"Boss, we've gotta problem in the back." A nasally voice cut through the faux silence in the back corner of the diner, where Dex and Ahsoka had been lulled into a brief sense of inconspicuous privacy.

Dex, who was still studying the young Togruta in front of him, took a few moments to respond, almost as if he were unwilling to answer the call back to the reality of the rest of the night where the extremely interesting Togruta didn't affect anyone else.

"Problem? What kind of problem?" He asked suspiciously, slowing tearing away from the eye contact with the girl across from him to be greeted by a lanky human with a mop of brown hair.

The young man, who seemed to be in about his twenties (though Dex couldn't remember exactly), seemed to hesitate, before realizing stalling would get him nowhere and decided to just get to the point. "Lucy malfunctioned. Went awol. We've got her in the back, but none of us are any good with that kinda stuff."

Dex sighed, running a hand down his face before checking the chrono on his wrist. "Alright, Fren, I'll check it out. Give me a minute."

Fren, the skinny, pale human, nodded, before turning around and slinking back to the kitchens, his slouching posture a stark difference from the straight-backed teen in front of him.

Dex watched his messy brown hair weave through the crowds before turning his attention back to the former Jedi in front of him. "Im sorry," he told her, sighing as he accepted that he had to return to his business. "I've gotta take care of this."

"Can I be any help?" She asked, tearing her eyes away from the wanted poster behind him for about the tenth time that night. Dex made a mental note to take it down next time he got a chance.

"Nah, don't worry about it, kid. You've got enough to worry about as it is." He waved his hand, peering over the heads of the sentients in the room to see if any knowledge of the disturbance from the kitchen had reached the public.

When he he didn't hear an answer from the Togruta, he turned back to her, studying her face again as her disoriented eyes focused back on the sign. Even though the sign was as light as paper, they both seemed to be treating it like it was heavier than the planet of Coruscant.

He saw something flash through her eyes. Was that disapointment?

"No, I want to help." She finally met his eyes again, real sincerity visable. "It can repay you for the food — I don't have any credits." She explained.

The red rim and swelling around her eyes had gone down, and it seemed the water had alleviated the slight rasp in her voice from the raw throat crying left in its wake.

Dex was a little taken aback by her eagerness, but then he recalled his earlier train of thought: Jedi like to fix things.

He realized, despite this girls exterior behavior and body language, she was still hurting. She felt lost, confused, like her world had just been pulled out from under her feet (which, of course, it had). She wanted to do something familiar — help people. She wanted — no, needed something concrete that she could control and that she could occupy her mind with... something to keep her busy.

Dex decided to give it to her.

After studying her for a moment more, he asked, "You any good with droids?"

She seemed to brighten at the words.

...

As she followed Dex's powerful sillouette through the throngs of beings, Ahsoka felt her hands trembling. Luckily, the room was too packed for anyone to really notice.

She clenched her hands into fists to stop the shaking, and moved her weary eyes around the room. Now that she had accepted her situation, she had become more aware to the environment around her, taking in the smallest of seemingly unnecessary details like she would have on a mission with her Master.

The blue shawl hiding the face of a human woman. The mud-covered boots of a Nautolan sitting at the bar.

The inconspicuous details that didn't mean anything at all — until they did.

Maybe, she thought sorrowfully, if she had just noticed something had been off with Barriss, then she would be sleeping soundly in her quarters at the Temple, her Master just down the hall.

But this had not been so, and Ahsoka knew it. She also knew that she should stop dwelling on the what if's? because they would bring her nothing but regret and pain.

She was relieved at Dex's willingness to allow her to help him — she needed something, anything, to distract her mind from the swirling thoughts and emotions.

Thinking was something she could not do at the moment. But helping people? Yeah, she could do that. And if it involved a droid, then even better.

Her Master had never seemed to fail her, and today would not be the day he disappointed. The countless ramblings and explanations that made Anakins eyes light up had rubbed off on her — and it seemed that his habit of mechanics would benefit Ahsoka from the countless hours they spent together, whether on missions or in their spare time, fixing things.

Anakin.

No. Don't think about him. Don't think —.

It was too late not to think about him. Suddenly, an overwhelming wave of guilt washed over her. Drowning her. Inundating her senses so much so that the only thing she wanted to do at that moment was to collapse onto the floor sobbing.

She left him. She did the one thing to him that he would have never, not in a million years, ever to to her.

I abandoned him. I can't believe I just left him like that. I just —

No. Stop.

Despite the appeal of falling to the floor in uncontrollable sobs, Ahsoka knew she couldn't. So she didn't. She couldn't afford to indulge in her grief at the moment — there would be time for that later, she hoped.

Pushing all fondness of her past down, she brought her shaking hand up to wipe the tear that had leaked down her cheek, stinging her skin and staining her face with yet more salty tracks.

Chin up, Ahsoka. There is nothing else you can do besides keep going.

She took a deep breath, lifted her chin, set her shoulders, and continued following Dex's large frame through the crowd.

The stark difference between the noise in the outer room and the kitchens was almost disorienting, Ahsoka noticed, as Dex led her through the swinging door behind the counter.

She felt like a large bubble had been placed around her as the doors swung shut and the only sounds from the restaurant became muffled and incoherent white noise.

A strong smell filled her nose as she tried to decipher the many different factors that went into the mix. She recognized the soft scent of Muja berries, as well as some other fruits.

Sizzling on a grill, there seemed to be some sort of cooking meat that made her mouth water and almost made her stomach growl, even though she had just finished her own meal.

The clanging of pots and pans replaced the former chatter, though the sharp noises were not as prominent, as there only seemed to be three workers in the kitchen — one by the stove, seemingly in a frenzy to complete all the orders whilst two seemed to be playing a game of cat and mouse with a malfunctioning service droid that was ramming into walls and spouting random blurbs of speech.

She observed Dex from her peripheral vision, noticing his exasperated look aimed at the ceiling as he observed the situation.

Finally, he placed a hand on Ahsoka's shoulder.

"Kid, meet Lucy." He pointed to the droid, which was now twirling in a circle and singing a song that vaguely resembled that of a Coruscanti lullaby.

"Ah..." Ahsoka said, not exactly sure what her reaction should be.

Okay... Now where to start? She thought, observing the disaster in progress as the humanoid droid whirled around again, almost taking out a shelf full of jars.

The beginning, Snips. The teasing voice of her Master filled her mind, but she forced herself to ignore the hurt and guilt that followed.

Okay, Skyguy. The beginning it is.

She squinted at the droid in concentration, running possible diagnosistics in her head as she observed it — something she had seen Anakin do countless times.

Subconsciously, she had taken on the habit of another close friend, bringing her hand up to her chin in thought — but when she realized what she was doing and who it reminded her of, she immediately dropped her hand and opted to cross her arms instead.

Too soon, she thought, even though she had already mentioned his name in her earlier conversations with Dex, but thinking about their relationship just made her stomach sink again, so she pushed the memories of her former mentor, Obi-Wan Kenobi, down.

For one thing, she didn't even know how she felt about him at the moment — all of her thoughts and feelings were too conflicted due to her predicament to really consider it logically. She refused to think about it in fear that she would entertain something she would regret and never forgive herself for suggesting it when she came to her senses.

After all, Obi-Wan wasn't the whole council. It wasn't his fault, she had to remind herself.

Dex was staring at her, she noticed. He probably wondered what she was doing, but she blocked out his presence and refocused on her task.

After a minute of just observing, it clicked. "I think..." she trailed off, not entirely confident in the room full of people she didn't know. She quickly regained her composure though. "It needs a new processor." She spoke in a more sure tone, glancing at Dex.

"How could you possibly know that? You were just staring at it — You haven't even touched it yet!"

She turned her gaze to a Rodian male who was staring at her incredulously while simultaneously trying to prevent the haywire droid from leaving the corner he and his fellow empoyee — the brown haired man — had trapped it in.

"Well, I could be wrong," Ahsoka admitted. "That's just what it looks like. I'll take a closer look," she offered.

She made her way past the teeming pile of dishes in the sanitizer and the fresh assortment of food splayed over the counters to the back corner the droid was trapped in.

A soft rattle of dishes clanking was the result of the poor droid banging its head against the wall below the shelf full of them.

It was still singing that eerie song, but Ahsoka tried to tune it out.

Studying it up close, she recognized the outline of a maintenance hatch on the droids back. Grabbing a small knife from a nearby tabletop, she carefully pried it open, trying not to cut herself in the process, as the constantly moving droid was not making it easy.

She swiftly reached out a hand and flicked the power switch, shutting down the awol droid. It slowly came to a stop, the eerie song playing out the last few notes in a haunting, reverberated tone, before completely shutting down.

A puff of smoke billowed out from the panel, and Ahsoka coughed, waving it away from her face.

"See," she said, recovering from the smoke bomb. "Fried processor." She pointed with the knife tip to the welded wires and circuits that had used to resemble a processor.

Her eyes squinted and her lips quirked in concentration as she examined the damage.

"You're definitely going to need a new one, but in the meantime..." she trailed off before starting again, this time in a quieter voice, almost as if she were thinking out loud. "I think I can rewire the power converters to overload the motivator, and reprocess the hyperkinetic, then that should act as a substitute..." she muttered, almost to herself as her fingers already began the work before her sentence was finished.

The slight trembling of her hands slowed her down slightly, but after only a minute of working, the shaking gradually stopped as her mind became preoccupied with trying not to get her fingers pinched in the inner-workings of the service droid.

So focused on her work, Ahsoka didn't notice the incredulous looks she was receiving.

The brown-haired human and the Rodian male exchanged a look before their eyes were drawn back to the Togruta girl whose nimble fingers were flying across the wiring and circuitry.

"Do you have a hydrospanner? And a conduit-adapter?" her voice broke the relative silence.

It took everyone a few seconds to respond. "... Uh, yeah. Yeah, of course." Dex told her, turning to the brown-haired human. "Fren, go get the tool kit from the back." He requested.

"Sure thing, Boss." Fren mumbled as he slouched away to the supply closet.

A few moments later, and Ahsoka found a worn-down hydrospanner and a slightly used conduit-adapter resting on the table next to her.

She set down the knife that she had been using and picked up the right tools for the situation.

Honestly, she would have been fine just using the knife — improvising on the battlefield had given her the luxury of preparing for difficult situations and adapting — but the luxury of the tools would make it go faster and create a higher chance of success.

The rest of the employees broke out of their daze and got back to work, leaving Ahsoka in relative privacy, save for Dex at her shoulder, watching over her work with interest.

Her tongue between her teeth in concentration, she crossed and twisted another few wires, recharged a circuit with the conduit-adapter acting as a power converter, and flipped around a part of the board before finally setting down the now-dirtied tools.

"Done." She breathed out, carefully avoiding touching anything with her soot-covered hands.

"What did you do?" Dex peered over her shoulder with a mix of curiosity and caution, observing, but not really comprehending, the mess of wires and circuits inside the droid.

"Do you want the long version or in Basic?" She turned to him, still holding her hands up, bent at the elbows and palms loosely facing toward her to avoid spreading the grease and dirt to anything else.

Dex raised an eyebrow, and she decided that meant he wanted the short version.

"Basically, I rerouted power from the motivator to overload what used to be the processors function, and it should act as a substitute until you get a new processor... though I can't guarantee anything..."

"I thought you said that was the Basic version?"

Ahsoka turned her head to finally make eye contact with the cook, who had wandered over to her boss and the mysterious girl who happened to know so much about mechanics.

The Paladuvan woman, who looked to be in her late twenties, eerily reminded Ahsoka of a certain bounty hunter that held a grudge against her for Ahsoka having foiled her plans more than once.

She suppressed a shiver. It's not Aura Sing.

Ahsoka managed a small half-smile to match the Paladuvan cook's, and shrugged. "I just fixed it temporarily, in even simpler terms."

"Now that," the cook pointed a spatula at Ahsoka, "I can understand." Before turning back around to the grill where another order of food was due any minute.

Ahsoka faced the droid again, and gave Dex a sidelong look. "Alright, it should work now..." She told him. "I hope..." She muttered under her breath as an afterthought.

Reaching over, Ahsoka flicked on the droid. It sprang to life, turning to face the Togruta and Besalisk in front of it.

"Hello there, Boss. Why the shocked face?" It then turned its durasteel face to Ahsoka. "Who are you?"

Ahsoka looked to Dex, hoping that this was ordinary Lucy behavior, and judging by Dex's grunt of approval, she had done her job well.

"How do you know so much about droids, anyway?" A curious voice sounded from behind her, and Ahsoka turned, the small smile melting off her face as she struggled to come up with a satisfactory answer for the lanky human.

"... A... friend taught me..." She managed, before turning away with a frown as she forced her memories down again.

Chin up.

"Anyway, you're going to want to get another processor as soon as possible." She said quickly, not turning around for she didn't think she would be able to maintain eye contact with anyone for very long.

"Thank you, Ahsoka." Dex patted her shoulder, and she gave him a half-smile and a nod in return.

"It was the least I could do... for you helping me and everything." She told him.

"Anything to help a friend of Obi-Wans." He told her good naturally with a grin, clapping her on the shoulder again.

"Let's get you cleaned up, kid, hmm?" the Paladuvan said, placing her spatula on the counter, and, not waiting for a response, grabbed Ahsoka by the elbow and dragged her toward another durasteel door that Ahsoka assumed was the refresher.

The door slid shut behind them and the woman let go of Ahsoka's arm, turning toward the sanitizer, where a stack of clean towels resided next to a bar of soap.

Ahsoka glanced at the wall behind the sanitizer, and found herself staring at a relatively pale Togruta with slight red-rims around her eyes and dirt smudges across her nose framed by ghosts of dried tear tracks on her cheeks.

I'm a mess. She thought as she gazed into the mirror, though she found she was too tired to care.

She moved her eyes to the Paladuvan who was wetting a cloth under the steaming stream of water from the sanitizer.

"So... what's your story, kid?"

Ahsoka blinked, caught off guard by the question. "Excuse me?"

"You know... like what's you're name? Where'd you come from, what are you doing here?" The Paladuvan turned off the water and wrung out the soapy, dripping cloth, turning to face the Togruta as she leaned up against the durasteel basin.

She made it sound so simple — name, origin, future — but Ahsoka knew that the simplicity behind such statements never held true. Life was much too complicated to explain with three simple questions.

None the less, she humored the woman by responding in the same simplistic terms that the question had been afforded in.

"Ahsoka, it's... complicated, and... to see a familiar face." she listed them off in her fingers, before dropping her hands and waiting for the Paladuvans response.

She didn't seem to be deterred by the vagueness of Ahsokas answer — there must have been countless beings far more interesting than her, as well as countless beings less informative, too.

"Huh," the woman grunted, "I coulda sworn I recognized you from somewhere..."

Ahsoka had to made an effort not to stiffen or show any visable discomfort — luckily her years at the Temple had been great for practicing suppressing emotion.

The holonews, Ahsoka thought. She probably thinks I'm a murderer.

Though, she decided to take a chance and be honest. What was the worst that could happen, she thought?

"I'm not surprised." She sighed. "My face has probably been all over the holonews recently." Her gaze dropped to the dripping faucet, trying to avoid the reaction of the Paladuvan as gears turned and pieces clicked.

Ahsoka didn't know how much holonews coverage the whole scheme had warranted — she guessed a lot — but she didn't know how up to date any of it was.

For all she knew, she could be walking around with a target on her back if the public hadn't gotten the memo that she wasn't guilty yet.

Ahsoka decided she would check the holonews the next chance she got — she had to know how popular she really was on the streets of Coruscant.

Just another item to add to the list. She thought sarcastically.

"You're that Jedi — the one that was framed."

So she didn't think Ahsoka was a murderer. That was good to hear. It had only been last night that she had been acquitted, and it was a relief to know that her acquittal had reached at least some of the citizens.

"Ex-Jedi." she corrected, finally meeting the deep brown eyes of the older woman.

The Paladuvans mouth opened slightly. "You mean they left you out to dry? After all of that? They didn't let you back?!"

This woman seemed to be more angry than Ahsoka was, and Ahsoka almost wished she would feel like that. Any sort of anger would feel better than the twisting, sinking, numbness that betrayal left in its wake.

"I left." She replied in an even tone, contrasting the outburst of the woman.

There was silence for a few moments as the woman digested her words. It was ironic, Ahsoka thought, that just those two words carried more meaning than the questions before hand, despite the brevity in deliverance.

Everything is relative to context, I guess. She thought, moving her eyes to stare at the dripping faucet again, which, to be honest, was starting to annoy Ahsoka a bit.

Finally, after what seemed like forever, but was only a few moments, the Paladuvan moved, as if jerked out of a trance.

"You should probably wash your hands."

Ahsoka looked up to meet her brown eyes, which were filled with sympathy, but something else, too... respect, Ahsoka realized. But why?

She didn't ask. Instead, she nodded to the woman with a small smile, and picked up the bar of soap.

This will probably take a while...

And she began scrubbing.

:::::

Shout out to AhsokaGrangerSnips and Seaotter17 for the support!! Go check out their stories!! They're awesome!!

Sorry if this was too long... let me know if if was. Also, let me know if i'm spending too much time at Dex's diner — i don't want it to get boring.

Also, I made up most of the stuff about the droid.

*unedited

Thanks for reading! Bye!

10/8/20

Word count: 3720