Learning to Live (COMPLETE)

8.11.1

Ahsoka wasn't sure of the reaction she would receive when she walked into the shop the next day. She had not responded to any of the messages her coworkers had left on her communications console, although she had listened to most of them more than once. She had decided that she would accept whatever consequences she had coming her way and move on from the past weekend as though it had never happened.

She had spent all of Sunday doing everything she could to cut herself off from the Force. She had taken a very long walk and did not use the Force to run, jump, sense around her, or any other purpose besides. All tasks at home, she disciplined herself to do manually. Ahsoka had already been trying to avoid using the Force for mundane things, like lifting the vacuum cleaner when she could walk ten steps to grab it, but now it was a mandatory rule for herself. She felt vulnerable and unsteady, but it was better than the alternative.

At first, she had worried that the hum of the kyber crystals in her vents would distract her and pull her to the Force, but she still didn't have a better place to leave them, so they had to stay. What she did not expect was for the crystals to go silent. Without the Force to listen to them, they became ordinary shards of rock, albeit glowing red shards of rock. There was no song, Dark or otherwise, coming from them anymore. It actually worked out to Ahsoka's benefit: If she could hear the kyber crystals, she was slipping and needed to refocus herself away from the Force. It almost made her want to keep one in her pocket, but she knew what would happen: if the wrong person tried to hold the crystal, it would melt into water in their hand.

When she punched in her code and unlocked the back door on Monday, Luce and Jake were in the garage sorting the new shipment of spare parts. They turned to look at her come in, and she put on a smile. No need for them to know what had been happening for the past day.

Luce piped up. "Long time, no see!" He greeted her, smiling. "You seem to be in a better mood."

"I just needed time to clear my head after the break-in," she said, performing the excuse she had rehearsed the night before. "Thank you for the messages, I appreciated it."

"Eh, don't worry about it," he told her. "Wanna help organize these?"

Jake dumped a few sets of copper wires into the corresponding bin. "We tried to rope Tyme into helping us, but he's doing inventory again."

Ahsoka grinned. "Sure, I can help. How is your leg, by the way?"

"It hurts to walk," he complained, "and it's so itchy! I know it's bad to scratch it, but oh my God, it's annoying!"

"Oh, it hurts to walk, Tano," Luce mocked, raising his voice an octave. "I'm used to being pampered and cared for, and I don't like having to heal!!!"

Ahsoka laughed while Jake punched Luce in the arm. "Not funny."

"Seriously, though," she mentioned, "it is bad to scratch an open wound. You don't want it to get infected, and that's the whole reason I stitched and covered it up. Just try to leave it alone until the scab flakes off. Then you can pull the stitches and let it air out."

"I know," he admitted, defeated. "I still don't get how you learned all this stuff."

She shrugged, downplaying the significance of the fact. "I had a friend who taught me a few things on the fly. It comes in handy every now and then."

Luce opened his mouth to ask who her friend was, but at that moment, Granger entered the garage. All three of them froze and fell silent when he walked in, as did he. No one moved until he glared at Ahsoka and walked back out. Whatever he had come in for apparently wasn't worth being in the same space as her.

The door slammed, and Ahsoka flinched at the bang. "Yeah," Jake leaned close to her head. "If he didn't like you before, he hates you now."

"I'm not surprised," she replied, returning her attention to sorting. "He has every right to be. I shouldn't have lost control the other day."