Day 13: Can't Make an Omelette Without Breaking a Few Legs | Fracture
"This is stupid," Ahsoka grumbled. "You're being stupid."
Not for the first time that day, Anakin dismissed her with a scoff. "I am being reasonable. Now hush up. You are distracting me."
"Which is why you should put me down. I'll talk and talk until your head explodes."
But Anakin only snorted and kept walking through the thick undergrowth, careful to avoid the tangles of vine and moss hanging from the branches above. He was fighting to keep his boots from sticking in the thick, muddy jungle floor—a task made more difficult by Ahsoka's added weight, hoisted up on his back and shoulders.
It was humiliating. Not only because she was being carried like she was no better than a youngling, but because she had to be carried at all. It had been her own fault that she had broken her ankle during a routine recon mission. She had been too slow to move, to dodge, in the ensuing skirmish against the Separatist droids. Her footwork had been sloppy, and now she was a burden her Master felt compelled to carry through the jungles of Orleon.
A literal burden. Like a kriffing backpack.
"Better that than the alternative," Anakin said. "I don't fancy losing another limb, and I'm sure you aren't eager to lose any of yours."
"But I can walk, Master," Ahsoka insisted.
"Barely," he said, and she could practically hear him roll his eyes.
"We'll have a better chance of getting through this if you aren't lugging me around like dead weight. I can't watch your back if I'm just—hanging on your back."
I don't want to get you killed, was what she wanted to say. I don't want to be the reason you get hurt.
Anakin hadn't chosen her, the way Masters were meant to choose their Padawans. He hadn't wanted her; he had made it clear on Christophsis. He had never wanted a Padawan to begin with, and so every battle, every mission, was her chance to prove to him he hadn't made a mistake in keeping her. That she could keep up with him. That she wouldn't slow him down.
And now here she was—slowing him down.
"You are as bad as Obi-Wan," Anakin sighed, pulling his boot out of another mud hole with a wet sucking noise.
Ahsoka wrinkled her nose. "Master Obi-Wan would say you're even worse."
"That is because Master Obi-Wan is an idiot."
"Didn't you say he's as wise as Master Yoda?"
Anakin snorted, but she was sure she could sense a tinge of embarrassment, flickering through the Force. "Being so does not excuse him from being an idiot."
"So that's where you get it from."
That earned her a soft huff of amusement, and they continued their trek in silence. In that silence, Ahsoka heard only the ceaseless patter of rain, which had long since soaked through her robes and plastered them to her skin. She fought the urge to shiver—Anakin wasn't shivering, after all. If he felt as cold or as weary as she did, he wasn't showing it, so neither would she.
Anakin seemed to know where they were going, and Ahsoka trusted they were on the right path to finding their troops. Not that she would know if they weren't. The heavy canopy completely blocked off the sky, making their surroundings look the same in every direction. And the planet's torrential rains—it was always raining on Orleon, every day and year-round, which meant every inch of its terrain was blanketed in mud—wasn't helping them navigate the jungle, either.
So there wasn't much Ahsoka could do. Or at all, really. As much as she wanted to walk—to lessen the burden on Anakin, who was no doubt downplaying his own injuries, like he so often did—she knew each step she'd have to take would only cause a flare of pain she couldn't hide. Not from the Force, and not from her Master, who burned so brightly that sometimes he felt like the Force itself.
"You shouldn't have to, you know," he said, so quietly and so suddenly that she almost didn't hear him over the downpour.
Ahsoka tried to turn her head to look at him, but in the darkness, she could only make out the hair matted to the sides of his face. "What?"
"Watch my back all the time. You shouldn't have to."
"But that's my job, Skyguy. Someone's got to make sure you don't get yourself killed."
Anakin didn't slide into their usual banter like she had expected. Instead, she felt him tense. In the Force, a sudden thrum of unease.
"That is not your job, Ahsoka," he said, raising his voice. "It's mine."
She felt her heart thud. "So, what, I should just let you have all the fun?" she snapped back. She couldn't help it. "Don't be ridiculous, Master. You can't expect me to stand around while you do all the work."
"I expect you to—" He bit back the rest of his retort. Made a palpable effort to release his temper. "You are my Padawan. You are my responsibility. I'm supposed to keep you safe, not the other way around."
Her heart thudded again, then sank. She thought of Christophsis, that initial rejection. Thought of Teth. Maridun. Bothawui. So many other battles, each one blurring into the last.
Hadn't she proven herself? Was it still not enough?
As lightly as she could, Ahsoka said, "I can take care of myself."
"I know you can," Anakin said, much more softly. He sounded abruptly exhausted. "This is not—this isn't a slight against you, Ahsoka. You are capable, I know that. You are more than capable. You are the best of us. But I have to protect you. What kind of Master would I be if I couldn't—if I didn't."
For once, Ahsoka had no witty retort. You are the best of us. The words echoed in her mind, drowning out the pelting rain. The rush of wind-rattled leaves. The pain in her injured leg. The words echoed over and over, until she thought she would break.
She blew out a breath. "If Obi-Wan was here, telling you these things, you'd be putting up a fuss."
"That's different," Anakin said.
"How?"
"Obi-Wan is a Jedi."
"And you're not?"
Silence again. Hesitation. Anakin never hesitated. Anakin was always moving. Always in motion. Always burning.
"Not the way I should be," he said. "Not the way you should be, either."
Ahsoka didn't know what he meant. Wasn't entirely sure she wanted to. You are the best of us, he had told her, and the moment replayed in her mind, as if from a dream.
She clung tighter to him. She felt relieved, then, that he couldn't see her face. "We protect each other, Skyguy. That's how it goes. I'm not—I don't want to just twiddle my thumbs while you're out there—being a hero and getting into scrapes, and I'm just . . ."
Her voice trailed away as she thought again of Maridun—the first time she had truly felt blooded in battle. Even now the memory threatened to drown her. She remembered holding Anakin's hand in hers and feeling the pulse at his wrist, weak and thready. How useless she had been to him. How helpless. Don't let me be the Padawan that gets her Master killed, she had asked of the Force then. It was the same desperate plea she repeated in every engagement since—repeated, because Anakin charged into battle as though each step wasn't closer to his last.
"I don't like you being hurt," Ahsoka said. There was a burning, prickling feeling in the corner of her eyes. "I don't like not knowing how to fix it."
"I know," Anakin said, still softly. Gently. "I understand, believe me. But right now you have to let me do my job. Let me protect you, if only for a little while longer. So long as you're my Padawan—sorry to say, Snips, but you're stuck with me."
Ahsoka swallowed and blinked against the water in her eyes—it was the rain, she told herself. Just the rain. "I'm stuck with you," she said. "And that's not so bad, is it?"
Tell me that I'm wanted, she didn't say. Tell me I'm not a burden.
But maybe he heard it anyway, because he said, "Never. Not at all," and she could hear the smile in his voice.
Now the burning feeling was in her throat too. "Good. That's—good. Because I don't—I don't know how to do this without you."
"You'll never have to."
And she knew, then, that Anakin meant it. In that moment, Ahsoka forgot about the rain, the cold, her injured ankle. There was only the warmth of his promise, glowing bright in the Force, and she knew, with a bone-deep certainty, that he was going to be okay.
They were going to be okay.
