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 22 here.
Chapter 23: Static
Kendra opened her eyes. Or one eye; something was wrong with the right one against the ground. Or maybe she wasn’t awake. She wasn’t sure. It was too bright. Where was she? What was that ringing? Everything was blurry in her left eye.
She reached out to the Force, but couldn’t remember… something. Something with words. She thought of a lake for some reason, but it was nothing but huge, choppy waves, and her stomach flipped. Bile rose in her throat, and she cough-choked, sending the burning into her nose.
Kendra tried to pull herself up to her hands and knees, but the ground shifted too quickly beneath her, and her face sank back into the mud. It was too cold. Pain shot from above her right eye to the base of her neck, and the rest of her head felt too full.
“Stay down, Kendra.” A woman.
A shadow fell over her vision.
“She’s no threat to you.” The woman’s voice pleaded.
A male voice. “There’s been enough death today. Leave her, Shin.”
The shadow passed.
“Just go back to sleep, kid.” The woman again. Was that Sabine? “Do the healing.”
The man’s voice was closer. “Rest now, little healer. The fight is over.”
Something warm and soothing washed over her senses. The lake settled. She wanted to get up, but her will left her as darkness returned.
“Kendra.” Another woman. “Kendra, can you hear me?”
Kendra was on her back. Everything was cold, stiff, and sore like she’d been there for some time. Nothing hurt as badly as her head, and she moved her hand toward her eyes to block the light.
“Let’s not touch that right now.” The voice felt familiar. The hand that guided her arm back down was gentle.
Kendra forced her left eye open. “Hera?” A blurry Hera hovered over her face, with a blurry Huyang standing behind her.
“Good, you’re awake,” blurry Hera said. Her words were blurry, too. “Don’t touch your forehead until we get you cleaned up. No need to add an infection to the head trauma.”
“Where am I?” Kendra looked around and tried to pull herself up. She needed to get up. There was something she was supposed to do, but she wasn’t sure what. Or had she already done it?
Hera put an arm on her shoulder to stop her. “Slow down here.”
“We had a fight.” She remembered an orange lightsaber. There was rain. “With Baylan.”
“It does look like that,” Hera said.
Huyang said, “It also looks like you lost.”
“I don’t know,” Kendra said. The pain in her head indicated they had lost, or at least she had. She moved to her elbows again, slowly, and this time Hera did not stop her. “Where are Ahsoka and Sabine?”
“Unknown,” Huyang said. His voice made her right ear hurt. “I take it you did not see them.”
“I don’t know,” Kendra said. Her brain didn’t seem to be working right. “I don’t think I know.”
“What is the last thing you remember clearly?” Hera asked.
Kendra thought back. Her last clear memory was on the ship. “They told me not to shoot the space whales. I threw up. Sabine said she wouldn’t clean it.”
Hera stifled a chuckle. She was growing less blurry, at least.
“Yesterday,” Huyang said. “Before we landed. You then left the ship to find the enemy base, here. No one cleaned up your vomit.”
“Yes. Okay, yes. I had a beacon.” Kendra moved up from her elbows into a sitting position. Her head throbbed, but the ground was easier to look at than the sky. She looked down at her belt, where she had hung the beacon. It wasn’t there. “I planted it.”
“I located it, and you,” Huyang said. “I think Ahsoka and Sabine must have done the same.”
“They were here,” Kendra remembered, though it was fuzzy. She wasn’t certain. “Or Ahsoka was, before… I think that Baylan hit me with his lightsaber hilt.”
“That would explain the knot on your head,” Hera said.
“Is it bad?” Kendra asked. It definitely hurt, but she couldn’t discern the amount of damage.
“Well, you’re awake,” Hera said. “So it isn’t as bad as it looks.”
“But it does not look good at all,” Huyang added.
Hera cast a glare at the droid. “I’m going to help you stand up. Slowly. I think you’ll feel better on the ship.”
Kendra nodded and immediately regretted it. She let Hera guide her to a standing position, though. Her right knee shook of its own accord, keeping her off balance.
The ruins looked the same, but brighter in the daylight. Hera’s shuttle had landed nearby, and Huyang had moved Ahsoka’s shuttle next to the ruins. Jacen stood next to that droid she’d met, looking concerned.
“Huyang,” Hera said. “What do you mean, no one cleaned up the vomit?”
“We cleaned up most of it in the cockpit, but there wasn’t time to clean the gun turret.”
“Two places?” Hera asked. “And it has just been sitting there?”
“Chopper,” Kendra said.
“What?” Hera looked to the droid, confused.
“No, I just remembered his name.”
“Oh.” Hera ducked under Kendra’s arm to support her. “That is a good sign.”
Kendra started the slow plod toward the shuttles. Hera steered her toward Ahsoka’s ship. Every step required far more thought than it should have.
“And what of Lady Wren?” Huyang asked.
“Uh…” There was something with Sabine in her head. The Mandalorian had made fun of her for throwing up. She’d fixed the ship. Something more recent floated at the edge of her memory, though. She’d told Kendra to stay down.
“Let’s wait until she sits back down,” Hera said.
“No,” Kendra said. “I think I heard her. It was after he’d hit my head, though. I think both she and Baylan spoke to me.”
“Both of them?” Huyang asked.
“I feel like he protected me from someone,” Kendra said. “I’m not sure, though.”
“Interesting,” Huyang said.
They made it to the bottom of the ramp. Kendra stopped. She wasn’t sure she could lift her legs high enough to tackle a ramp. Her knee continued to vibrate uncontrollably. Why wasn’t anything working?
She reached for the Force and felt it was there, but her connection seemed jumbled like a comms device with intermittent static. It shook like her knee. Frustrating yet comforting at the same time. Kendra started up the ramp.
“We’ll get you settled and then continue our search for Ahsoka,” Hera said.
“I can help,” Kendra couldn’t walk on her own, couldn’t think clearly, and couldn’t see out of one eye, but was absolutely certain she had to help find Ahsoka.
“No,” Hera said. “You have a concussion. You need to rest.”
“I might be able to find her with the Force.” Kendra pulled away from Hera briefly, fell back into her support immediately.
“No,” Hera repeated. “You’re going to lie down.”
“But what if she’s out there?”
“She’d tell you to lie down,” Hera said. “Don’t you Jedi have protocols for concussions or something?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Kendra said.
“I would,” Huyang said. “Jedi returning from an engagement with a head injury must be monitored for increasing symptom load and prevented from physical activity more strenuous than using the refresher for at least 24 standard hours. Meditation is encouraged, but the Force should not be actively used for the same time period. Training and/or missions may not be resumed for at least seven days.”
“There you have it.” Hera helped her through the training room.
“Furthermore,” Huyang continued, “the Jedi should be watched closely to ensure they do not violate these orders. Especially if they are padawans.”
“I think you made that up,” Kendra mumbled as Hera eased her into her bed.
Hera pulled Kendra’s boots off and adjusted the blanket. “Huyang, get her some painkillers going.”
“I don’t know if I need that,” Kendra said. She needed to be able to function to look for Ahsoka.
“And a sedative, if she argues about it.” Hera pushed Kendra’s hair off her forehead. “And before you complain, I’m a General, so that’s an order.”
“I could just take this ship and do it myself.” Kendra knew the absurdity of what she was saying, but wanted to argue.
“Good luck with that,” Hera said. “But as a precaution, I claim this planet for the New Republic. I also commandeer Ahsoka’s shuttle for the New Republic’s use. Now, lie down and follow orders.”
Kendra relaxed into the bed even as she struggled to come up with a new argument. Ahsoka was still out there, somewhere. And she had things she wanted to ask her now, though she couldn’t quite remember what they were.
If she healed herself enough, perhaps she could talk Hera into letting her help sooner than planned. All she needed to do was meditate.
Closing her eyes for meditation immediately led to sleep, however, and Kendra took her third nap of the day.
“Anakin became a Sith Lord.”
“Stay down, Kendra.”
“I am not cleaning that up for you.”
“She’s no threat to you.”
“Has she told you about him?”
“There’s been enough death today. Leave her, Shin.”
“Do the healing.”
“Are you good at being a fighter?”
“Again.”
“Anakin became a Sith Lord.”
Past conversations moved like water around Kendra’s mind as she fell in and out of sleep. She thought Huyang must have given her something more than the painkiller, but she wasn’t awake long enough to decide.
She dreamed of Ahsoka fighting Baylan. Then Ahsoka fighting another man. Ahsoka fighting Sabine. Ahsoka fighting a space whale. Ahsoka fighting herself.
She dreamed of Edith.
“And you would have tried. But now the Force wills you to go with Ahsoka.
“You must follow the will of the Force.”
“Ready? No one is ever ready. We’re never ready, and it is never safe, but we’re still needed.”
“The Force will be with you. Always.”
“Go with her. When the time comes, go with Ahsoka.”
Rustling pulled her from slumber. Things were not quite as blurry in her left eye, and there was a sliver of light in the right. The dim lights illuminated Hera’s back, hovering over the other bed. Huyang stood in the doorway, waiting.
Kendra did not try to move; she was still very tired. Her head was better, or at least she thought so. Everything was so sore. She lay on her side and watched as Hera tended to someone.
The other woman backed up enough to show the occupant – Ahsoka.
“You found her.” Kendra did stir at this, though not as much as she would have liked. “Is she okay?”
“She is not conscious,” Huyang said. “But otherwise seems fine.”
“She should have drowned,” Hera whispered. “She was in the water for almost an entire day.”
“Jedi can be surprising.” Huyang looked at Kendra’s head. “That looks better than expected. It seems the Force applies your healing skills even when you are not awake.”
“I guess.” Kendra studied Ahsoka’s sleeping form. It was more at peace than she’d ever seen the other woman. “Any sign of Sabine?”
“No,” Huyang said.
“Do you need to use the refresher?” Hera asked her.
“No.” Kendra did not want to get up at all.
“Then you need more water. I’ll get you some.”
“I’m fine, Hera,” Kendra protested.
Hera walked out of the room anyway. “You’ll drink water, or we’ll give you an IV. That’s an order.”
“Hydration is very important for a concussion.” Huyang nodded along with himself.
Kendra sighed. “And what if I do use the refresher?”
Hera came back. “Good, that would be very good. And then you can have more water.”
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