Chapter Seventy-One: Intervention

Ahsoka wasn't sure if she'd rather be back dealing with the ambush from the Empire on what was supposed to be a diplomatic mission that they'd known going in might turn hostile or dealing with returning to the Rebellion base. Both meant more work. But Ahsoka wasn't sure which one would help her headache. Certainly, the jostling chaos of a fight wouldn't help. But neither would sitting through the three meetings she'd been forced to put off in her rush off the planet to help Barriss in a diplomatic mess she'd gotten herself in.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Barriss asked her as the transport landed and they began to file off the ship.

"Yeah."

Barriss gave her a skeptical look reminiscent of when they were both padawans in the field together, and Ahsoka came up with a plan that neither the Council nor their masters would have strictly approved.

"I'm fine."

"This is the third time I've seen you pop that headache medicine in the last twelve hours," the older woman pointed out. "How long has it been since you slept or ate anything other than ration bars?"

Ahsoka shrugged. "A couple of days. I think."

"Ahsoka."

"I promise. I'll get some sleep as soon as we get through these meetings," Ahsoka assured the woman as she headed to her quarters to get ready.

Despite her insistence to Barriss that she was fine, Ahsoka couldn't help lying on the couch and closing her eyes. She just needed a few minutes…

There was a knock on her door.

"So much for that," she said with a sigh and swung her legs over the side of the couch to sit up while opening the door with the Force.

In filed Diya, Cal, Merrin, Barriss, and Rex.

Ahsoka sighed as she looked at Diya, Cal, and Merrin. Han, their new companion, was absent. Likely running a supply mission. Some days, she looked at them and couldn't help but be amused by their antics. Like Master Yoda would sometimes look at her, Vader, and Obi-wan. Other days, she greatly sympathized with Master Windu's longsuffering displeasure at something she, Vader, and Obi-wan had gotten into.

Today was a Master Windu day.

"What now?" Ahsoka groaned.

"Nothing," Diya answered immediately.

Ahsoka looked at Cal skeptically.

"Honest," he said.

"Then what—?"

"Consider this an intervention," Merrin suggested.

"What do you—Diya? What are you doing?" Ahsoka asked as the girl went to her room.

"Getting dressed."

"For what?" Ahsoka asked. "And why are you doing it in here?"

Diya poked her head out the room, "Because I'm playing you for the day."

Ahsoka bolted up from her place on the couch.

"Are you insane?"

"No. You are, kid," Rex said, pushing her back down on the couch. Ahsoka didn't argue. When Rex started calling her "kid" again, he wouldn't hear anything she had to say. "Three days of no sleep?"

Ahsoka looked at Barriss, knowing she was to blame for this. "I said a couple."

"We put all our information together and figured out it was longer," Barriss replied.

"Merrin," Diya called, coming out the room wearing one of the military jacket dresses Ahsoka wore for official meetings. In her hand, she was holding what looked like a makeup bag. "Help me fix my markings to match Ahsoka's. As best you can anyway. Most people aren't going to look that close."

Merrin took the bag out of Diya's hand and began setting out tubes and containers on the table while Diya sat next to Ahsoka.

"Guys, this isn't a good idea."

"What isn't a good idea is you not getting any rest. And not going to medical? Barriss said she thinks your headaches might be from a knock to the head," Rex said.

"They're not. I got it checked out." Ahsoka turned to Diya. "You can't just pretend to be me."

"It's not like I haven't done it before," Diya said with a shrug.

"Yeah. In the field is one thing. But this isn't just a fight. This is," Ahsoka groaned and rolled her eyes, "a lot of politics, unfortunately."

"That's even better. You hate politics. So when I slip up and do something non-political, it won't be any different. Easy."

"Stop talking. You're making my hand unsteady," Merrin said.

Ahsoka turned to Cal next. He could generally be easily reasoned with.

"Tell them they're overreacting."

Cal gave an apologetic smile and said, "I really don't think they are."

"I can have you all court-martialed."

"You could," Cal agreed. "But you won't."

Ahsoka scowled. "Traitor." She crossed her arms and looked at all of them, finding no ally. "All of you."

"Wouldn't be my first time. At least this time, it's for your own good," Barriss joked.

Ahsoka might have found that amusing some other time.

"Barriss and I are going to personally escort you to medical," Rex declared. "And then you're coming right back here, and I'm starting a rotation for two guards at your door. No Rebellion business for the next rotation. At least."

"Rex."

"May and Obi-wan will deal with Luke, Leia, and Winter," Rex added.

"You can't keep me from my children."

"I will when it involves your health. They'll live for a day."

"They haven't seen me in almost a week."

"You act like they're not used to you going on missions for that long at a time," Diya pointed out. She stood to her feet now that Merrin was finished. "They'll be fine. They'll even agree that you need to rest. They've all been worried about you. They said you seemed tired."

Ahsoka sighed. "Nothing short of fighting you guys is going to stop you. Is it?"

"Nope," Diya said, pulling her boots on over her tights.

Ahsoka sighed in defeat. "Fine."

"See?" Diya grinned, the rasp from her voice gone as she imitated Ahsoka's voice. "I knew you could be cooperative. Don't worry. We can handle the Rebellion for one day."

"At least," Rex was quick to say.

"That is so weird," Ahsoka said in reference to Diya's transformation.

Diya's grin broadened, a canine flashing in the process, before heading out the room with Merrin and Cal, following behind her.

"Come on. To medical with you," Rex ordered.

Ahsoka didn't have the energy to argue. She grabbed a cloak as to not be seen and giveaway Diya's ruse. Then she walked with Rex and Barriss on either side of her to medical as they avoided the more populated hallways.

The doctor was waiting for her when she got there.

"General," the human woman with dark hair, dark eyes, and tanned skin that reminded Ahsoka of Breha said after she shooed Barriss and Rex out. "You just came in for a simple scan after a mission, right? I heard you hit your head and have been having headaches."

"Yeah. But that's normal. I've been having chronic headaches for years dealing with the Rebellion. And it's been a lot more work lately. So naturally, they're worse."

"Well," the woman began as she directed Ahsoka to lie on the table, "better safe than sorry. You never know."

Ahsoka just lay back on the table. The more she cooperated, the sooner she could get out of here and get some sleep. Loathe as she'd been to let Diya take her place and to let the rest of High Command and her generals deal with the running of the Rebellion, she couldn't say she didn't need a break. Things had been pretty non-stop the last few months as the war with the Empire escalated with a frenzy that not even the Clone War had. Or maybe it just seemed that way when she was overseeing it all. No wonder the Jedi had been blind to the chancellor being the Sith right until it was too late to stop him. They'd been too distracted to notice he'd been turning the Republic into his Empire.

Noticing the scan was taking longer than it should, Ahsoka asked, "Is everything okay?"

"It's fine," the medic said. "I'm just rerunning the scan."

Ahsoka hoped it was nothing. Goodness knew she didn't need Rex trying to extend her house arrest.

When she was done, the medic allowed her to sit up while looking at the results on the screen of her datapad.

"I have a few questions to ask you. They may seem personal, but I need you to be honest and know that anything you say is confidential."

Ahsoka narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips. Slowly she said, "Okay…"

"Are you sexually active?"

Why were simple questions always so complicated for her?

"Depends on what you mean by active."

"Have you had sex in the last," she paused to check her datapad, " three months?"

That would probably fall into the range of her last encounter with Vader.

"Yes," Ahsoka finally replied. Not enjoying the doctor's crypticness, she asked, "Why do you need to know?"

"Because I think I found the source of why your headaches have gotten worse. You're pregnant."

Ahsoka outright laughed at the absurdity and impossibility of the idea.

"Right. I'm on an implant. I just got it changed eight months ago. It's good for five years. Try again."

"They do have a failure rate. A slight one, but there's a chance. It could have also been inserted improperly. Maybe it was even faulty, but there's no real way to know that unless, well, a person gets pregnant while on it."

Ahsoka opened and closed her mouth a few times before managing, "Run the scan again."

"General, I ran it twice. The results—"

"I said," Ahsoka began in a tone that left no room for argument, "run it again."

The medic gave her a considering look but gestured for her to lie down and reran the scan. The results came back the same.

Ahsoka stared at the doctor in silence, not quite sure what to do or say as the word kept running through her mind. Pregnant…

"Pregnant," Ahsoka breathed. Then, "I can't… Not now."

"You have options besides going through with the pregnancy. You're likely too far along for a medicinal abortifacient, but the medical droids here are programmed to do surgical abortions, and we have the equipment. If that's a choice you want to make, it will be discreet."

Ahsoka didn't answer. She couldn't even wrap her mind around the fact that she was pregnant at all. Let alone decide if she wanted to terminate the pregnancy or not.

"I need a few days."

The woman nodded and directed Ahsoka to lie back down to let a medical droid take her implant out. Then the medic went over her nutrition, prescribed her a vitamin supplement routine, ordered her to eat, get some sleep, and to take it easy.

"As easy as you can. Headaches are a pretty common pregnancy symptom. Some rest and making sure you eat better should help reduce them," she said kindly.

So kindly that Ahsoka almost regretted what she was about to do. But it was necessary.

After the medic handed her the supplements, she used the Force to relax the woman's mind and then sent a suggestive influence as she said, "My scan came back normal. The headaches were because of stress."

"Your scan… What's going on?"

Ahsoka increased the weight of the influence and said in a firmer tone, "My scan came back normal. The headaches were because of stress."

"Your scans came back normal. Your headaches are stress-related."

"Nothing some rest and better nutrition won't fix."

"Nothing some rest and better nutrition won't fix."

"You're going to clean the results of my scans from your records."

"I'm going to clean the results of your scans from my records."

Satisfied, Ahsoka let go of her hold on the woman and watched as she erased the data.

"Okay, General," she said when she was done. "You're good to go. Take it easy. I don't know what the galaxy would do without you."

"Thanks," Ahsoka replied as she got dressed again and stuck the supplements in her pocket.

Rex and Barriss were dutifully waiting for her when she came out.

"Everything good?" Rex demanded.

"Fine. Stress. Lack of sleep. Need a good meal. Doctor's orders."

Barriss frowned. "Are you sure, Ahsoka? You were in there for a while."

"Yeah. She just had to run the scan again. Got an abnormal reading the first time. It was fine after another scan," Ahsoka said, hoping she sounded more put together than she felt at the moment.

Barriss and Rex exchanged a look. And why did Ahsoka get the feeling they were both going to try to get ahold of the records of her visit to make sure she was telling the truth, no matter that it was a very clear invasion of her privacy? She smiled slightly. At least someone was worried about her. There was a time she'd had no one to.

Barriss headed to the kitchens to get food for her while Rex escorted her back to her room. He collected all her datapads for the Rebellion and reiterated, "Rest. The General would kill me if I let something happen to you because of your own stubbornness, and I didn't try to stop you."

"Yeah," Ahsoka sighed. "He probably would."

And that was if something happened to her before he found out she was pregnant. If he found that out… well, the state of the galaxy they were trying to fix was a testament to that.

Rex laughed and then left the room. Only when she sensed he was gone after giving instructions to the two soldiers on her door outside did Ahsoka let out a trembling breath and fall backward on the couch.

The Force had a wicked sense of humor. Always throwing her off balance by putting her in a situation that none of her extensive training could have ever prepared her for. Always putting her in those situations when the people she might have turned to were out of reach.

"What would Breha have asked first?" Ahsoka asked aloud.

That was easy. Breha would have asked if she'd told Vader about it and if not, why not?

For once, the answer to that was easy. Never mind that she'd just learned the news less than an hour ago, she had no way to contact him. Not without sending a message through Diya, who would tell it to Sabé, who would then tell it to Vader. And tactless as Ahsoka could sometimes be, even she knew telling Vader about this through a game of "comm call" with their intelligence agents was not the way to reveal something like this. Besides, she needed to clear her head and figure out what it was she wanted or thought she wanted first.

Ahsoka hadn't lied to Vader when she said that sometimes she didn't know where he ended and where she began sometimes. And one thing she knew about Vader was that he was very decisive. When he'd decided he wanted her, she knew that meant everything that came with her. As far as he would be concerned, there would be no decision to discuss. It would already be made.

Now that she thought about it, Vader might be thrilled at the idea. He wouldn't show it. But this was the man who would drop everything he was doing when the twins visited to cater to their every whim, despite Ahsoka insisting that he made it hard for her when she had to be the "bad" parent. The man who got a wistful look in his eye whenever she mentioned the twins as newborns or anything during those first two years before he came in the picture. He'd missed that. He still missed a lot, and he was painfully aware of it, whether he thought he was good at hiding it or not. He'd likely still miss a lot this time with officially being on opposite sides of a conflict.

Speaking of their goal, Vader might use this predicament as a reson to rush a coup on the Emperor when they weren't ready to take him. When he didn't have enough control of the Imperial fleet and enough admirals and grand admirals on his side to subdue anyone who tried to break off and defy him. It could potentially end up as devastating as the end of the Clone War all over again.

So whether she could contact him or not, telling Vader was off the table. For a while, at least. Regardless of what she chose to do.

"So, what do I want?" Ahsoka asked herself because that would be the next question Breha asked.

Before she'd adopted Luke and Leia, as a Jedi, having children hadn't been a possibility. So she never thought about it, even when she was contemplating leaving the Order after the war. Mothering Luke and Leia had been fulfilling in a way that she hadn't expected, but she'd never thought about having a child of her own. She hadn't even gone as far as thinking about that kind of thing with Vader for after the war. She'd always assumed it would just be them and the twins.

Breha would have called her out for her non-answer.

"That's not helping. That doesn't answer what I want now that it's a reality," Ahsoka said to herself.

Or maybe it did. Luke and Leia had been an unexpected bright spot in one of the darkest hours of her life. Neither conscious of the dangers of the galaxy they'd been born into. Both just ever faithful that with Ahsoka caring for them, with their chosen mother around, they would be safe. A faith both children continued to carry, even after the trauma of Alderaan's invasion.

May might have been the first person she decided to trust. But it was seeing Luke's and Leia's faith in her that had given her the unwavering resolve to stand up and fight again. She couldn't let this baby down either. Starting with giving it the chance to come into the galaxy, as bad as the timing was. Besides, what would it be like to have a child that might be able to grow up in a galaxy and was untouched by Palpatine's influence? Never having to know fleeing from their home-planet because they were being chased by a government that either wanted them dead or wanted to exploit them.

Force.

What would people do when she couldn't hide her pregnancy anymore? When she was giving orders and moving troops and discussing the terms of a new government with a newborn in her arms? A toddler on her hip?

Ahsoka huffed. Since when had she cared about any of that?

"Pregnant," she said again to herself.

Who would have ever thought?

It occurred to her that she didn't know much about how togruta pregnancies worked, let alone how a hybrid pregnancy would work. She looked over at the datapad Rex had left behind, the one with none of her rebellion work on it. She had a lot of reading to do.

Ahsoka sat up from her place on the couch, only to regret it as the pounding of her headache returned.

"After some sleep," she said. "And some food."


AN: 1) To those who read Force Distortion and knew this would happen, here it is. To those who just wanted it to happen, here it is. To those who weren't sure, and were actually thrown off because throughout this story I've made sure to point out that Ahsoka gets headaches dealing with Rebellion stuff, and didn't know that headaches are a lesser-known symptom of pregnancy and might be a little surprised, here it is!

2) It would have been so phenomenally easy to be like every other fanfic (or even copyrighted work. Sigh) and just have Ahsoka have some moral compass that had her not believing in pregnancy termination or something. But I really don't think she would, and even if she did, I don't think it unreasonable for any person dealing with an unexpected pregnancy in an unstable situation to not mull it over. Considering Ahsoka's line of work, a termination would probably be the most reasonable option. So I wanted her choice to go through with a pregnancy, despite all the reasons not to, to be personal. I mean, that choice always is personal but I wanted it to be evident the personal reasoning behind her choice.

3) Also, it's been really important for me to show that Ahsoka really misses Breha and is still grieving for her in her own way. Hence why the only way she can come to her choice is thinking what Breha would have said because Breha is the first person she would have run to about this.

4) Got this one out in two days (technically two and a half). Idk if me and my beta can keep that up but we'll try.

Hope you enjoyed! Review please! I enjoy your insights!