. She couldn’t train me, not as well as she wanted. I practiced against some floating target droids.”
“That helps with blaster fire.” Sabine tried not to yawn again and failed.
“But not against lightsabers. Or creatures. Or droids.” Kendra slumped in her chair. “What’s being good at that like?”
Sabine thought for a moment. “Difficult.”
“Difficult?”
“Years of training and discipline and practice.” Sabine eased back into the pillows. “Then using it over and over again, never quite finding the calm in battle you have in practice, but somehow muddling through and not dying.”
“Experience,” Kendra said.
“Experience. No skipping it.” She shifted and winced. “Sorry, kid.”
“I’d like to not die in the meantime,” Kendra said. “Or get anyone else killed.”
“That would be ideal,” Sabine said. “But hey, saved one person at least. Any others?”
“One. A kid at home.”
“Kids count twice.” Sabine closed her eyes.
“You should get some rest.” Kendra gently applied some healing through the Force; not nearly enough to drain her, but enough to soothe both her head and some of Sabine’s aches.
If Sabine noticed, she didn’t comment as she slid deeper into the bed and sighed. “That sounds like a good idea.”
The conversation hadn’t gone as well as she’d hoped, but at least it ended without the hostility it had started with. Kendra closed her eyes as well, sinking deeper into her meditation.
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