the solace system (sw rebels | ahsoka/hera)

[fiachairecht]

the solace system. star wars rebels, ahsoka/hera. vocabularies of presence and loss. 693w, rated t. for senmut in maythe4thbewithyou 2018.

Hera finds Ahsoka in the desert a little ways off from their base, a calm silhouette against the setting sun. It seems wrong to disturb her carefully crafted silence, despite the realistic — also wrong — part of Hera's mind reminding her this might be the last chance she has to say anything, before Malachor. Before ...

It doesn't bear thinking about. Ahsoka means too much to the fledgling Rebellion. To Hera.

She settles next to Ahsoka, rests her head on her shoulder and tries to breathe in sync. Smiles at the warmth of Ahsoka's lekku curling around hers.

The light is turning Ahsoka's orange skin luminous when she says, "I'm going with them tomorrow."

"I know," Hera murmurs. "And you'll come back with them, too. You won't have to hide forever."

"You went into hiding for me, once," Ahsoka points out.

Hera grins wryly. "I went into hiding because you told me to." She doesn't say there's a difference. They both know there isn't.

"Mm. And it lasted, what? A day?"

The lilt in Ahsoka's voice pulls a laugh from Hera, despite the gravity of the situation, and she straightens to meet Ahsoka's sparkling eyes. "I'd do it again," she says. "And I'd go with you, if I could."

Ahsoka's smiling too, sad and firm. "It's why you can't. The Rebellion needs you, Hera," she says, reaching out to cup Hera's face in her hands. Her fingertips are hot, bright points of light pressing against Hera's cheekbones, and Hera can't keep her eyes open. "You'll keep them alive while I'm gone. I know you will."

Hera's used to the trust of her crew, five hearts so much stronger than they should have to be all trusting that she'll fly them true, fly them safe. Why does Ahsoka's trust feel so much harder to carry?

"I will," she repeats.

In a braver world she might have said I love you, and she thinks Ahsoka knows that, too.

 

**

 

In the morning, Ahsoka lingers a moment too long in the Phantom's doorway and Hera's left with the uncomfortable feeling that too many things have just changed.

 

**

 

Another agent takes over the Fulcrum name two months after Kanan and Ezra return from Malachor without Ahsoka. It's the way of spycraft, the way of Rebellion, and the wrongness of it sticks in Hera's throat until she thinks it might suffocate her.

She isn't gone, she wants to scream, to Rebel Command, to Kanan, to this new agent who has no idea whose title, whose name, whose life they're taking over. Everyone else made it off that planet, you can't think — you can't really give up —

But Ahsoka isn't here, either.

Hera would wait as long as it takes for Ahsoka to fight her way back. The Rebellion, General Syndulla doesn't have that luxury.

Instead she leaves a trail for her to follow home, beacons of hope on every world the Rebellion passes by, and trusts that Ahsoka will know, that somehow, impossibly, she'll see how they're all carrying on into the light.

It's not fair, how many of them are dying, how many more know they won't live to see the freedom they're winning back on person, one city, one planet at a time, but Hera's mind rebels particularly against the idea that Ahsoka is one of the dead. She'll be back.

In the meantime, Hera leads, Hera fights, Hera does everything that Mothma and the Rebellion — that Ahsoka — could have asked of her. I'm keeping them as safe as I can, she says to Atollon's setting sun, on a night when she's sent even Chopper away and she doesn't know who she means by them. Do you know? I hope you know. I hope you can see what we've made of your fight.

Distance always felt like nothing when she was just Hera, Spectre-2 with her hands on the Ghost's controls and her crew all around her. Planetbound as General Syndulla, with a better-outfitted fleet than she's seen in years, she doesn't even know how to start easing the distance between her and wherever Ahsoka is.

Whenever she is.

Hera just hopes that Ahoska can still see sunrises.