A/N: This story comes from a persistent wish to see jaded old woman Ahsoka fall into the accidental child acquisition trap. Canon-divergence AU, crossposted from AO3.
Ahsoka stared into her mirror. An old woman stared back at her. Lekku longer than Master Ti's, wrinkled with age, the blue markings faded like paint many years under the sun. Her face was lined, but not with laughter, and the slender elegance of her youth had since thinned into a gauntness that bordered on austerity.
"You've outlived your usefulness," she observed to the crone in the mirror. "Outlived your friends, and even your enemies. Why are you still hanging on?"
Well, sixty-three wasn't really all that old, in the grand scheme of things. It was still too old, though. Older than her master, or her grandmaster, or even her great-grandmaster.
"And what do you have to show for it? Just the scars and the memories, and the feeling that life has moved on without you. A lot of might-have-beens, buried side-by-side with everything you could have prevented but didn't."
Or maybe she couldn't have prevented it. That was almost worse. To think that her entire existence had been in vain and she had never even stood a chance of making things better.
"Well, this won't do at all," she chided her reflection.
She needed a change. She would go travel.
Settling a cloak over her shoulders, she took up her staff, and set out. She paid her respects once more on a desolate moon, she scattered Endor's soil around a monument in Theed, and watched Coruscant sparkle like a jewel from afar. Then she bid farewell to the familiar places, confining her ramblings thenceforth to those worlds where she had never yet set foot, where no old ghosts lingered to haunt her every step. And at the end of the journey, the Force called her to Jakku.
In what appeared to be the grand tradition of her family, it all started with a stop for new parts for her ship. Philosophers, she was sure, could find an allegory in that. Ahsoka didn't bother. She was too busy searching through bins of components and fending off the overly-solicitous proprietor who seemed to doubt the ability of an old woman to select replacement parts.
"I know what I'm looking for!"
She poked the man away with her staff.
Force help her, she was reverting to her old snippy-padawan ways with an added side of Master Yoda. She shook her head with a snort of mixed amusement and exasperation.
"What's so funny?" a young voice inquired from the vicinity of her elbow. She looked down to find a grimy scrap of a girl, age twelve or so, peering up at her.
"Old age."
"Really? It doesn't seem very funny. Everyone says your joints hurt and stuff."
"It's like climbing a mountain. Things hurt by the time you get to the top, but the perspective is astounding."
The girl raised a doubtful eyebrow. "If you say so. What are you looking for?"
"Fuel injector compatible with a CEC G9 Rigger."
"You won't find any good ones in there. They're all busted. Even the ones that look okay. The kung-karker that runs this place—he's my boss—takes good ones and breaks 'em, so he gets more business with repairs and replacements." She rose on her tiptoes and leaned in close with a conspiratorial air. "But I just got back from a collection round. I've got some beauties, and he hasn't touched 'em."
"Aren't you going to get in trouble with your boss?" Ahsoka asked.
"Not if you don't tell. And you won't. I can feel it, or I wouldn't've told you."
The Force whispered, and Ahsoka reached for its currents. The girl beside her glittered like the surface of a lake on a clear summer day.
"What's your name?" Ahsoka asked.
"Rey."
"Rey what?"
Rey shrugged. "Nobody, I guess."
"Don't you have family?"
"Sure I do. Somewhere. They'll come back someday!"
The words had a discordant harmony in the Force.
Ahsoka was not going to take on a child. She was especially not going to mentor an older child. She was not going to tread the line of attachment, or lead anyone else to tread it, either.
If you don't take her, someone else will. It was the voice of every person who had ever given her worthwhile advice. There will always be people who turn to the darkness and seek power at the cost of the innocent, even if those people do not style themselves as Sith.
"Meet me for lunch," she told Rey, "and I'll take you up on your offer."
"Okay. At the cantina down the road?"
"Yes."
Rey offered her hand, Ahsoka shook, and the girl skipped away. At the shop door, she paused.
"Wait!" she called back. "What's your name?"
"Ashla."
"See you, Ashla!"
Ahsoka watched her scamper off, and a rare smile curved her lips for just a moment, before she tucked it away.
I am not taking a padawan. I will not train her in the ways of the Jedi. Merely to touch the Force, to control herself, and to be aware of the dangers so she does not fall into bad circumstances or the dark side.
Ashla was nice, Rey decided.
The two of them were sitting on the ground outside the cantina, sheltered from the sun by a canopy which Ashla had rigged using her cloak, the side of the building, and her staff. (And maybe a bit of magic. Rey couldn't be sure.) As they lounged on the warm sand, eating fried bread and steamed sand urchins with pickled nightbloomer rind, Rey sneaked a couple of fuel injectors out of her pockets.
"Here. This one's in the best condition, but it's only compatible with the newer G9s."
"Ah. I'm afraid that one won't work, then." She gestured across the way, and Rey's eyes widened.
"That old thing? She's antique!"
"I suppose she is. She and I fit very well together, that way."
"What's her name?"
Ashla's smile was something akin to the nightbloomer pickle, sweet with memory, soured by experience. "Aurora. I named her in a fit of poetic nostalgia. Here, want the last piece of bread?"
Rey grabbed it enthusiastically, and Ashla sneaked her some credits for one of the fuel injectors. Rey pushed a few of them back.
"You bought lunch. So I'll take that off the price."
Ashla raised one of her eyemarkings. "But you wouldn't have bought lunch in the first place, would you?"
She put the credits firmly back in Rey's hand. "Those are for you. Not your boss. You keep them. Lunch—that was my treat. You're not going to out-stubborn me, little one. I learned from the best, and I had plenty of my own to begin with."
There was something sharp in her eyes, but they crinkled gently. Something old and sad and happy chimed in the air around her.
Ashla was very strange. Rey thought she knew a good bit about strange old women, but Ashla was something else. Under her thick crust of world-weariness, Rey sensed something alive and warm and vivid that all the woman's many years and hardships couldn't smother, while behind her tidy grace and serenity dwelt a scrappy warrior ready to haul herself up from the dirt to have another go.
Equally strange was her appearance on Jakku. The dustball was not most elderly tourists' idea of a desirable holiday location. Of course, Ashla was also clearly not most elderly tourists, so….
"Why'd you come here?" Rey asked.
"I was called," Ashla said. "There was something here, someone, and I was needed."
She gave her an appraising look. "Have you ever heard of the Force, Rey?"
"Sure. Lots of people come through here, and I've heard plenty of stories."
"Earlier, you said you knew you could trust me. How did you know?"
Rey shrugged. "It's just a feeling. I can't really describe it… wait. Are you saying that's the Force?"
"Yes."
"What makes you think that?"
Ashla swirled her fingers in a graceful motion above the ground, and a little vortex of sand rose to meet them. She scooped her hand under it, and poured the sparkling grains back to the ground.
"Are you a Jedi?" Rey whispered in awe. "Wait—am I?"
"No," Ashla said, "and no. But we can both use the Force."
Rey copied her swirling gesture, but nothing happened.
"I dunno."
"It takes time, and training, and practice." She hesitated, then offered, "I can teach you, if you like."
"Really?"
"Yes, really."
Rey almost bounced a little with excitement, until something occurred to her.
"Wait… but you don't live here. Does that mean I'd have to go away with you? Only, I can't leave, because my family—I have to be here when they come back for me."
Ashla studied her, the smile fading from her eyes. She got that sad look that grownups sometimes did when they knew something you didn't, and then called it age and experience.
"I'll stay," she said. "I have nothing else to do. I'll stay here, and teach you."
And so the weeks went by. Rey visited Ashla on Aurora almost every day. It was a cozy space, neat and tidy, but not in a fussy old lady sort of way. More like Ashla simply embodied order and it came out in everything she did. Rey had to leave her shoes at the door—sand found its way into everything, if you weren't careful—but Ashla never complained when she dragged the cushions off the couch to make a nest on the floor. After the first few days, Rey didn't even bother to knock before entering. The old G9 was already more of a home than anywhere else she had lived since her parents left. Sometimes, Ashla taught her how to touch the Force and how to notice things beyond what she already did. Sometimes, she worked on her ship while Rey watched or helped out. Sometimes, they just chatted over a cup of tea, or occasionally food from the cantina. Once, Ashla cooked something with chopped-up dried meat, lichen, and a milky sauce with strange, wonderful seasonings—but also enough peppers to set Rey's mouth burning at the second bite.
"You like that stuff?" she spluttered, furiously gulping water. She thought she was a pretty adventurous eater—on a place like Jakku, you ate what you could find—but this was beyond her limits.
Ashla nodded. "It reminds me of home."
She pushed a plate of bread across the table. "Here. This will help."
Rey crammed a piece into her mouth.
"Home? Wh're the kr'ff're you from, the S'th hells?"
"Not where," Ashla said, without bothering to chide her for talking with her mouth full. "Who."
She had that sad-happy feeling again. Rey didn't push for details.
Ahsoka watched as Rey settled into a routine. The girl had been lonely, that much was evident. She had taken to her new mentor like an imprinting waterfowl, and her visits ran longer and longer. And Ahsoka herself… well, she had found a purpose, and wasn't her lack of such what had set her off on this entire journey? She found herself looking forward to the girl's daily harum-scarum dash into her living space, accompanied by a very teenling-ish, "You wouldn't believe what happened to today!", which was generally followed by a rummage through the ship's foodstores before she flopped down in her habitual cushion nest. It was nice to have someone young around. It was pleasant to have someone to whom to pass on her knowledge.
I'm not taking a padawan.
She swore she could hear Anakin and Obi-Wan's laughter. Neither were we.
One day, Rey came in quietly, with doleful eyes. Her hair, free of its customary buns, hung loose down her back. "My parents are never coming back, are they?"
She threw herself against Ahsoka, skinny arms squeezing tight around her ribs.
"I can feel it in the Force. They're dead. I think I knew all the time, just never wanted to realise it."
Ahsoka enfolded her in the embrace that she herself had never had when things went to hell. She led her over to the couch, and didn't let go until Rey sat up and wiped her eyes.
"Ashla, can I…"
"Yes. You can stay with me."
They left Jakku the next morning.