Author's Note: Wow, this chapter has taken me wayyy longer to get out than I wanted. Life's just getting a bit crazy for me. I really enjoyed writing the Force interaction in this chapter, I hope you guys enjoy it too. As far as content warnings go, there isn't any real action, just pain descriptions. Enjoy!

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Chapter 7

There was a burst of energy, a buzzing sound, and an unavoidable heat burning the skin on Ahsoka's arms and chest and stomach. She batted away a pesky insect hovering around her montrals and lifted a hand to her forehead. She felt woozy. Certainly, she was on Geonosis, but where were the troops? And the native bugs seemed miniscule compared to what she remembered.

Suddenly, a voice boomed at her back, Anakin's, yelling at her to get moving, destroy the droid factory, to sacrifice herself. Obi-Wan says it's the Jedi way. It's time to die, Anakin says. Move, move, move! Ahsoka's breath turned to panting. She scrambled into a catacomb and found herself crammed into a tank instead. Her panting turned to gasping. Bariss lunged at her from the bowels of the transport, carving out her lungs with her blinding blue lightsaber. Everything shook. Fear radiated through the Force. It wasn't until rocks rained down on her head that Ahsoka realized the fear was hers. Dust coated her skin, grit sanding down the flesh under her fingernails. Her lekku throbbed. She couldn't breathe. A cavity scored across her chest in jagged cliffs. Hands snaked around her throat. Ahsoka's eyes bulged. She looked up, but instead of Bariss' face, her eyes met a clone's from the 501st. Tup? She opened her mouth to scream and a worm slid past her tongue. Her eyes rolled back into her skull—

Ahsoka thrashed herself awake and was immediately greeted by pain. A wail gurgled from her chest to her throat, from the nightmare or the knifing hurt, she didn't know. She reached for ground, for balance, for something— and something caught her wrist instead. She wrenched her hand away. Pain lacerated her side. She cried out, gasping and clutching her abdomen. On her right, the mattress shifted; a weight settling down.

"It's okay, Ahsoka! Stop moving, you're making it worse. Talk to me—where does it hurt?"

Like a magnet, her eyes locked on his. They were sharp, deep set and blue, his right eye splicing the scar on his brow into a broken line. His skin had always been lighter than hers, though now they were remarkably similar tones, since he was tanned from the Geonosis sun, and she was pale from the unrelenting pain. His brown hair curled around his ears, both of which Ahsoka couldn't imagine having. There was a crease in his brow, just above the bridge of his nose, the same place it always was in battle. It was familiar and worried and determined and frustrated and demanding a response all at the same time, and yet all Ahsoka could think was: Anakin. Anakin's here. He's here. Oh, Force.

She dropped her head to the pillow, letting her fear fade and the ache in her chest steal her full awareness.

"Snips! Look at me." She turned to him with a wince. He wasn't shouting but his voice still blared through her montrals. With a frown, he dropped it a few decibels. "You're still shaking. Relax."

She took a shuddering breath. The throbbing over her skin and in her head was distracting, but her mind was clear enough. The drugs were worn. She wrenched her eyes shut, tried to focus on stilling herself. Her face was wet, with sweat or tears, she didn't know. She clenched her toes and her fingers into fists. Everywhere else she forced her muscles to release. The stabbing sensation settled into a throb. She felt her master's vice-like grip loosen and settle over her hand instead. Still her breaths were short gasps, each one threatening the bounds of her pain tolerance. She clung to her master's presence like a lifeline and flung her consciousness into the Force.

All she had to do was release her pain. There was so much of it, Ahsoka didn't know where to start. It felt like she was drowning, searching for painless handholds, trying to find and tear the hurt away… until she realized she wasn't the only one looking. Anakin's Force presence had anchored itself to hers, gently hovering over her glow, actively hauling away her pain. The well of gratitude swelled so deep in her soul, it poured over, thick like honey.

She returned to her task renewed, dipping her thoughts into her burning skin, feeling it all over again, peeling away a ribbon of the hurt and tossing it into the abyss of the Force. She tugged at another, but it wouldn't budge. She'd nearly exhausted herself just with the one piece. As if hearing her thoughts, Anakin radiant presence encompassed her, nudging her glow away, dusting her off like she was good as new. He tugged away the pain himself.

Ahsoka opened her eyes, consciousness surging back to her physical form, where suddenly, the pain was manageable. She blinked over her master, his eyes clenched shut, focused on aiding her still. There was a grimace on his face and his shoulders twitched. Ahsoka frowned. She ran her awareness down the tether of their Force bond. His mental shields were up, but filtering around the edges was the faintest hint of pain, like a paper cut or a hangnail, and Ahsoka's eyes widened. There was too much pain to release to the Force so fast. He was harboring the rest on his own body until he had enough time to fling the excess away.

Ahsoka dropped her head to her pillow once again. Tears welled in her eyes and she chewed on her lip. There was still a glimmer of panic worming its way out of her chest from the nightmare. In the dream, Anakin had wanted her to sacrifice herself. She shook her head. Here he sat on the edge of her mattress, taking her pain on himself instead of plugging meds into her system, just because he knew she hated being drugged. Anakin would never, in a million years, order her to go die.

"Snips?" He murmured.

Ahsoka glanced up at him. His blue eyes rested on hers, hesitant and full of compassion. She swallowed hard. "Master?"

He took her hand in his. "The pain won't stay like this. Whenever you move, it'll be worse. Even sometimes when you're not moving. Do you want me to call the doctor?"

He meant; would you rather have the drugs?

She growled. The dreams… She hated the dreams, distorting her realities into cold, callous nightmares. But her body when she moved too much… the ache was all her mind would let her focus on. She'd never been in pain like that before.

Slowly, she twisted her shoulder, the muscle tensing when it pulled at the flesh over her side, a dull throb warning against further movement. Ahsoka groaned, almost a low whine, and glanced at him again. "Master, what is wrong with me?"

He sat back and pursed his lips. The mattress shifted again under his weight. "Three broken ribs. Hypothermia. And you ruptured your spleen."

Ahsoka paused. His voice was strained. She could fix that, probably. She wrinkled her nose. The ribs explained the breathlessness and pain. Hypothermia made sense, considering the skin over her whole body was tingling like a sleeping limb. But a ruptured spleen?

"Sounds like a bad joke."

He shot her a scowl. "Ahsoka, anytime the word 'ruptured' precedes an organ, the situation becomes serious, so could you cut the snippy comments for the moment?"

She scoffed. "Who siphoned your rations?"

A pulse of aggravation pricked at her end of the Force bond, followed shortly by an eyes-narrowed-brows-furrowed glare. "You nearly died, Ahsoka."

Her teeth chewed her bottom lip, but she forced the rest of her face into an impassioned expression. Jedi were supposed to be fearless. Death was nothing but a deeper step into the Force. Yet the declaration dropped a weight on her chest, sinking her back into the medical pad, trapping her on this station that was only meant to be a stop on a supply mission.

Anakin plucked at their training bond. She barely shot him a glance.

"Well, I'm not dead. I'm here. Toss me in a bacta tank and let's get going. Master Windu still needs the medical supplies, and I—" She turned to him now. "Wait, what are you doing here? I thought you were supposed to be delivering Poggle to Coruscant."

"So what?"

"You had a mission, Master." She muttered. "So did I."

"Yeah, well, you're my padawan. That takes precedence."

Something warm bloomed in the Force around them at his words. Ahsoka's stare softened. Just for a moment, she let herself sink into it. Her master's emotions welled deep, though he could never quite contain them. It made him a liability in the perspective of the other Jedi.

Ahsoka frowned. It wasn't so long ago that they'd tried rescuing Master Ayla Secura over the planet Quell. Anakin had thrown himself in front of an explosion that would have taken all their lives, saving them, and rendering himself unconscious and unstable instead. It had taken all Master Secura's Jedi negotiation tactics to pry Ahsoka from his side. It would seem master and padawan were two of a kind.

Ahsoka glanced at him. "I doubt Master Windu would see it that way."

He scoffed and a tang of bitterness slivered through their Force bond. "Then, he can join Luminara's club."

"Master Luminara?" Ahsoka blinked. "Why would—"

It all came back in an instant. The transport. The cold. The hands around her neck. She'd called her lightsaber to her hand. She'd swiped it across the enemy.

She'd swiped it across Bariss.

"Oh Force." Ahsoka rammed her head back into the pillow. Her back tensed; her hands trembled. She'd heard a scream, then nothing.

"Ahsoka?" Anakin rested a hand over her blanketed shin. She ignored him.

"Oh Force." Tears welled in the corners of her eyes. She remembered feeling the icy lightsaber hilt in her hand. She hadn't even stopped to think. "What have I done?"

The hands at her throat had fallen away. There'd been a dull thump among all the beeping and whirling of the ship's controls. Did she even see where Bariss landed?

"Ahsoka!" Anakin shook her. She locked eyes with him.

"Bariss, Master. Oh Force, I killed Bariss."

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Thanks for reading! Chapter 8 will be out soon. (Hopefully that means within the next 2 weeks! I usually post on Tuesdays.)