The Padawan and the Rebel

The Padawan: Capture (Part Three)

She could hear them murmuring in the halls of the Jedi Temple.

She knew the only reason they had let her stay stagnant for a week after her rescue was because they wanted her to learn how to Force Cloak, how to bend the light and not puke from it, but still she saw the truth. She heard the whispers through the walls.

She is a wraith. A ghost.

What did they do to her? Nothing good.

She has to stand. Fight.

Someone has to do something.

Adhara meditated, and pretended she was not a person but a piece of the Force and that she had not been broken over and over again. She pretended she was fine, like she'd told Ahsoka she was.

She wasn't.

And it was all she could do to keep the nightmares away, to keep herself from falling apart. Mediating all day sometimes still wasn't enough to keep the evils from her mind.

They were the depths of the ocean, dragging her down. She couldn't see, couldn't feel anything else.

Someone save me.

Ahsoka came into Adhara's room, eyes blazing, and Adhara could sense the rage in Ahsoka's aura. She opened her eyes, drawing herself out of her stupor enough to look at her friend.

"Ahsoka."

"Adhara."

"Can I help you with something?" Her senses became more alert, and she realized that Ahsoka was absolutely seething, her hands balled into fists at her side. Her eyes were blue like a storm, raging and desperate.

"Ash?" There was real fear in Adhara's voice.

Ahsoka's broke as she finally choked out the words that were blocking her throat. "Where have you been?"

Adhara furrowed her brow. "What?"

"You have been gone for days, locked somewhere inside of your head." Ahsoka'a chest heaved, and her eyes were great blue pools of sadness. "Where are you? Why aren't you coming back?"

Now it was Adhara's voice that broke. "Ahsoka."

Ahsoka dropped to her knees before Adhara, and still those bags remained under her eyes. Was she sleeping enough? Or had she spent the past seven days constantly fretting over Adhara, waiting for her to return when she seemed so far away? It split Adhara's soul wide open.

"Tell me where you are."

"I am lost." The words were a breath, whispered in truth. But Ahsoka was the only one who knew her, and the only one she could bare her soul to.

Ahsoka's face crumpled, and she grabbed Adhara's hand. "I have found you. Come back to me."

"I don't think I can."

"Why?"

The words were choked. "Because it will drown me if I do. It will tear me apart. I cannot face it."

"Adhara, please." She squeezed Adhara's hand, as if that could bring her back. Adhara had never heard so much desperation in Ahsoka's voice, had never seen it written so plainly across her face. "I didn't rescue you to lose you again. Come back from this place, and we will face it together. I promise."

Adhara knew it was not an easy thing to promise. Not when Ahsoka had likely heard what had happened to Adhara from Trap, had heard of her horrors. But still, she was willing to bear it like the weight of the sky. She would take Adhara's pain onto her shoulders, to free her.