Not Her

Chapter 16

Her body's dead. She doesn't know why they're trying to save it. They shouldn't bother. It's nothing but a waste of resources. They should gift her body to a science laboratory and be done with it; don't even bother with a Jedi funeral. The cost of shipping her bones and skin to Coruscant just isn't worth the hassle.

Bodies are kind of useless when she thinks about it. Really, they're just soul carriers. Without her limbs and torso and head and spine, Ahsoka is still Ahsoka. She still feels her admiration for Anakin, her respect for Obi-Wan and love for her clone brothers. A body can't do that.

Now she looks back at it, there was no reason to be upset about losing her leg. She could lose every limb and still feel like herself.

It's ironic that she needed to die to realise this.

///

Anakin never thought he'd lose Ahsoka. Yes, she's had too many close calls for a girl of her age, but he never actually thought she might die one day. That day is today.

When the Blue Shadow Virus ravaged his men, Ahsoka survived. When she was kidnapped by Trandoshan hunters, Ahsoka survived. When she was shot by a bounty hunter and fell off a rooftop, she survived.

Why now?

Masters always die before their Padawans, and if their Padawans die first, it's the sign of a bad teacher. He's failed her.

"I've failed her," he mutters, tears blurring his vision as he sits on his hands and knees.

///

Padmé's never been a good sprinter, but she runs like the universe is ending.

It is.

She heard the call come through from a nearby Nabooian Guard: Count Dooku has just killed Commander Tano.

She picks up her speed, heels wobbling in the cracks of the cobblestones as she passes through the corridors, pushing unknowing citizens out of the way without apology. She wishes she misheard the bulletin, but the impending sense of doom in her chest tells her that Ahsoka Tano is dead.

The Jedi Padawan who is months away from taking her Knight Trials. The Commander who soon will become a General. The Chosen One's student who will teach her own Padawan someday. The girl who has her entire life ahead of her...

Gone.

Padmé feels the smack of cobblestone against her knees before she registers herself falling. She pants, feeling herself losing control of her emotions as she staggers to her feet and starts to run again. Her palms sting, and her knees are definitely cut and bleeding, but none of that matters.

Ahsoka Tano has just been killed.

Her heart has stopped.

She's dead.

///

You are not dead, young one.

Ahsoka fights the voice in her head. The Force wills what it wills. From the day she was born, this was her fate. She was supposed to die in the arms of Anakin and Obi-Wan. Really, she couldn't fault the way she died.

She always wanted a lightsaber to kill her, and Dooku delivering the killing blow is just the icing on the cake, as cliché as it sounds.

I will not let you die, young one.

Bog off, she wants to say, but without a body, she can't speak. It's quite nice, just floating with her thoughts. She wonders if eternity will be like this, or will her thoughts die too? Ahsoka doesn't like the sound of that.