I wrote this chapter, intending to bake a nice loaf of bread for my plot, and it turned out to be a very sweet cake. Oops, cavity warnings ahead. It's a very sweet chapter.
In the last chapter, Ahsoka found records of Palpatine's plotting to get rid of her. She learned that the Sith stuffed negative feelings in the Temple to make the Council distrust her, and likely told Barris who to frame. In this chapter she is still reacting to this news.
Chapter 84 - Ghost
Ahsoka ran to her room and slammed the door. Tears streamed down her face faster than she could wipe them away. She fell to the floor, crying open, fat, and ugly tears. It was a shame, she knew, to get so emotional. She had been trained since she was a youngling to release her emotions to the Force and not to dwell on them. But now, with the words of Sidious plotting her pain like deeds he was proud of, it was hard. Harder than it had been in a long time.
As the Midi-chlorians in Ahsoka's blood were feeling her pain, they remembered another time when the same girl was crying. At the time, all the Midi-chlorians had to do was to send off an impulse, and another Force-Sensitive was able to sense the girl and her emotions. Though they did the same now, no one nearby was sensitive enough to feel their vibrations. In the past however…
"Little Soka, is that you?" The cumbersome adult had made the best attempt to crawl into Ahsoka's hiding space that he could.
"Mmm-hmm," she uttered, then pulled her arms around her to hide her head.
"Do you need help releasing your emotions?" He asked.
She shook her head. "No, I r'member your lessons." As she said this, new tears appeared in the corners of her eyes.
"Red Turu-grass and blue trees make the Thimiar feel at home..." Plo started to recite a story he'd heard Togruttan mothers tell their younglings.
"Why are you here?" Ahsoka interrupted him.
"I-I want to help," Plo answered honestly.
"But what do you want from me?"
Plo looked down at her seriously. He realized where these questions were coming from. "I don't want anything from you." The scarred child didn't buy it. When he found her, after that con-artist tried to take her, he knew she'd need to deal with the trauma. "If you were me," he tried. "If you were passing along, and you saw one of your young friends was sad, would you not try to cheer her up?"
"Yeah, of course," she answered.
"And you wouldn't, because you wanted something from them. You'd just help them, because that's what a Jedi does." She nodded. "You'll make a very good Jedi, little 'Soka," he continued. "That's what I want. I want to help you, because you're my friend, and you're sad."
"Oh," she hummed.
"Now, does your Creche Master know where you are?" He asked.
"Nuh-uh," she denied.
"Then do you want to go find…"
"No!" Ahsoka refused with as much gusto as a three year old can muster.
"Hmm," the man hummed. "Perhaps you should tell me what happened, then."
Ahsoka looked down, embarrassed. "I didn't know you weren't supposed to climb the trees. When Barris threw her disc up there, I go to climb 'n get it. Then the 'unteers yell at me, and I get in trouble. They hate me now."
"Little 'Soka, a good Jedi doesn't hate. I'm sure the volunteers just didn't know how new you are. Once we explain it to them… Can you be brave enough to come out with me, and we'll go find your Creche Master, together?"
Ahsoka thought about it for a second, then she nodded and tried to squeeze past the Jedi.
"Hold on, let me go first." He said as he pulled himself out of the girl's hiding place.
As the Midi-chlorians remembered this, they settled on a plan to help the older Ahsoka.
In her pain, Ahsoka grabbed her comlink and flipped it open. She started dialing a number she'd often found comforting in the past. Part way through, she stopped and threw the device on the floor. She remembered the owner of that comlink was dead, and it made her cry harder.
"You wouldn't want to talk to him like this anyways. You're an embarrassment for a Jedi," she told herself.
"I thought you weren't a Jedi anymore?" The voice came out of nowhere and shocked Ahsoka.
She turned around to search the room, but found it just as empty as when she'd entered. "Okay, now you're hearing things. Pull yourself together, Tano." She used the Force to summon a handkerchief from the other side of the room, and dried her face. "You're not a youngling anymore. And he's right, you're not a Jedi either."
"Oh, I wouldn't say that. There's more to being a Jedi than membership in an order."
Ahsoka looked up with alarm. "Who are you?" She reached out with her Force senses and felt no one. 'It must be electronic,' she assumed. Then she reached out and deactivated the ship's speaker on the wall.
"Now, now, little 'Soka. Don't rip the room apart on my account." The voice, it sounded amused now.
"What do you want?" If the Empire sent a droid in to mock her, mock her with the voice of a dead man, it must have some purpose.
There was a sigh. "I thought we'd dealt with this a long time ago. If you're passing along and you hear a little one cry, do you not stop to comfort her? You were raised Jedi, of course you would. As was I."
'The Empire doesn't know I was raised a Jedi, yet.' "Is that what this is? You fishing for information."
Suddenly, something in the room projected a blue holo. It was a Kel Dor, unmasked.
"Well, you've got the species right. But he always wore a mask," Ahsoka quickly reasoned that if this Kel Dor was projecting from somewhere without a breathing apparatus, he'd have to be on Dorin, several lightyears away, or a separate ship, with the atmosphere tuned to his needs. "Though I already know he died, so you're barking up the wrong tree if you expect to convince me you're him."
"Oh you know who I am," The projection said. "Or who I was."
'Instantaneous response. Not from that far away, then,' Ahsoka worked out. She picked up her comlink and dialed the bridge of her ship. "We have a code blue. I repeat, code blue. Any feelers yet?"
"Nothing on our scanners. We'll try switching to a wider frequency and see what we can find," her captain replied.
The projection just stood there and watched her with a very Jedi like calmness.
In a few minutes, her comlink activated again. "Still negative. How positive are you about that code blue?" her captain asked.
"I'm staring at a holo-projection responding live to me right now," she told him.
"Huh? The section you're in is an alloy, lined with refined Vintrium and Zeka Quartz. No ship in the known galaxy could get an untraceable signal through that."
Ahsoka looked up and saw the projection moving his head up and down, as if he were silently laughing. She felt embarrassed for not realizing the snag to her theory. It was her field to know where their weaknesses were. "Understood. This is Force Osik, then." Without thinking, she used the vulgar term her clone troopers had used for Jedi stuff, which they didn't understand. "I'll keep you apprised. Over."
On the bridge her captain was scratching her head, repeating the odd term, "Force Osik! What's that supposed to mean?"
But back in Ahsoka's quarters, she'd again made eye contact with the supposed holo-projection. "What are you?" she asked.
"I am not a hologram being projected here from somewhere else. Though, I suppose, that actually might be an apt description after all."
"Where are you? Let's start with that?" Ahsoka folded her arms.
"I am not of your world, not anymore. I come from the Force, another realm. It's the best you can understand," he answered.
"So what? You're a ghost." She attempted to laugh at the term, but it came out more like a shaky cry.
"If that term works for you, then yes." He nodded.
"And what, you're here to make me feel better? Seeing the one man who was more of a mentor to me than my own master, who I walked away from because he'd been weak against Sith Osik, who I will never get to see again or tell him I forgive him!..." She took a deep breath. "Is supposed to make me feel better!"
"I am here because you called me," he replied. "And I do want to make you feel better. I never blamed you for walking away. Like I said, there's more to being a Jedi than membership in an order. It's a part of who you are. You needed to discover that." Ahsoka fell into tears again.
"Plo, Plo, I need you," she babbled.
He came up to her and put a blue hand above her shoulder. "We are sorry we were weak to the Sith Osik, you call it. Most of us were so blind until we left your plane, but we see it now."
"So you're not the only one?" Ahsoka asked.
"No. Most of the other Council members did join the Force, but I am still aware of them. There are a few though. You know what the secret is? What keeps us from joining them?" Plo looked up to see her attention was fixed on him. "Attachment. It's as simple as that. The one thing we've been denying ourselves is the one thing keeping us from living on," he shook his head.
"You were attached?" she asked in a teasing voice.
Plo laughed. "I was attached, yes. I was attached to a little youngling I'd found once. One I'd thought of as a daughter, more often than I was supposed to. Little 'Soka, I was attached to you."
She looked up, a surprised 'oh' on her face. "Me?"
Plo smiled and looked into her eyes fondly. "Yes. You are strong and good hearted. You make the light side of the Force swell with pride, or maybe that's just me." He laughed at his joke.
"You know, I was thinking about rejoining the other Jedi. They aren't the same as they used to be, and…" Ahsoka looked up. "But I was also nervous too. What if they turn on me again?"
"Is that really what you're afraid of?" Plo asked.
"No. There isn't likely a Sith Lord going to sneak in and plant distrust. But, I'm not the same person I was. What if I don't fit in? What if I give them a reason to kick me out?"
"You asked me the same thing, before. Do you remember that?"
"I was a youngling then, entering a creche with other Younglings," She huffed. "And after all that happened, are you still going to say my fears were unjustified?"
Plo looked guilty, "We didn't bar you because of anything you did. You never deserved that. The mistake is on us."
"But if I was a better Jedi," she shook her head.
"Nothing you did would've made a difference. You are not to blame. We had the senate and the Chancellor demanding we make a decision, fast. And the Force was Obfuscated without our knowledge." Plo shook his head. "We would've turned against the Grandmaster, in that situation."
"Really, it's a wonder he didn't try that," Ahsoka said.
"Oh, it was one of his contingency plans. Number Four hundred and thirty six," Plo recited, and her eyes went wide. "In my form you become aware of a lot of things."
Ahsoka smiled. "Then, I think I will join them again. If for nothing else, then to deny the Sith any power over my life. It was nice talking to you again, Master. Thank you for this."
Plo bowed to her. "Always, little 'Soka."
He vanished and Ahsoka wiped a few stray tears off her face. She ran to her comlink. The Force's new plan for her life required her to make a few arrangements.
Hello,
I probably broke canon here in a few ways. I'd apologize but I really don't think you'll mind. First my interpretation of how Force Ghosts work. Then my having Plo come back as a Ghost.
I did some interpretational writing with Ahsoka's backstory. Plo did find her on Shili after a con-artist faking a Jedi tried to take her away instead. And the Wiki said her family was mad because youngling Ahsoka refused to show off in front of the con-man. For the most part, Ahsoka got over these events a long time ago, but I chose to put a few psychological side effects in there. After all, Fear of Rejection is pretty universal in most people.
Next chapter there will probably be a short time skip. I hope you'll like what I've got planned. I can't say more without giving it away.
