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Ahsoka’s stubborn streak knew no bounds. Even if she were half-dead, she would still attempt to brush it off and keep going on with her day. It was something both Anakin and Obi-Wan tended to resort to, and she was no different. She would tell them to get rest or take some time to care for themselves, yet she rarely did so herself until she was pressured or forced to. It was a similar case for them; like Master, like Padawan.
The aftermath of their most recent battle was no exception. It would have been fine if she got out of it with the usual scrapes and bruises. She could get those treated quickly, and not only would she be able to leave the medbay afterwards, but she could still be helpful if needed. Besides, it meant people would worry less about her, especially her Master. Yes, they would still be concerned, but she could say she was fine and actually mean it.
Instead, she had been walking around all day and night with broken ribs, wearing a robe to cover it up and using the excuse of being too cold to justify it. There was no way they weren’t broken; she managed to hear the snap of her bones over the shouting and gunfire, and they hurt like hell. Was that going to stop her from staying active and trying to be useful?
Absolutely not. As if broken bones would be enough to put her down.
That was why she was spending time with the boys in their quarters instead of resting in a medbay or her own quarters. She was watching Fives and Echo apply a fresh coat of blue paint to their armor from one of the bunks. She usually preferred the top bunk, but she didn’t want to hurt herself further climbing to the top. That would definitely lead to her getting caught.
As Fives and Echo talked, she glanced over at Jesse and Kix. The former had his arm in a sling, having injured it badly during the battle, while the latter was taking another look at it. Even as she couldn’t breathe normally without experiencing stabbing pain, she thought Jesse’s injury needed more attention. A part of her knew it probably didn’t, but the rest of her didn’t care.
Rex was there, of course, working on a report. He was focused on his work despite the noise surrounding him, something she never failed to be impressed by. He even chimed in a few times while they talked before going back to work. They were all enjoying themselves after a hard-fought battle, joking around and taking the chance to be more laid-back while they could.
The entire time she was there, Ahsoka struggled to keep herself from bursting out with laughter. To say the boys were good at making her smile and laugh was an understatement. Even now, she considered that a good thing. It was easier to smile through the pain in her chest. Whenever she had the urge to laugh, she would stifle it, giving a small huff or chuckle instead. It hurt her less and kept her walls standing strong.
At this point, it was harder to hold it back, especially when the conversation shifted to a familiar topic.
“Hey, next battle, I want to blow up a giant wall,” Fives admitted, grinning excitedly. “Imagine how cool that would be, seeing me jump off as it’s exploding, and then I stick the landing!”
“Or you fall on your face,” Echo added jokingly. Jesse snickered while Fives frowned.
“Shut up, I would do just fine!”
“Why ‘just fine’? You usually want to be more than ‘just fine’.”
“You know what I mean!”
Kix glanced at Rex. “Say, that reminds me,” the medic began. “Didn’t you help destroy a fortress wall? Complete with jumping off while it was exploding?”
Rex froze, slowly looking up from his work. There was an awkward moment of silence before he replied, sending a pointed look at the Togruta across the room. “I was thrown off, actually.”
Ahsoka snickered, ignoring the small shock of pain in her ribcage. “C’mon, I thought you were over that!”
“With all due respect, Commander, you or Skywalker could have at least given me a warning.”
She shook her head. “You’ve already told me that, and I’m sorry, alright? At least it wasn’t as embarrassing as you bumping into a pipe and then turning on night vision.”
Echo slowed his painting and looked confused, Jesse chuckled, and Fives laughed uncontrollably. He dropped his brush on the ground in the process, which didn’t go unnoticed by Kix, whose smirk was wiped off of his face. He took his attention off of Jesse for a moment to scold Fives.
“Hey, you’re gonna get paint on the floor, di’kut!”
Fives took a deep breath in an attempt to get a hold of himself, holding his hands up. “It’s not a big deal, it’s just a little paint! Well, it’s not as big of a deal as this. Captain, you seriously waited to turn on night vision until after you hit a karking pipe?”
Rex frowned. “Ha. Ha. You’re all very funny. It was one time!”
“Yeah, one time. One time too many!”
“Okay. Then you wouldn’t mind me telling all the shinies who admire you that you didn’t actually get your CT number from destroying five super battle droids at once with a single grenade?”
That jab directed at Fives, courtesy of Rex, was too much for Ahsoka to handle. Before she could stop herself, she broke into a fit of laughter, shrill and short-lived. White-hot pain exploded in her chest almost instantly, her giggling devolving into muffled coughing and hissing. She clutched her side with one hand while keeping her other hand on the mattress to stay upright, squeezing her eyes shut.
“Ow ow ow...” she murmured through grit teeth. She momentarily forgot about the others in the room, focusing solely on the agony flooding her nerves. Force, why did she have to let herself get injured like this? If only she were more careful, or faster, or simply better, then she would have been able to avoid it, now everything hurt, and the pain wasn’t going away, and-
“Commander?”
She opened her eyes to see everyone staring at her, all of them sharing an equal amount of concern. She froze, slowly realizing that she was all but discovered. It had to happen eventually, but she hadn’t wanted it to happen now, especially not while Jesse was still injured and in need of attention.
She gave a shaky sigh, wincing at the jolt of pain in her ribs. “I-I’m fine,” she stammered, her voice adamant despite her uncertainty. “I just laughed too hard, that’s all... s-sorry guys. I’m okay.”
She waited for the inevitable protests; one of them asking how long she’d been hiding, a scolding, Kix ushering her to the medbay (or trying to, anyway), one of them informing Anakin... but instead of what she expected to happen, they exchanged indecipherable looks and even whispered a few words between all of them. She couldn’t make out what they were saying, nor was she entirely focused on it. Eventually, they all looked at her at the same time.
“Don’t apologize, kid,” Rex replied. “It’s fine. It happens.”
“Yeah, I would definitely know,” Fives joked, chuckling. “My humor has caused that in quite a few people.”
“Except it was actually Rex who made her laugh, not you,” Jesse pointed out. Echo nodded in agreement, while Fives gave an indignant huff in response.
“The joke was at my expense, so it should count, right?”
“No. I’m the one who said it.”
Kix rolled his eyes. “Are you two seriously about to fight over who gets credit for making Commander Tano laugh so hard that it hurt?”
“I think the both of you should get the credit, how about that?” Echo suggested.
Fives and Rex decided to concede at that, both of them nodding in agreement. Meanwhile, the entire time, Ahsoka was nothing but confused. They were concerned one moment, and then the next moment, they were back to joking with each other without questioning her further.
Why aren’t they trying to drag me to the medbay? Not even Kix? What...?
She sighed inwardly, hesitantly removing her hand from her aching side and closing her eyes. She should be glad she didn’t get caught after all, even if it didn’t make sense to her. If she weren’t in so much pain, she would have had second thoughts about that, but she directed her focus back to concealing the fact that she was hurt.
As time passed, her eyes grew heavier and sluggishness tugged at her limbs. It was getting late, and the boys were probably exhausted as well. The room was more quiet than it was before. Every now and then, one of them would bring something up, they would have a short conversation about it, and then they would go silent again.
Biting back a pained hiss, she slowly stood from her bunk and walked towards the door. She stopped before she made it to the door, hearing Rex speak up.
“Heading back to your quarters, Commander?”
She nodded, glancing back at him. “Yeah,” she whispered. Her breaths were shallow at this point.
“Before you go, would you mind reading this over?” He gestured to the now-finished report.
She paused, puzzled once again. Rex rarely ever asked her to double-check his reports. If anything, she was the one who always asked him to read hers so she could make sure she got everything right. Why was he asking her now?
Her confusion didn’t last for long, however. She didn’t want to be rude by refusing or questioning him, and besides, friends always helped each other. She could stop and get this done real quick before heading off to bed.
“Sure, Rex,” she agreed, smiling and making her way over to him. She stood behind him as he held up the report for her to read. There were moments in which she scanned the words too quickly and had to go back to reread them. It didn’t help that the throbbing pain in her ribs kept distracting her. She murmured an apology every now and then, even knowing how patient Rex was.
She was nearly finished reading it, her focus wavering enough that she failed to notice Kix slowly approaching her from behind. She stole a glance at Rex, and she thought she could see a hint of guilt and worry in his eyes. Was that just her imagination, or-?
Something sharp was jabbed into her neck through a gap between her headtails. She gasped, stumbling back and whirling around to get a glimpse of the object, only for her vision to blur and her head to start spinning. Before she could collapse onto the ground, a strong pair of arms caught her. She couldn’t tell who it was.
“Sorry, Tano,” a voice spoke softly. “You would’ve kept trying to hide, and we can’t have that. This is for your own good.”
She groaned in response, unable to decipher who was speaking. The pain in her ribs and the stinging sensation in her neck faded away, the world turning dark. She fell completely limp before she could understand what was happening to her.