When Fuller walked out of the room, he looked behind him at the door. So that's the girl, he thought. He had heard about the Jedi Gone Rogue, just like everyone else had. Sure, it had been a year, but something like that was hard to forget. Nearly every civilian knew the story about Ahsoka Tano.

Fuller walked back to his office, slumping into his chair. He looked out the window, which looked over the workshop. He watched four of his seven mechanics work on various products that had been brought in and left for repairs. The other three would probably come in later that day, but it was pretty early in the workday so he forgot about it.

Someone knocked on his door, and he sighed before calling out, "Come in!" One of his clerks, Leslie Drega, stepped out from behind the door.

"Hey, boss, I was just wondering if you caught the girl who left the message." She stepped inside and walked up to his desk.

"She's working the simulation right now," he answered her. "You heard who it was?"

Leslie nodded and leaned close, whispering. "Is it really that Jedi that left? The Togruta?"

Fuller shrugged his shoulders. "Looks like it. I never knew she could work with tools, but I guess the Jedi have their secrets."

"So can she really, like, you know..." she lowered her voice even more. "...use the Force?"

"How am I supposed to know, Drega, I just met her! I haven't seen her lift anything with her mind yet."

"Well I just thought since she left, maybe she lost her powers, or..."

Fuller rolled his eyes. "If you want to go in and ask her, you can after she's done on the simulator." He rolled his chair closer to his desk. "What do I have to sign off on today?"

Leslie took a look at the tablet in her arms. "A full turbine set, 24 speeder batteries, and Jake finally put in the order for that new workbench he's been complaining about for so long."

"About time," he grumbled, opening his computer and scanning the forms himself. "Just those three?"

"That's all I've got," Leslie answered. "Unless you have your heart set on the Jedi, then you need to submit the contract to the feds."

Fuller waved her off. "I got it, Drega. Hey," he called, as she started to walk away. "Remember, I need an inventory of the pantry done by tonight. If someone isn't busy, get them on it."

"Yes, boss," Leslie answered, and she walked out and shut the door behind her. She grumbled as she walked down the hall since inventory was the least favorite part of her job.

Fuller watched the door after it closed, not letting the smirk he felt coming on his face. He wasn't very vocal about it, but he knew he had the best employees in the Lower Levels working for him. Drega, Jackson, Oura, and Tyme worked the front desk, and Granger, Journey, Wheeler, Luce, Morola, Devon, and Nox worked the shop. He consistently called them by their last name to try and keep the place professional, but he was proud of all of them. Most of them had been on for a few years at least, and it had hit the whole crew hard when Frand let them know he was moving up to the surface. Fuller hoped he was enjoying himself up there, but he knew he was blowing all of his competition out of the water.

He wallowed in his memories for a moment longer, then pulled up the tab on his screen for the security cameras. He opened the camera in the sim room, and he watched Ahsoka Tano for a few seconds, with the audio off. Who knew, if she was up for it and if she was good, maybe he would hire on an ex-Jedi. That would be a first.

Ahsoka turned to the large simulation machine, pressing the activation button. A screen lit up on her right, and Ahsoka walked to stand in front of it. It asked for her name, and Ahsoka typed it in, making sure she didn't accidentally misspell it. Then it asked for a picture. Ahsoka was starting to wonder what this was for, but she let the machine take her picture all the same.

After her picture, a profile card showed up and a bunch of blank slots started flashing at her. After a moment of studying the screen, Ahsoka thought she knew what it was showing her. She could select one of the multiple different products to fix, and it would test her results as well as time her work. She could do as many as she wanted, or could, and then once she hit submit her simulation would be complete.

What should she do first? Most of these she had fixed before, but she hadn't done some of this stuff for a year. She had better start simple, like the blaster she had fixed last night. It was actually still in her waistband, and it would inhibit her motion while she worked. Ahsoka tucked the blaster into her bag and selected the blaster on the simulation.

The machine spat out a blaster, but a horribly distorted and dismantled one. It was just about the worst-case scenario for a blaster, and everything that could be wrong was broken. She could see why Mr. Fuller used the simulation to test applicants.

A message appeared on the screen, letting Ahsoka know that as soon as she picked up the blaster off the weight sensor, the stopwatch would begin and she would be timed. She turned around and grabbed the toolbox behind her, grateful that she had been supplied with what she needed. She was about to pick up the blaster when the door slid open behind her.

She turned, and a human girl with light brown hair and pale skin was standing by the door with a glass of water. "You want a drink before you start?"

Ahsoka nodded, smiling kindly. "Thank you," she told her, walking to the newcomer. "Who are you?"

The girl handed her the water and answered. "Leslie Drega, but most people stick with Leslie. Well," she amended her statement as Ahsoka swallowed some of the water. "Fuller calls me Drega, but he calls everyone by their last names. No one knows why."

Ahsoka managed to nod while drinking from the glass. It made sense to her, who had been in a military long enough to understand professionalism.

"You're Ahsoka Tano, right?" Leslie went on. "That's what your message said anyway."

She must be one of the clerks that Mr. Fuller was talking about before, then. "I am. It's nice to meet you."

"Same," said Leslie, who was much more relaxed than Ahsoka felt at the moment. "You deal with weapons and things like that before?"

More than you know. "Yes, quite a bit. Although that one is something else," Ahsoka pointed to the blaster waiting to test her. "Any tips?"

Leslie shrugged. "All I've heard the others say is do it right and do it quickly, but focus on right. I never had to try that."

"Got it," Ahsoka handed back the glass once she drained it. "Thank you, again, for the water."

"No problem. Good luck!"

Smiling, Leslie exited the room, and Ahsoka was alone again.

Well, she thought. Let's see how bad this blaster is. She picked it up, and the timer started.

Once she held the weapon in her hands, they started to move of their own accord. She fixed the blaster just like she had fixed the one Ventress had given her, except now she didn't have to use the Force to do so. She had all of the tools she needed beside her, and although she would have been faster if she had used her abilities, she settled for trusting her experience. Parts were fixed, some of them replaced, and in a few minutes, the blaster was finished.

She returned it to the platform she had taken it from and the timer stopped. She managed to catch a glimpse of the numbers before they disappeared off the screen. Would it be fast enough? Ahsoka would have to wait to find out.

Going down the list, time became meaningless to Ahsoka, and the clock hardly seemed to tick as she worked. This was so familiar to her, and as she worked she calmed her confused emotions and quieted her mind. The only thing she needed to worry about right now was what she was working on, and all else faded into the background. It brought her a silent peace that had been missing for...well, a year.

Her hands moved to the pulse of her beating heart, flowing and crafting the inner workings of the machines until she was satisfied. She remembered all the time Anakin had spent making sure she knew how to repair her own tools in case she ever got stranded on a mission. He had always been good at this stuff, but it was Ahsoka who really started to take off with motors and things like that once she got the hang of it. Anakin always made sure that he checked his own vehicles and weapons before he used them, and he had taught his apprentice the same practices. Ahsoka could remember some of the first times he had insisted on her learning how to repair a speeder.

"I'm just saying, we have mechanics onboard the cruiser. Why do I need to know how to do this stuff?"

The Jedi Knight chuckled. "Sure, we have one on the cruiser, but what if you're on a mission and it breaks down while you're away from the group?"

Ahsoka picked up one of the tools, trying to figure out what she would need it for. "I thought they checked the speeders before we used them."

Her master didn't say anything else on the matter but started walking her through the steps to check a speeder. Ahsoka tuned out, only half following along. In her mind, she ran over some of the battle tactics they had studied the night before. Those were much more interesting than 'tork', or whatever Master Skywalker was talking about.

"Alright, Snips, do you think it's ready?"

"Yes, Skyguy. Do you want me to test it?" She hopped on without waiting for a response and looked for the ignition. No sooner had she fired up the engine that it sputtered out and spewed smoke into Ahsoka's face. She coughed and dismounted, and when the smoke cleared, her master was looking on with an amused face.

"I thought you said it was ready," he said, nearly laughing.

"I did your checks, it seemed fine!"

"Uh-huh, look again."

Grumbling under her breath, she opened the engine again and ran through what she remembered from his lecture. It was on her second time around that she noticed a gear had slipped out of place.

"I could have sworn that wasn't there before."

"It wasn't," her master told her, and she whirled around and stared at him, her mouth gaping.

"So you were trying to break it? What was that for?!"

"This time it was just a gear," he knelt down next to her, "but what if next time it was something like this?" He reached into the engine and pulled out a wire, and Ahsoka racked her memory for what it did.

"That transmits to the main circuit board, right?"

Anakin nodded. "If this was damaged, and you tried to use the speeder, it would have done more than smoke up. If one piece is out of place, the entire speeder could go to scrap. All the pieces have to work together in order to do anything. The sooner you learn that, the better, Padawan."

Ahsoka looked down at the rest of the engine. "Reminds me of what Master Yoda always says about the Order, only this seems more complicated."

Present-day Ahsoka laughed and shook her head at her fourteen-year-old self. If only that were true. She knew that the parts of a speeder could be fixed in less than half an hour. The Order? Not so much. Change in the Jedi Order came slowly, if at all, and not in a sequential series of repairs. It took time and setbacks, and it cost a high price, sometimes. It was why she knew that the Order would need time to heal from Sideous and everything that he had done.

She used to be a piece of the Order, but she knew she wasn't going to go back anytime soon. All the pieces had to work together, just like Anakin said, but she didn't know if she could do that anymore. She didn't even know if the Order would take her back, especially now. She was broken, bent out of shape, and damaged permanently. Maybe healing was possible, but she couldn't go back to that innocent, trusting little girl that thought she understood the world as she saw it. She had to move forward.

Ahsoka blinked and paused her repairs on the simulator's hyperdrive. Her mind hadn't been this clear in a long time. She looked down at her hands, then back at the hyperdrive. She resumed her work, but she realized that her hands had been working from muscle memory this whole time. More to the fact, she had been focused enough to finally work through some of the things that had been weighing down on her shoulders for months. It was at that moment that Ahsoka decided she didn't just need this job but wanted it as well. If this was what it would take to heal what had been hurt, then it was good enough for Ahsoka.

She submitted the hyperdrive for results and sat back against the far wall. How much time had passed? She looked up at the clock and realized that it was almost 2. She hadn't even stopped to eat, although this wasn't new to her. On Dromund Kaas, sometimes she had to starve for rotations at a time and used her ability to ignore her hunger and tune out distractions to get through those days. Down here, she had no intention of starving, but if she could still concentrate her focus, then that would definitely come in handy.

Reaching over, she pulled her bag to her and went over her progress as she munched on some dried fruit. She had finished a speeder motor, a projector, a washing machine (although she had never tried to fix one of those before), a computer, a HoloNet console, a few different types of droids, a door lock, a small ship engine, and she had just finished a hyperdrive. Not bad for six hours of work, although she probably would have done better if she was in better shape. Now that she was resting, Ahsoka's side was starting to ache again, although it wasn't so bad. She decided to give herself a little bit of grace as far as time was concerned. After a while down here, she would probably get faster anyways.

Ahsoka finished the last of the fruit and stood up, replacing the tools she had unknowingly spread all across the floor. She resisted the urge to use the Force to do so, not sure whose company she was in. She didn't know what anyone else thought of her here, not yet. She returned to the simulator and found that she had completed all of the simulations. She didn't want to redo any of them, so she hit submit on the screen. It asked her to confirm her submission, which she did, and the screen faded to green.

"Simulation complete," it told her, before shutting down completely.