Author's Note: Well. It finally happened. I caught COVID-19 from work (I'm an Early Childhood Educator)😢 I'm not doing the best, so this the only chapter you guys get this week, unfortunately. To be completely honest though, you were probably gonna have to wait for the last two anyway, just because of how the story flows. Sorry this ones so short, it had to be bitten off from another chapter to make the whole thing flow. Enjoy the second to last weekend of this fic!


Chapter XVII

And so a week went by. Quicker than Ahsoka had anticipated actually; her days were very full.

She had daily meditations with Master Yoda, in which he helped her purge the remaining Sith influence from her mind. She had Force-training with Obi-wan, where he helped her relearn how to use the Force to her advantage in battle. It was this skill she had gone the longest without using, so she needed quite a bit of practice. But he seemed pleased with her progress.

Every other day she went to the Halls of Healing where she continued her bacta treatments to get rid of her scars, and where Vokara Che made sure she ate at least one good meal. She also had the operation to be rid of the gag. Her face felt odd without the extra weight, and the pinching and tugging at her skin whenever she tried to move her facial muscles. Also known as, whenever she tried to speak. Or smile. Or make any expression at all. It was quite the weight off her mind though to be rid of the last physical vestiges of Dooku's influence.

And every day, Anakin would take her to the open-air sparring grounds, where they practised forms until he was sure she had it down again. Then came the actual fighting.

This, she found a struggle. Training with Dooku had left her scarred, physically and mentally, and it was unpleasant trying to unlearn the way of fighting she'd had to adapt too to survive.

When they'd first begun their battles, she'd attacked viciously, using every trick in the book in order to get a victory. It was only because she was now more used to fighting with a polearm instead of a lightsaber that her Master still bested her without a fair amount of effort. She could tell her unexpected fighting style threw him off. Now they were working at getting her back to fighting the Jedi way, less offensively, more about achieving a surrender than winning at any cost.

Back to the Jedi way.

That's where all of her efforts were focused now.

Back to the Jedi way of fighting, the Jedi way of thinking, the way of being. She was a Commander in the Grand Army of the Republic, and she needed to act like it. The idea still seemed like a dream.

But some dreams can become reality.

Slowly her confidence began to build as she settled back into Temple life. Obi-wan declared her as proficient as ever in the use of the Force. Every session with Master Yoda left her feeling more and more herself, especially when coupled with her own meditation, which she was carefully pulling back to a safer depth. Anakin said she was making fantastic progress in her lightsaber training, which - after she accounted for his protective tendency to exaggerate her skills - meant that she was becoming sufficient again. And he made sure to tell her how proud of her he was after practice.

Her scars were almost completely healed as well. Master Che said only one or two more bacta sessions should be needed to do away with the residual pain entirely. All in all, she was doing well.

Some evenings Rex invited her to hang out with the men during their game nights, and in no time at all, she was expertly winning all their ration packs at sabaac. Those were some of the best evenings. No one judging her performance, no standard she had to live up to. The 501st genuinely just enjoyed her company, and she their's. They usually had men from the 212th over too, as well as others that had stopped at Coruscant for one reason or another. Ahsoka charmed them all.

But evenings turn to night. And nights were when Ahsoka now struggled the most.


Author's Note: I've always loved the thought of Ahsoka hanging out with the Clones in their off hours. I mean, honestly, what else would there be to do once a mission is completed, before you're off to the next one? And then she'd just get used to it, and be gone from "home" (Coruscant) so often that she's not really in touch with any of her Padawan peers anymore. 's just as easy to practice sparring with Anakin than with someone her age that she doesn't really know well. Huh. Guess I never thought about how *different* Ahsoka's "upbringing" is from any generation before her. They probably all would've had that problem. Being out of touch with each other, since all their time was spent away fighting with their Masters. You definitely would've had some mental problems if they hadn't all immediately been fighting/hiding for their lives after the war. ANYWAYS... I digress😂