Warnings for canon character death and description of beginnings of an anxiety/panic attack. Also fluff and kisses and Jedi learning to not be emotionally constipated all the freakin time.
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The whole thing stems from an innocent moment of sibling pettiness. On one of the infrequent times that both Ahsoka and Miara have managed leave simultaneously, Miara manages to dig out several old holos of Kaeden as a toddler. It results in a chase around the living room and a friendly, slightly vicious wrestling match on the floor of Kaeden’s hallway. While her girlfriend grinds her sister’s face into the carpet Ahsoka flips through the data disc, enraptured.
“This one is good, Miara, thank you,” she calls, waving a particularly fetching one of Kaeden sucking on her tiny fist and drooling down the front of a lothcat-themed fleece shirt.
The noise from the hallway was probably a ‘you’re welcome,’ though it’s hard to tell through the flooring. Kaeden abandons her sister after doing something that draws out a squeal, returning to the couch and swinging her legs over Ahsoka’s lap. “You know, you have to show me baby holos of you now. That’s how this relationship thing works.”
“I don’t think there are any holos of me before the war and you’ve seen all of the ones on the holonet,” Ahsoka says absently, flicking to the next one and smiling at Kaeden’s toothless grin down at a man who must be her father.
“Aw, no fair,” Kaeden teases, reaching up to grab one of her still-growing montrals and gently shaking her head back and forth. “I wanna see holos of stubby-headed little ‘Soka!”
The silly nickname feels like being doused in cold water, her whole body going icy and the disc dropping from suddenly numb and tingling fingers. It’s utterly stupid, she knows it is, it’s been years since…
Since Master Plo called her that. It would have been before she left the Order, so almost half a decade ago now.
Ahsoka swallows hard and clamps her eyes shut, shoving down the combination of grief and panic that rises like a monster in her chest. No. No, she knows how to deal with this, the Order taught her how to deal with emotions. Well, technically they taught her to release them, but that requires examining and accepting the bone-deep loss that claws at her throat, and the idea is nauseating. She’ll settle for the next best thing: compartmentalizing, shoving it down and out of her mind to be examined at a later date (aka never).
Her self-induced paralysis is interrupted by a light tap against her cheek. She blinks, and focuses on rich brown eyes just inches from her own. “Hey there, Jedi, come out of your head,” Kaeden says softly.
The warm touch of a hand against her lekku makes Ahsoka shudder, but Kaeden strokes gently up and down, the rhythm soothing. “I’m sorry,” Ahsoka whispers, leaning forward into a strong shoulder and lets out a shaky breath.
“No, don’t apologize,” Kaeden murmurs, curling around her protectively and breathing hot against the side of her neck. “You know you shouldn’t do that.”
Ahsoka stiffens defensively, opens her mouth, and finds herself smushed harder into Kaeden’s body. “No. Shush. You shouldn’t bury everything like that. It’s not healthy, it’s…you’re hurting yourself with everything you refuse to deal with. And I don’t like seeing you hurt.”
That’s playing dirty, and Ahsoka tells her so. Kaeden shrugs, her hand still running up and down her lekku. “You don’t have to tell me, but at least let yourself cry. It kills me when I watch you freeze up and look sick and then get lost in your own head for a minute. Just cry for once. I bet you’ll feel better.”
She takes in a deep breath. “It’s nothing, really,” she starts, and Kaeden’s arm tightens around her. “No, really. It was just a nickname. The Jedi who found me and brought me to the temple called me that. He used to check up on me when he could. He’d bring me sweets.” She laughs weakly, tears finally leaking down her cheeks. “Jedi aren’t supposed to have favorites but I knew I was Master Plo’s. After the war started we got to work together sometimes, and I wanted him to be proud of me…”
She chokes, inhale catching in her throat, abruptly overwhelmed. Unlike most of her friends in the temple she knows Master Plo’s fate. She ran into Wolffe a couple years back, heard about how Plo was shot down by his own men during the Purge. She can picture the way his face would crinkle around his mask and goggles when he smiled, the way he would sneak her sweets behind his back and whisper not to tell Yoda, the way Master Kenobi’s nose wrinkled when he caught them and tried to hide his smile.
That’s what breaks her down, and she sobs into Kaeden’s shirt. She cries for them for the first time in years. For Anakin, for Master Obi-Wan, for Master Plo. For Masters Unduli and Secura and Fisto. For Barriss and all the Padawans lost in the war and all the younglings slaughtered in the temple. She’s completely incoherent and she knows it. Now she’s just blubbering names wetly into Kaeden’s neck between great, heaving sobs. Through it all the hand on her lekku strokes up and down, up and down.
It’s the light touch that brings her back, ever so slowly. She tries to match her breaths to it, interrupted by hiccups and whimpers that keep escaping even as the tears dry up. In, and out. In, and out.
She feels a little sick still, and there’s a distressing amount of snot on her girlfriend’s shoulder, and her head is starting to throb a bit. But there’s a light buzz under her skin, a freeing looseness about her joints. It feels like she could float right off the couch if she wasn’t wrapped so tightly around Kaeden.
Speaking of Kaeden, when she leans back to blink at her she sees tear-tracks on her dark cheeks. “Hey, wait,” she says, and her voice sounds far more broken than she’d expected. “I thought I was the one crying here. You told me to.”
Kaeden laughs, leans down to kiss the skin beneath her eyes (she can already tell it’s getting puffy), then her nose, then her mouth. “We’re in this together, you know that,” she murmurs. “I don’t like seeing you cry, and yes it upsets me, but I’d rather know you’re letting it out instead of bottling it up.”
The smile she manages in response is tremulous, but she reaches up to rub a thumb across the salt stains and pull Kaeden back for more kisses. “Thank you,” she whispers against soft lips.
“Of course.” Kaeden indulges her for a few more minutes, slow pressure back and forth, leisurely and warm. Finally she pulls away and presses two fingers against Ahsoka’s mouth. “Come on, my sister made a tactical withdrawal but we should call her back for lots of sugary foods and some holodramas, yeah?”
“Yeah.” Somehow, snot and headache and all, Ahsoka feels more complete than she has in years.
konekorambles 