Lux spent the next week avoiding her, showing his face only when absolutely necessary and speaking to her even less than that. Ahsoka let him, and filled the time with meetings with potential allies, using the Amavikkas and a handful of Kuro's friends amongst the slaves as intermediaries. Kyzeron's construction and factory workers were beaten down but willing to listen, and the hopeful light in their eyes when she elaborated on her plans cheered her. Kyzeron's slaves were a tougher crowd initially, but easier to sway in the end, because they had even less left to lose.
Still, a single, troubling thread of continuity linked Ahsoka's every encounter with Kyzeron's long-suffering and put-upon. The people in the villages deep in the wilderness had only ever felt they could rely on each other; the resources and social services of the cities were a distant dream, and had been for some time. The city folk always wanted to know who she had backing the brave Lady Kindness, and how she was going to get her project off the ground without money. And they had a point.
In the villages, security measures were a lot more lax, even if they were often beyond the village people's ability to circumvent. In Kyzeron, the Empire and the Great Houses had more assets to defend, and paid more to protect them properly. Stealing information and resources from them would take the skills of a Jedi or a very well-trained professional, and Ahsoka couldn't be everywhere at once.
She'd already known she was in over her head, but only now was it sinking in that Ahsoka might have bitten off more than she could chew in trying to liberate an entire planet singlehandedly. Unless she could find another third party to supply her with the resources she needed, she'd have to go to the Rebellion for help. The only other person she could think of who might be interested was Lux, and she'd already promised herself she would give him time.
The Rebellion was full of Jedi and Republic military officers, but Ahsoka had to have faith they'd help her where Lux and Onderon had been failed once before.
She began mentally drafting a formal plea for aid as she made the walk from the servants' entrance of Noreino House up to Lux's suite. Only his quiet squeak of surprise stopped her from plowing into him as she opened the door to his bedroom.
For a moment, she stared at him, trying to figure out what to say. Just beyond the threshold, Lux was similarly frozen, a brimming cup of caf in one hand and the other looped precariously around three datapads with a knuckle poised to open the door from his side. It was past midafternoon, but he looked impossibly tired. Had he been sleeping when she left for the morning's meeting? Had he slept at all this past week? It rankled her that she had no idea.
"Lux," she began, then stopped. Everything she could think of to say to him felt cheap and lacking, too small to cover what she'd said and done.
He opened his mouth and closed it again, averting his eyes. She didn't think she'd heard him say her name – well, not her name, but the one she'd given him – once since before the dogfight with the Elites.
"How are you doing?" she said at last. It still felt cheap, but it was something to fill the silence before he started making excuses and fled.
The shield of decorum and good manners slid up between them, then dropped again as Lux sighed. "I don't know," he said quietly.
"Any different since... well..." Ahsoka cleared her throat. "You told me a week ago that it wasn't the right time."
He shook his head. "No. I've been trying not to think about it. It's childish of me to hide away so I can pretend nothing is wrong, but if relying on an illusion is the only way I can focus on my work..."
Ahsoka nearly brought up the database with Senator Organa's callsign. She kept her lips shut by the barest margin. Now was absolutely not the time.
"Can we talk about it?"
"Alynna–"
"You can tell me I'm wrong if you'd like. You can rage at me, scream at me, whatever the hell. You'd be right to do it. But pretending you're fine isn't working," Ahsoka rambled. "I told you once that sometimes the best way through things that have hurt you is to make them your own, discuss them on your own terms."
Lux shook his head. Ahsoka cut him off before he could speak. "Whatever you need to say. Really, whatever, no matter how hurtful you have to be about it. I'll listen." She nearly reached for his hands, full as they were. His guarded expression stopped her. "I'm just desperate to fix this."
"I... don't know if we can. I'm hurt. Very hurt. Dooku betrayed me once, and if you knew the half of how deeply I came to hate him for it..." Lux breathed a laugh, looking everywhere but her face.
"Would taking you to bed help?" she tried, the last card she had up her sleeve.
Lux didn't so much as raise an eyebrow. "Here I was hoping you'd try to earn my trust back, and you try to bribe me with sex? Very creative," he said dryly.
Ahsoka wilted. "I– you're right. I'm sorry. Forget I said that. I was on my own for a year before I was sold to your father, and I got really bad at holding myself accountable to anyone. I'm still bad at it."
"That doesn't matter. You don't owe me anything."
"How does that work? First you say I should apologize, next you say that I'm off the hook?"
"You don't owe me anything," he repeated sharply. The same anger she'd felt from him in the alleyway rose up in him again, less volatile than before, but ready to flare into an open flame in a heartbeat. "Everything I did for you before it grew into something– more, was in repayment of the abomination of being sold to my family in the first place. We could part ways right now, and I'd be angry I poured out my heart to you when you lied every step of the way, but I could understand why you did it."
He took a sip of caf, an excuse to calm himself. She watched him smooth the anger away, and as much as the alternative scared her, she wished he wouldn't.
"The way I see it, you made the choices that would keep you safe," he said at last. "I could tell myself I was just a means to an end, the same way I seem to be to everyone else. Betrayal is a bitter pill to swallow, but eventually I'd get over it.
"I've been keeping secrets, too. But if you want us to stay... close, all this lying to me, it has to stop. There has to be full disclosure, right here, right now." He sighed. "That agreement we made in the beginning, when I wasn't sure I could trust you, that was flawed from the start. You're a Jedi who can use the Force in battle, so there was never a chance you could teach me everything you know about fighting."
His words condemned her, but maybe she could still find a way to explain, instead of leaving him with the bitter aftertaste of her actions alone. "Lux–"
"If your promises to protect me and help me learn how to protect myself ever meant anything to you, do this for me," he said, stepping around her and putting his caf and datapads down on a nearby caf table. When he looked back again, his eyes were more piercing than she'd ever seen them, edged with something manic and wild. "Give me a way to protect my heart from what you did. Don't break it further."
Ahsoka had to turn from him, fist pressed to her lips, to keep from shedding the tears that were gathering in her eyes. Elation and dread fought a battle in the pit of her stomach, and every casualty tied another knot in the web constricting her diaphragm. She hadn't been sure she'd get this chance, but she still had no idea what to say to him – not the first idea where to begin. It would be easier to refuse this gift, no matter how precious it was, than to try to unpack everything, wouldn't it?
Ahsoka shook herself. She'd learned the consequences of the easy path in the last two months. If this was what it took to make amends, she'd do it.
"Say something," Lux begged. He'd mastered himself by the time she turned to face him, but his eyes still pleaded with her. "I'll start, if you'd like."
He wanted to fix this. He wanted her. Smiling, Ahsoka took his hand and led him to a low couch along the wall. "No, Lux. I'll start."
Lux sobbed in relief, a choked sound that betrayed more emotion than she had a feeling he'd meant to let slip, and squeezed her hand tight.
"My name," she began slowly, "is Ahsoka Tano."
Lux jumped, his presence whipped up and around itself like fall leaves in a sudden wind. She paused, watching his face, but the only thing he did was nod for her to continue speaking. Nodding in turn, she went on, "I was three years old when Jedi Master Plo Koon came to my village on Shili to bring me to the Jedi Temple on Coruscant."
So she told him. She started with the pleasant things: childhood in the Jedi Temple, meeting Anakin, the early days when her surplus of confidence had been enough to ease the atrocities of war. Then she told him the less pleasant, but still manageable stories of the frontline, the dead friends, the earthshattering discovery of Chancellor Palpatine's death, the flight from Coruscant when Count Dooku won the war, the beginnings of the insurgence to combat his new Empire.
At last, bracing herself, she slogged through the worst of it: capture and enslavement, and the long months of casual rape, physical violence, verbal abuse. The dark dreams at night, and longer days locked in a basement without seeing the sun because for all that was taken from her, she still wasn't giving her new masters enough. She and Lux cried through most of it, and when there came times when she had to lean on his shoulder to regain her strength, he didn't push her away.
Never once did he push her away.
When the last of it was out, and she'd recounted slipping through the chink in his armor when he first saw her and was reminded of Steela, and all the other little and large indiscretions against his trust, Ahsoka was exhausted. She'd had no idea how many hours she'd spent telling him her life story, but the cup of caf on the table had long, long since grown cold.
And still there was more to say. Not much, but enough that she had to phrase it carefully. "I realize now that I've probably been dealing with post-traumatic stress since I was fourteen, but when the Force doubles as your therapist and your burn book, it's easy to push things to the back of your mind. It was only the fatigue and the nightmares that really gave me any trouble, and I always had my friends and comrades to lean on for that."
Lux didn't move from where he'd leaned his head back over the top of the couch, his eyes staring up at the elaborate crown moldings where the wall met the ceiling. Ahsoka hesitated, and he glanced down at her, nodding slowly.
"Yeah. So that's how it was for a very long time," Ahsoka went on. "But then I was experiencing a whole new class of horrors on the daily, and I was cut off from... everything. I couldn't dump it into my burn book without the risk of an Elite sensing it and finding out I'd gone through the Reduction process and come out unharmed. I couldn't find any Republic tech to contact my friends with, so that we could lean on each other like we once did." She shut her eyes, bracing herself for another truth she hadn't wanted to think about. "I... I don't even know if Anakin is still alive."
Her lip quivered, threatening a fresh wave of tears. Ahsoka stilled it. "All this goes to say is that when you met me, I'd only just taken the first step back to myself. I wasn't well. I was numb and selfish, and I drew in on myself so tight to survive I forgot my actions had consequences. That doesn't excuse what I've done to you, or any of the lies I told, but I hope it explains some of it."
Lux sat up, then hunched forward over his thighs. "Were you the contact with diplomatic immunity?"
"What?"
"When Padmé came to see us on Raxus, she mentioned a contact who was meant to get her to Mandalore had fallen through. It just occurred to me now that the only ones who could travel from Republic worlds to neutral systems without being scrutinized were the Jedi."
Had she skipped that part? She must have, if he was asking her now. Ahsoka nodded tiredly. "Anakin is brilliant, and charismatic, but he has no talent for politics. He likes clean-cut answers, which is probably why the rest of the Order had no idea what to do with him. Obi-Wan was on the Council. Out of duty he would've told the others what Senator Amidala was planning to do. The only other Jedi she knew well enough to ask was me, and I turned her down, because– because of all things, I was worried about what Anakin would think. I wasn't thinking about the chances of ending the war. I only knew that if she died on my watch, I would never forgive myself, because Anakin would never forgive me."
Ahsoka waited several long seconds for Lux's judgment, for blame, for vitriol. "You made the choice that would protect your family," was all he offered, and then it was Ahsoka's turn to sit bolt upright.
"Lux, come on, be honest with me. You can't mean to forgive me that easily. I'm the reason your mother died. I'm the reason all of this started!"
"You can't know that," he broke in patiently. "Had you gone to Raxus, for all I know, you, Padmé, and my mother might be dead right now." He flashed her half a rueful smile. "Besides, it's one thing cleared up."
"What's that?"
"I often imagine what things might've been like had we met under better terms – both of us in our element, living the lives we chose."
"Really? What did you imagine?"
The smile faded. "It doesn't matter now."
Ahsoka leaned forward. "Actually, I think it does."
"I'd be the Senator for Onderon on a diplomatic mission to speak with your leaders, and you'd be a warrior from Shili guarding them," Lux said after a moment. "All of which I guess could have been plausible, but that was before I knew you were a Jedi. If we were both in our element, we'd have been on opposite sides of a war."
"There's no war dividing us anymore."
"Which I'm glad for."
Ahsoka had barely touched Force since they began speaking, but every cell in her body knew the time was right to push. Buoyed by his warmth, she pressed on. "And I think that even though we were on opposite sides of the war then, we have a lot in common now."
"That's true, but–"
"Like the Rebellion."
Lux sat up straight. "How do you know about that? Did Bail rat me out?"
The information she'd gleaned from his datapad was something else she'd omitted, purposefully this time. She'd intended to save it for later, for when she felt more confident discussing the Rebellion with him openly. He didn't seem offended by the lapse, though that was likely to follow when the shock wore off.
"He didn't say or do anything. I didn't have the slightest idea until last week." Ahsoka smiled sheepishly. "You'd fallen asleep on one of your datapads when I went to say... uh, when I went to check on you. I saw his callsign."
"Guess that serves me right for running myself so ragged I got careless."
"Don't talk to yourself like that," Ahsoka said, putting a hand on his shoulder. He glanced at it curiously, and she flushed. But he didn't ask her to remove it, so she left it where it lay. "You were under a lot of stress."
He shrugged. "I always wanted to know more about you. I can't be upset that I did, and found you weren't what I was expecting."
"And are you?"
"Am I what?"
"Upset. If not about that, then about the way you found out."
"A little. I don't see how I couldn't be." Lux smiled at her. It was a tentative smile, but a genuine one, and after a week of cloudy skies it was a ray of sun Ahsoka hadn't fully understood how badly she needed until now. "But it's getting better."
"I'm sorry I put us on this path."
Lux butted her shoulder. "Hey, it hasn't been all bad, has it? Besides, I thought we agreed to stop apologizing to each other about everything. Even the things we could spend forever trying to make amends for."
"At least now I know we're on the same side."
"The same side of what?"
"The war. We're both Rebels."
"We... Yes. I guess we are."
Ahsoka could hear the discomfort in his voice even if she couldn't see it on his face. "But that's a conversation for another day," she backtracked, though a little blossom of warmth opened in her chest at the absolute certainty that there would be another day. "I don't know about you, but I'm exhausted, and–"
"Aly– Ahsoka. Ahsoka, that's your proper name. I'll remember that next time." Lux cleared his throat and began again. "The Rebellion is doing the right thing. I'm just... trying to figure out my place in it. From a logistics standpoint, I can't trust a cause dedicated to helping the galaxy as a whole to help Onderon first, and I see my people suffering around me every day." He took her hand and rubbed her knuckles with the pad of his thumb. "But if supporting it in a greater capacity than what I can manage is what you need to do, you do it. Don't let my reticence hold you back."
"Really?"
"You're here on Onderon for a reason, and I won't keep you from it. You have your freedom papers. You can do as you wish."
Ahsoka squeezed his hand. "Thank you, Lux."
"What else do you need to get involved again in the capacity you want to be? I know your movements have been restricted for a long time."
Thinking of the lightsaber concealed under the armoire, Ahsoka said, "A box of spare parts and wires, some scrap durasteel, a spanner, and a soldering iron."
"Is that all?" Lux asked, surprised.
"No. Eventually I'll need a ship so I can get Senator Organa off my tail with his promises of pickups. I'll leave Onderon once I'm good and ready, not just because the situation has gotten dangerous and he thinks it's safer back with the fleet."
"Right. The parts are the smaller order, so we'll start with those. We can look for ships when the need arises."
Ahsoka went still, not sure if she'd heard him right. "You're not serious."
"I have the money," he said, shrugging. "This is a much better use for it than giving it to my father so he can sit on it, and he's the only other contender."
Ahsoka thought being able to drop the credits for a ship so casually was totally mind-boggling, but she held her tongue. This wasn't the first time she'd wondered how wealthy Lux actually was. The Great Houses were all fabulously rich, but the credits for a whole ship without blinking?
Money like that could buy supplies, security, expertise. The possibilities were endless. Lux didn't know yet how involved he wanted to be in the Rebellion's schemes, but Ahsoka's network through the outlying villages was focused entirely on helping Onderon. She couldn't imagine Lux being anything but enthusiastic about it, and if she made her case properly, she could have the backing she'd been looking for without ever having to search off-planet.
With difficulty, Ahsoka tore her thoughts back to the present. If this peace between her and Lux lasted, she'd have all the time in the world to propose it later. For now, she needed to earn his trust back the way he'd earned hers when the universe first threw the pair of them together.
"The parts, first," Ahsoka agreed, and let the matter drop.
Now that, at last, Lux has all the information he needs to fill in the gaps of Ahsoka's past, a tentative truce has been declared. But Lux hasn't played all his cards, yet, and with Vader's interest in the mystery Jedi in Kyzeron renewed, is a lasting peace even possible? How will Lux take to Ahsoka's maneuvers to expand her network when his opinion of the Rebellion, one of her biggest commitments, is still undecided? Only time will tell...
EARLY CHAPTER!!!! SURPRISEEEEE
It's smack dab in the middle of the season of giving, so here's a little Christmas present from yours truly. (Besides, I felt kinda bad about the sheer level of angst hanging over the last few chapters. I wanted you guys to know there's some hope on the horizon without spoiling what's to come.) More goodies are to come around New Year's, adjacent to this, but of a slightly different sort...
But that's to discuss later. Right now, let me say what a RELIEF it is that these two have stopped fighting! I hate writing character VS character conflict, as necessary as it often is to a good story. But these two needed some time to be angry and come to terms with that anger before they could heal. This was the result.
This is the penultimate chapter (excluding an interlude, which will be the next update) of this act of the story, of which Ahsoka and Lux's conflict resolution is a key component. The plot divided up pretty neatly into three parts, and we're about to move onto the third, AT LAST! This turned into a beast of a story, and I'm phenomenally proud of it.
Next chapter, we dive back into the not-too-distant past, and catch up on Ahsoka, Anakin, and Obi-Wan as they interrogate a suspect, to mixed results. Talk to you guys then!
"What are our chances of getting anything out of her?"
Ahsoka shook her head, confused. Why is Anakin deferring to me on this?
"You're kind of the resident expert on these things," he said, answering her unspoken question. She hadn't given anything away on their bond that she knew of, but Anakin was long practiced at reading her body language.
"Master Luminara and I sat with Barriss for hours once she was well enough to speak. She didn't remember anything from the period the brain worm was in her head, and she showed other signs of memory loss, too. We had her walk us through the whole siege and cleanup, and compared it with her mission reports. She had gaps in her memory like a droid after a partial memory wipe." Ahsoka shivered. "Or flimsi chewed through by bugs."
"Could it have been the trauma of having another entity overwrite your brain functions? My grasp on neuroscience isn't the best."
"Neither is mine!"
Anakin shrugged. "You had to write those research papers more recently than I did. They'll be fresher in your mind than mine."
Ahsoka very nearly rolled her eyes. "No," she said at length. "Remembering things isn't like duplicating information and then deleting the copy when you're done with it. When most humanoids try to remember events, their brains create a new memory to replace the old one. Jedi can mitigate the loss of details with each new recollection of the original event by using the Force on ourselves like a lie detector, but even the Force turned up empty when Barriss tried to make her memories line up with her report. She had no recollections, just... nothing."
Anakin cursed in a language Ahsoka didn't speak, or even recognize. "So Vitej is useless to us."
"Maybe. I don't know. I really don't know." Ahsoka gnawed on her lower lip. "I only know what short-term exposure looks like – thankfully for Barriss and our men. Six months? All bets are off."