Nearly a week had passed by the time Lux had finally worked up the courage to go see Ahsoka – Sorena – again, and he was still no closer to reaching a decision for what they were going to do with her.
Although Lux refused to say it to his face, he couldn't help but think that Kanan was right. Had Sorena been any other Inquisitor, he would have charged the Empire a ransom for her safe return, or perhaps even killed her altogether. But fate was a tricky thing, and now the instrument that forged from the ruins of Norolan Plains to exact his enemies' vengeance wore the face of the woman he loved.
He stared at the door into the basement room where they were keeping Sorena for a long moment, his feet frozen in place on the floor and his hand hovering above the control panel on the door. In any other context, such reluctance to go see her would have been silly. Ahsoka had always been the most approachable person in the whole of the Onderonian rebel cell, as far as he had been concerned. But seeing her twisted into something so foreign, whose outer shell was designed to repulse rather than to welcome... it felt like opening the stitches on a wound that wasn't fully healed.
But Lux still had hope. He knew there was good in her, and he wouldn't stop believing that until the day he became one with the Force.
His courage renewed, he pushed the button and walked inside. His eyes found Sorena immediately where she was draped across the bed, and despite how on edge he was, he forced his posture to remain relaxed. One of the most fundamental things he had learned during his time as a politician was that wherever you found yourself, you had to make it look like you belonged there.
Sorena looked bored. "Are you here to yell at me too?"
"Why would I want to yell at you?" Lux asked, confused.
"You've got more reasons than Caleb – sorry, you know him as Kanan – does. He came in here about an hour or two ago. I think it was supposed to be an interrogation in the beginning, but, really, he's quite pathetic. He practically tells me which buttons to push."
"Leave him alone. He's done nothing to you."
Sorena inspected the tips of her fingers for a moment, then held them up to show him. "He broke my nail."
"Gods, no way are you this petty."
"There's a lot you don't know about me, Teri." She smiled languidly, but soon, her eyes narrowed. "Now what is it you want? Be quick about it so I can take a nap. There's nothing better to do in here than sleep, seeing as I can't meditate." She waved her cuffed wrists at him.
Lux didn't reply.
"I never told them, in case you were wondering."
"Never told them what?"
"That you're Force-sensitive." For a second, Lux could have sworn he saw the tiniest hint of compassion in her eyes, but it was gone a moment later, overshadowed by her usual demeaning smirk. "I didn't consider you to be enough of a threat to myself and the other Inquisitors, with how little training you've had."
"You taught me more than you give yourself credit for," Lux said. "You taught me to never give up. Even if you've given up on yourself, I'll keep believing in you."
"I haven't given up," Sorena hissed. "I just chose a new path for myself. There's a difference; one you never seem to learn. You keep running in the same circles over and over again, oblivious to the fact that you're just repeating the past."
"I'm just fine with that if they keep leading me back to you."
A peculiar expression came to her face just then, hovering somewhere in between angry and surprised, with a softness he almost didn't recognize to her yellow and red eyes. She clearly had a biting retort at the ready, but was conflicted about using it. His reply had caught her off-guard.
"Do you remember when you first told me I was like you?" he asked softly.
"You're nothing like me."
"But do you remember it?"
She let out a long sigh through her nose. "Yes."
Lux took a few steps closer, and, while she stiffened, she didn't move away until he sat down on the bed. Taking a leap of faith, he reached for her hand. The first time, she slapped it away. But when he tried again, she didn't stop him.
Lux reached out with the Force, using it to create a link between their minds and thoughts. "Then let's remember it together."
They were sitting in Ahsoka's old haunt aboard the Saberdart: her mattress above the tibanna gas tanks in the engine room, curled up amongst all of Ahsoka's blankets and stolen throw pillows.
It was late, and most of the crew had already gone to sleep. But the pair had stayed up late, talking, like they were in the practice of doing when they were assigned to surveillance duty together in the lookout cabin back at the base.
"What sort of scheme d'you think Maddox has in store for us?" Lux asked.
Ahsoka frowned. "I don't know. The guy's not as predictable as he comes off."
She moved a little closer to him to better take advantage of his body heat. Lux smiled and shifted to give her more space. Once they were both comfortable again, he wrapped his arms around her.
"Spraying caf all over him was a great way to start a war, though," he told her.
"Lux, that wasn't me," she said, pulling out of the embrace enough to look him in the eye. "I was just making fun of a stupid accident."
"No, you must have," he insisted. "I saw the caf literally fly out of Maddox's cup and hit him."
"Lux, I'm telling you, that wasn't me." She sighed, her brow furrowed in puzzlement. "And it certainly wasn't him. Then how...?"
Suddenly, her eyes widened in some sort of understanding Lux didn't share. Then, she sat up, and cupped his face in her hands, resting her palms on his jaw with the tips of her index and middle fingers pressed to his temples.
Ahsoka gave him a look as if asking for permission, and he nodded, willing, as always, to give it to her without bothering to inquire what she was about to do.
She closed her eyes, and, after a moment, Lux did too, deciding it would be best to go along with it.
Suddenly, Lux reared in shock as the blackness of the space behind his closed eyelids suddenly exploded into a kaleidoscope of bits of color. As they drifted past his inner eye, he realized if he focused on individual fragments, he could see that they were three-dimensional images, moving like holograms throughout the space he was in.
And then, he knew exactly where he was and what he was seeing: this was a visual representation of his mind, and the images were bits of memory.
Lux was mortified for a moment, afraid that Ahsoka would be able to see all of the times when he'd thought about her in a way that went beyond someone who saw her as just a friend. But, much to his relief, she skipped right over them as one might when using a word search on a document on a datapad. Not finding the exact details she was scanning for, she continued on.
Ahsoka was looking for something very specific, but her lack of explanations had to mean that it was something she wouldn't be able to ask him about – possibly because he wouldn't remember it.
Suddenly, somewhere, like a gentle nudge at the back of his conscience, he felt Ahsoka transcend through the mystical energy of the Force into a deeper level of being.
Too general – I need to go deeper in, she thought, and, as surprised as he was, he was able to pick up on it just fine. Apparently, the link between them went both ways, although, with his lack of Jedi abilities, he doubted he 'd be able to do more than sense her thoughts.
Then, the images stopped spinning around him, instead hovering in place. But a moment later, they were zipping past him so fast the memories all blended together in one giant blur of light and color. It was moving far too fast for Lux to process, but the pace seemed to be just fine for Ahsoka.
We have to go back to the beginning.
Although he was pretty sure Ahsoka had been thinking to herself and not to him, he still ventured a question in return: What'll we find there?
Answers.
After what could have been a few second or forever, Ahsoka suddenly stopped the flow of images to a slow crawl. Lux gazed around at them all in wonderment. These are from my childhood on Onderon, he told her. But I must be really young here... I remember this place, but not anything that's happening now.
You're just a few months short of two years old here. Then, at last, she came across the exact time and place she had been looking for, and selected a memory. Okay. This is it.
A scene began playing out in front of them. The sun was high in the sky, shining down on where the long lawn beside the Bonteri Manor hit the surrounding forest.
A little boy with dark brown hair that stuck up in every possible direction and big grey eyes tottered into view, and Lux immediately recognized the child from family holos as his younger self. Mina Bonteri, dressed in a loose sundress, walked behind him, the wind toying with her short reddish-brown waves.
She knelt down, holding up a plush toy to where Lux's toddler self could see it. She smiled, beckoning him forward.
Laughing happily, he started towards her on his short, unstable legs. But it wasn't long before, still learning to walk as he was, he fell down on the soft grass. But he still wanted the toy, and he reached out for it with his pudgy right hand.
Then, suddenly, it flew through the air towards him. He snatched it out of the air as soon as it was close enough, giggling and babbling happily to himself.
Mina, however, didn't share his enthusiasm. She ran over to where he was, bending down and gathering him up in her arms. Fear shone in her eyes as she shook her head furiously.
Then, she took off at a run, calling Lux's father's name. And even as he cried after the fallen toy, she didn't stop running until she had reached the manor.
Lux pulled himself back to reality with a start. "I don't... So I'm a..."
"Yes," Ahsoka said, pulling him into a hug. "You can touch the Force, just like I can. It was you who spilled the caf. Not me, not an accident... you."
"But... how did I never realize it? It's such a fundamental part of who you are, isn't it? How come I never noticed it was missing?" Lux asked, half thinking aloud and half expecting an answer.
"There are special kinds of medication that can restrict a person's ability to use the Force," Ahsoka explained. "As I understand it, they work by releasing proteins that send the midichlorians into a state of artificial hibernation. The length of time they stay in stasis can be controlled by the type and amount of the protein."
Lux was silent for a long moment, and when he finally spoke, his voice rose hardly above a whisper. "That's... cruel. How could she do that to me? To take away a part of who I am..."
Ahsoka put a hand on his shoulder. "She was only trying to keep you safe, Lux. This was only a few years before the Trade Federation dispute on Naboo. The galaxy was changing, fast, and I guess she thought you'd be safer with her as a normal person than out there as a Jedi. Even before the war, it was a dangerous line of work."
"Wait. Hang on a sec. How the hell did you even do–?"
She shushed him. "Don't ask me how. I've always been able to do it on myself – I think most Jedi can. But it's the first time I've tried it on another person." Ahsoka smiled. "But, to be honest, your memory-scape is really different from mine. Mine's like one of the old books made out of paper and leather they had at the Great Library of Kovaata on Shili. And Anakin always said his was like a mind-palace of sorts."
"I guess it varies from person to person," Lux said faintly, still trying to process what had just happened. "So... what now? I can touch the Force, but I don't know how to use it at all."
"I'll teach you!" Ahsoka exclaimed brightly.
Lux laughed uneasily, rubbing the back of his neck. "Uh, I don't think I'd make a very good Jedi... I'd probably be wasted effort."
"Don't say things like that. And it wouldn't be full Jedi training: just how to fight with a lightsaber and some of the mental and spiritual techniques."
"I thought the Jedi took back your lightsabers," Lux said, confused.
"They did, but I found one of the old Jedi temples in the Outer Rim on a job with the Saberdart. Cost me a pretty penny to get someone to take me up into the mountains to get to it, but it was worth it."
Ahsoka reached back behind her head for a moment, fiddling with the chain around her lekku keeping her dark leather headband attached to her montrals. She undid the clasp and pulled the bands from her forehead, and there, tied to the chain where it would have gone beneath her lekku, were two glowing white crystals.
"Whoa," Lux breathed.
"They're kyber crystals; most commonly used as the heart of a Jedi's lightsaber. I can make a pair of blades with these, which means you could use one of them to train with me." She looked away, biting her lip. "That is, if you want to train with me..."
"Of course I do! It's all really new, but if what you've told me about agents of the Empire being able to hunt down Force users, then I want – no, I need – to learn. I accept your training... Master Tano."
She pulled her into her arms again, laughing softly. "Ahsoka is fine, Lux," she whispered. "Ahsoka's all I ever really want to be for you."
Lux was pulled suddenly back to the present as Sorena wrenched her hand free of his with a cry of shock, leaping across the room as if she had been scalded. "Why did you take me back there?" she demanded.
"I thought it would help," Lux said, his eyes wide.
"I don't need any help from you!" she spat.
"Can't you feel it? You try to hide it and push it away from you with your anger, but you're scared. I don't know what of, but, Ahsoka, it can't–"
"My name is Sorena."
She turned away from him, and although Lux knew he had made progress with her today, he could tell the conversation was over. But even after he had left the room, he was overcome with a sense that he was only just skimming the surface.
And he was determined to piece together the whole truth.
*HEYYO PEOPLEZ
Here's to having more prewritten Luxsoka flashbacks than I know what to do with so I can be a lazy butt and just recopy literally three quarters of the chapter! *raises tankard of butterbeer as brain cells cheer*
(This was supposed to be the last one of a three-part flashback, but it got bumped up to the second because the original second one wasn't essential, and I can really milk a flashback like this one, while the second was just a short 500 word one. I might bring it up later, though, because why not? XD)
Also, here's to 2500+ words on this chapter! Even if I wrote only just under 1000 of those words today, it's still good.
But could there be more to Sorena's decision not to tell the other Inquisitors about Lux? And, should she manage to escape and make her way back to them, will she be able to reveal the whole truth now without compromising herself? Hmmmm, I wonder...
Also, PUT YA HANDS UP IF YOU SAW THAT SHERLOCK REFERENCE
Anyone who's seen the show will get it. I just realized after writing the flashback the first time around that the two concepts had some similarities to them, since a mind palace can have any number of differences.
ALSO WHO'S PSYCHED FOR REBELS TOMORROW THE REFERENCE IS SO FITTING SINCE THE GUY WHO PLAYS CHARLES MAGNUSSEN IN SHERLOCK IS THE VOICE ACTOR FOR THRAWN
And yes, I promise stuff will start to get better between Lux and Sorena soon. Believe me, my fellow shippers, I want the Luxsoka/Terina moments as much as you do.
Thank the gods Lux also learned stubbornness from Ahsoka and hasn't given up on her yet.
Okay, updates for TISS and UAAT are coming later over the weekend. Next week's project is an update for SOTE.
May the Force be with you,
Sharron