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It’s not indulgent.
Not one bit.
It’s pragmatic. Educational, even.
Or so Aayla tells herself right up until she dramatically falls to the ground and lets three younglings pile on top of her with whoops of triumphant glee.
It... may be a bit indulgent.
After presenting her latest report to the Council, Aayla had let her feet tread toward the Creche. This is a habit she’s formed in the last year or so.
According to Master Yoda it’s a sign that she may soon be led to her own Padawan. Far be it from her to question the elder Jedi, but the suggestion ...stirs a lot of emotions within her. Not all bad. But not all positive, either.
Each of which she will need to address before she feels prepared to take on the training of one of the young ones.
Something she suspects - dare she say hopes? - will not be until after the conclusion of the War. Until then, she’ll satisfy her concern for the next generation by helping teach her peers’ Padawans and by visiting the younglings whenever she is on Coruscant. Though it may pale in comparison to the bonds formed between true Padawans and masters, it feels important.
Not to mention incredibly, wonderfully light.
“What do you think of their form, Master Billaba?” Aayla lifts her dancing brown eyes to the other woman.
Depa is on a stay-over here on Coruscant and had been working the students through Shii-Cho movements before Aayla came along.
“Hmm. Eagerness won out, I think,” the other woman’s smile was wide and bright despite interruptions.
Caleb Dume, however, is wearing a frown. Aayla isn’t certain whether it is faux or not.
Depa has said that the battalion adores her new Padawan. He’s younger than most but allegedly bright and mindful. Apparently the troopers’ only complaints revolve around the fact that he looks far too small and precious - they’ve vowed to bulk him up.
Right now he mostly just looks a bit stuffy...
“I was teaching them something important”
Ah. Yes. He’d been one of them so recently. Of course he is enjoying his station above the current younglings just a little. Or more than a little, possibly. Can’t blame him there.
“Pride, Caleb,” Depa chides gently, though her smile lingers.
The boy sighs, a weight of misery dropping upon his slight shoulders. Perhaps this is a lesson they are working through. Even so...
“Ah, he’s not wrong...” Aayla rolls to her feet now that the children have clambered off her.
Caleb beams.
Shii-Cho will be some of the first forms they practice once they get their sabers, and developing muscle memory now is essential ...she shouldn’t have interrupted, really.
“Do you know Shii-Cho, Master Secura?” the young Rodaian, Pitto, asks with no small amount of excitement.
For all of his importance moments ago, Caleb now looks absolutely aghast at the suggestion that a Jedi Knight may not know a lesson he, a Padwan, had been teaching.
“Of course she does!” his eyes pop wide.
Meanwhile, Aayla only laughs.
“Perhaps she ought to prove it,” Depa suggests and nudges Caleb forward because she’s a filthy instigator.
Always has been.
And Aayla so likes to rise.
“Now there’s an idea,” she flips her saber free of her belt. “I should make sure your Master’s been teaching you all she knows….”
Aayla watches with delight as Caleb’s face cranks into consternation, then flickers down to nerves... before revving back into something more neutral. Determination.
Only when he lights his saber does Aayla follow suit. The younglings are swift to murmur in appreciative awe, and soon they’re tittering between themselves. If Caleb can hear them predicting his immanent and fiery demise he plays ignorant quiet well.
All of his focus is on Aayla, anyway, and so she grants him hers in return.
Aayla has had the honor of witnessing many Jedi Masters educate and mold their Padwans. Each has their own style of teaching and, for the most part, are free to train as they will. For better or worse the methods Aayla knows best are Quinlan’s: developmentally fair, but never easy. He’d supported her, but she’d had to earn her wins.
So she lets Caleb press the offensive in order to calculate a quick assessment of where he’s at. She doesn’t go soft for him but doesn’t force him to retreat, either. Especially not in front of the younglings...and maybe Depa would call that encouraging pride but Aayla calls it hedging shame. There’s a difference.
Caleb is overzealous, which leaves him open at inopportune times, but he’s nimble and rather observant so--
Bzzerp
Aayla lifts a fist in hold and checks the comm on her wrist that Tink had recently helped her update. He’d repurposed some pieces of a full gauntlet, so technically the troops can now say they got her to wear proper armor and pat themselves on the back for it.
“Problem?” Depa takes a step forward onto the mats.
“...no,” Aayla guesses after reading the Private Message From CC_5052 notification. “That will be the day’s update from The Liberty. They’re still out in the Batonn sector...I just like to keep up.”
“Master Billaba says delegation is a form of balance,” Caleb recites, his smile overly benign.
And, oh she sees how the 226th is teaching him to weaponize his current natural strengths. Weaving sass into such innocence.
But he’s not wrong, and Aayla commends wisdom where she sees it.
“...smart of her.”
Yet she twirls her saber in her palm and motions Caleb back into play. They’ll see how far his peskiness gets him.
Caleb is sweating and Aayla is quite enjoying herself when they’re interrupted again by a more insistent alert on her arm:
Bzzp.
Bzzp.
Bzzp.
That’s someone trying to establish live communication this time around. Curious, she motions once more for Caleb to hold.
Incoming HoloComm from CC_5052
Hmm.
Aayla doesn’t even realize she’s frowning until - znk - Caleb disengages his saber and steps back. Then Depa’s standing from the edge of the mat where she’d been sitting with the younglings and offering quiet commentary on the spar.
“Aayla?,” she approaches, her tone slightly softer than her more formal calm with the little ones “What is it?”
“Noth -- well, I can’t be sure,” Aayla forgoes her automatic and possibly disingenuous reply.
There’s no need for empty assurances between friends.
“Then take your time,” Depa’s nod is definitive before she twists back toward the younglings. “To dinner with us - it’s past time. Come on, come on...”
While she ushers them around, Aayla heads in the opposite direction for a quiet alcove where she can thumb in her comm’s passcode. The buzz of the call has stopped, and she scrolls to the original message, which simply reads:
CC_5052 [Bly] to: Private Message
Is the meeting a wrap? All clear here. Return call ASAP
She blinks and takes a moment to sift through the words. Bly usually gets straight to the point, but this message is non specific...which makes it feel somehow urgent. Worry churns at her gut for a moment. Never mind that he’d specified all was “clear.”
Aayla breathes the anxiety away and then taps to reopen the comm line.
He must have been waiting because the transmission connects with hardly a pause. His blue form flickers to life, helmetless but upright with his shoulders back.
“Bly?”
‘Sir’
“I’m alone”
The Jedi don’t use anything so formal as rank or title amongst one another, but she knows Bly won’t greet her casually if he suspects she’s with her Temple peers.
‘Me too,’ his shoulders loosen, and he drops to sit and hunch in over his knees toward his comm.
It’s such a casual stance. Tired. This and the lack of ambiance noise suggests to her that he is holed up in his personal quarters.
“What’s happened?”
Something had - that much she knows. They may not enjoy parting one another’s company and putting half a galaxy between them, but that is their duty and isn’t the sort of burden that would have him calling her in a huff.
‘The Liberty is fine,’ he repeats his promise as if she could ever believe he’d lie about that. ‘I...I just have a favor to ask you...’
O-ho!
Bly falters over the ask. Or, rather, he hasn’t even come right out with a direct request yet. He glances away and shifts his shoulders. Uncomfortable.
Aayla, on the other hand, perks up.
Her relationship to Bly outside of strict work - nebulous as it may currently be - is already stretching regs. No question about that. Even so, his trained deference to Jedi is deeply ingrained; they move slowly toward and around each other precisely because parts of it are hard to shake. Enough so that his choosing to come out of his way and ask her a favor downright tickles her.
“Yes?” she tries not to sound too delighted in the face of his difficulty.
‘I, well ...I communicate with some of the other Commanders on a regular basis. You know that.’
Indeed she does.
In particular, he keeps in touch with his clutch of batchmates. They’re all Commanders of their own regiments now, spread across the galaxy and only occasionally weaving in and out of one another’s orbit. He’d first told her about it after she caught him snickering into his wrist and she’d hoped to be let in on a joke because they had been knee-deep in reports and goddess knew she could have used the distraction! He’d tried to explain - truly he had- but it was soon clear the joke was the sort of story one needed history to enjoy. “Just banthashit, really,” he’d shrugged.
She’d smiled.
Bly had gotten a smidgen bashful.
“I do,” Aayla nods him on, equal parts keen and dubious now.
‘...just got a report that Wolffe ran into trouble out on Khorm.’
Aayla heart clenches.
Wolfpack.
“...I heard Master Plo needed reinforcements.”
But she hadn't known...
Bly grunts. Nods. Is staring off somewhere around the floor, now. She’s sure that he wishes the 327th had been the backup summoned.
If they were together Aayla would’ve asked to skim his thoughts so that he didn’t have to find the right words just now. As it is, distance dictates that she can only feel a general, roiling sense of darkness from him. She leans into the sensation but there isn’t quite enough of a connection - not yet - for her to be sure he’ll feel the affection and warmth she tries to push his way.
“...tell me.”
He glances up. Then down again to pull himself together.
‘That assassin witch was there,’ his tone scrapes low and dark.
...Asajj Ventress? Well.
‘A whole bag of dicks’ - is what Zig would call that.
Aayla sends hope to the Force and stays mum, however. Just takes a deep breath. She hasn’t had the -erm- pleasure to come face-to-face with Ventress yet but has heard enough stories and studied enough footage to know her meetings never have a pretty ending.
‘Sliced him up pretty good, they’re saying,’ Bly goes on.
He’d said he’s aiming for a favor.
Aayla’s already trying to count how many troops of theirs are healing up on Kaliida Shoals. It’s possible she could justify sending Bly to check on them and transport whoever is ready back to The Liberty. That’s not normally a task necessitating a Marshall Commander, but she’s sure she could come up with a reason ...morale, perhaps? Sure...certainly it would do the men good to see their XO. To know he cares and they haven’t been forgotten.
Yes. Yes, she can do that. Easily. The clearance would take mere seconds. If any of the Kaminoans - the longnecks (the men don’t yet like her to know they name-call their creators but, alas, Jedi) - take issue with it they could answer to her and---
‘He’s at Coruscant Medical now,’ Bly finishes, which brings an end to her plan.
...is he now?
That is an Eeopie of a different color, then, isn’t it?
“I see”
‘...normally we’d try to get Fox in there, but he’s on Naboo with the Chancellor...’
“I’ll go visit him tonight,” she understands.
‘Only if you don’t have--’
“I would be happy to”
‘Just. I know you like to spend time with the younglin--’
“Bly,” Aayla stops him again with delicate intonation of his name. “Look at me...”
It’s difficult to get eye contact just right through a hologram, but he stills and tries when she asks it.
“Of course I’ll check on him”
‘...thank you.’
“You’d do the same”
This isn’t a question, for she knows it to be true.
‘Of course I would,’ his gentle confirmation comes anyhow.
Aayla enjoys the quiet that follows. If the way his pinched eyes gentle a fraction is anything to go by, so does Bly.
“...would you like an ear a little longer? Or should I get moving?”
The corner of his mouth twitches and he sits himself up a little more.
‘Beat feet,’ he tries to command her, then snorts and adds, ‘...sir.’
Aayla laughs.
Good enough.
They’ll get better at that.
This isn’t Aayla’s first trip to Coruscant’s vast medical facility. She doesn’t like the place much. Well...she never likes any hospital much, filled as they typically are with such worry and stress.
Regardless, she’s happy to see a favor through.
She locates Commander Wolffe on the 9th floor, and as soon as she steps foot in his room he somehow has her number. Even with half his face swathed in bandages, he pins her with his one available eye and knows what she’s about.
“...couldn’t leave well enough alone, could he?”
Aayla laughs.
Not rudely (or so she hopes) but from surprise. She had arrived quietly, assuming he might be asleep if he wasn’t in a bacta tank. The nurse who’d pointed her down the wing hadn’t been particularly verbose after Aayla corrected her from “3636” to “Wolffe” - a fact she has some thoughts about - so she hadn’t known what to expect.
For his part, Wolffe takes her humor in stride. Just tuts and nods like it’s telling him everything he needs to know.
And ...perhaps it is? She’s not sure if it thrills or terrifies her that she doesn’t know just what Bly has or hasn’t told his brothers about her. She makes a note to ask. Maybe.
Their subsequent conversation is brief.
Wolffe treats it like a formal report, so Aayla takes his lead. He is stoic and honest about his injuries but non-specific about the incident details. There is trauma there, and she knows better than to dig. It’s not for her to pry at. She simply files away all that he does say in order to report it back to Bly with as much detail as possible.
“...’nother day,” his words start to slur a bit, and when he clears his throat against it Aayla catches the glare he shoots at his IV, “and they might be able to get me back home already...”
“Are you alright?” She steps forward despite having decided to keep a respectful distance.
“Mmhmm,” he clears his throat again. “Drugs just got me driftin’ in ‘n out more than I like…”
“I understand,” Aayla nods and catches her lekku twitching in a way that she hopes he can’t read as concern. “...artificial sleep.”
His face twists into into something stern as he nods.
Aayla has spent enough time in and out of The Liberty’s med bay to understand how sedatives and heavy painkillers can mess with the mind. Some of the men refuse them specifically because they don’t like being foggy or waking up disoriented. Zig, the 327ths head medic, indulges that wish when he can, though she’s also witnessed him force the issue… ...then proceed to keep watch bedside all night so the patient wouldn’t wake up confused and alone.
“...are they giving you a choice about that?” she frowns.
Maybe she’ll have words with that nurse after all. She shouldn’t. She doesn’t have jurisdiction here - not really - but she could...
“Ah,” Wolffe sighs and shrugs his shoulders around like he’s trying to get cozy ...but maybe he’s actually trying to move his body enough to stave off the drowsy feeling. “S’alright...this itches worse ‘n fuckin’ crotch rot if the meds wear off too much,” he gestures at the bandaged right side of his face. “Er…” he blinks his good eye. “...sorry…”
But too late. He’s already slipped.
Aayla just chortles.
She’d had the same trouble with her men when she and the 327th first came together. Soldiers unsure what they could and couldn’t say in front of her - how far they were allowed to go. Time and exposure have assuage most of those worries. There is still a snap of formality when she enters a space, but it generally fizzles once her intentions are clear.
Aayla has heard many stories about the Wolfpack from Master Plo, so she knows all about the genial culture he’s managed to cultivate with his own men. But she is not one of them; she’s new and unknown.
“Don’t worry,” Aayla makes sure to smile wide so it can’t be misunderstood. “The more inventive the swear, the better - or so I’ve learned.”
Wolffe chuffs to hear that.
“I’m sure you get plenty of it… “
“I’m taking a few notes, yes.”
He snorts again and scuffles himself around on the bed some more.
“I can leave you to rest,” Aayla offers. “Or...I can grab a seat,” she nods at the flimsy chair near the head of his bed. “Post up by the door for a while.”
She doesn’t mean to suggest there’s anything to be threatened by, but he’d made his disdain for the medication obvious and she can’t be sure whether her being there is making that better or worse. She doesn’t dare reach out into the Force and prod at his discomfort; maybe he happily cedes that kind of access to Plo, but she’s nigh a stranger. Right motivations or no, it would be uncouth.
So. She has to ask even if that’s bold.
He does, in fact, stare at her for it. Long and hard - even with just the one eye to narrow. Scrutinizing every inch of her offer. If he’s trying to intimidate her it doesn’t quite work, but his gaze does almost become unnerving. Still, she resists brushing against his thoughts to get a glimpse of his calculations.
“You can say n--”
“No,” he rasps before she can finish. “I can handle ‘em here ...no one’s even on guard - civilians,” he rolls an eye and smirks. ”They’re a damn trip.”
Like they are some wild species he’s observing here in their natural habitat.
Aayla doesn’t bother to squash her smile.
“They’re treating you alright then?”
Coruscant may be progressive in some ways, but there were a lot of differing opinions in this galaxy when it came to clones.
“Mmm,” he nods in a bored fashion. “Top notch cybernetics, they say,” he taps the edge of his facial bandages. “So tell him I’ll be acing past him on the firing range any day now. He should be practicing, not worrying like an old mother porg.”
Aayla chuckles. There’s warmth rolling from him - she doesn’t have to reach out at all to feel the affection - but finality in his tone.
Copy that.
She takes a step toward the door.
“...any message for General Plo? I’m sure he’s already able to check in on your progress, but I have a line to him,” she offers.
Wolffe’s eyebrow twitches, but he otherwise keeps his face schooled.
“... ...no need to bother him,” he decides.
Hmm. Even if she’s not willing to pry at his Force signature, she feels it prickle now.
“Very well … ...I’ll just let him know I saw you, then.”
GAR Commanders might have their own favors and private communiques... so do Jedi. Plo hasn’t asked anything of her, but she’s here and has laid eyes on his wounded right hand; she can’t say nothing.
“If you like,” he rolls one shoulder before resting back, this time with minimal fussing.
“...is there anything else?” she checks, pressing a light, open willingness toward him.
For though she understands if he wants to be alone rather than host someone so uncharted...she feels like she hasn’t done enough.
“No….thank you”
She has no choice but to believe him.
“It’s my pleasure...I’m happy you’re doing well.”
“Ah. I’m lucky,” he nods.
“...and strong,” Aayla inclines in the tiniest of bows in return. “But I’ll leave you to your rest. Good night, Commander Wolffe.”
“Sir”
Aayla leaves still feeling like she hasn’t done enough...never mind she isn’t a doctor and there isn’t much for her to do. It isn’t a new feeling, really. Anytime they’ve finished pulling the wounded to safety and need to leave the triage surgeons to do their work, a helpless feeling accompanies her empty hands. Whenever they send a transport of men off to Kaliida Shoals for more longterm care, there is an anxiety of “what-if!”, “what-could-I-have-done-better?”, and “what-now?” she has to swallow down and release.
Here, tonight, she reminds herself that Wolffe is well and in good hands. Her wish for more is extraneous so she must let it go...along with a press of strength into the Force here for those who need it. It’s all that can be done in moments like this, when the worst has already happened and it’s up to someone else to do the repairing...
“Your Commander seems to think you’ve done enough,” Depa comments when Aayla’s comm buzzes a third time - or was it fourth?
She’d sought Depa out when she arrived back at the Temple to assure her friend everything is, in fact, fine. Or relatively fine, as the case may be; she just didn’t want her old friend to be left worrying after her unceremonious departure.
Depa had been happy to invite her into her small quarters for a drink.
Her flat is set up identical to all those at the Temple, though the many dark, thick blankets and draperies are all Depa’s. She deems Coruscanti’s atmosphere slightly wanting, and the Temple’s stone walls are little help, so though most of her belongings now reside on a star destroyer she’s left these personal items behind for her various returns to the temple. Practicality - a thing Aayla doesn’t mind one bit while she sits on the thin settee with one of the throws in her lap
The Corellian whiskey in Aayla’s hand isn’t exactly standard issue, either, but is equally as welcome as any blanket.
“He does,” Aayla confirms after checking the message.
“...I imagine Grey already knows, then. I tell him he should turn off non-emergency comms when we’re on leave, but he never does,” the woman’s smile is fond.
Aayla pauses, and of course Depa catches that. Calls her on it.
“It’s nothing. I just ...didn’t know you were aware they talked…”
Or even that their respective Commanders had come up together.
“Oh,” Depa snorts. “That. Well, let me tell you, Grey was more than a little flustered when I finally asked who his lover was…”
Aayla lowers the small glass from her lips in surprise. Bly will sometimes tells her how his brothers are faring, but apparently she is only hearing the broadest strokes if she’s missed such news. She tries not to ask too much because she never wants to treat the brothers’ discussions like information she has a right to. She doesn’t know what sacrosanct vows of secrecy have been made regarding their chatter and, anyway, Bly is allowed whatever privacy he likes.
“Oh really?”
“No,” Depa’s laugh is so lighthearted and airy that Aayla lets it wash through her and take her for a ride. “He was just always so pleased to hear from one of them that he couldn’t hide it if he tried ...but he never said anything, so I just formed a bit of an assumption. I finally asked because I wanted him to know he didn’t need to hide anything; I would be supportive of some unknown romance. But, well...” she holds up innocent hands.
Aayla titters to think how Bly would have reacted if she’d asked him if he was messaging a lover ... ...of course, some of his embarrassment about such a thing would have been for quite different reasons.
“I found out about it when Bly laughed aloud about some in-joke,” Aayla smiles at her own, less foot-in-mouth story.
“They can’t help themselves with each other, can they?”
The look the two women share is bright with adoration and some mischief. They know the bonds forged between creche-mates. What it means to share years of history and secrets. Distance can’t quite ruin it.
“It’s good,” Aayla says aloud what they both know. “That they stay in touch.”
“Oh, of course,” Depa waves a hand to dismiss any suggestion that it could possibly be anything but. “Kenobi calls it a communication tool of gossip mongers,” she mimics his crisp accent quite accurately, “but he has that smirk when he says it -- you know the one.”
Aayla nods. She does know.
“Maybe he found out they started keeping a tally of Jedis misplacing their weapons…”
At this, Depa’s face lights up.
“You’ve seen it?!”
“I’ve requested to be updated from time to time - it’s good to know who I’m beating…”
Aayla side-eyes Depa to see if she, like Caleb, will receive a reprimand about pride.
It’s not pride, it’s just ….friendly competition, yes?
But Depa does not chastise. She gives a most solemn nod and offers out her glass, which Aayla clinks against her own.
“Grey is always so horrified,” the other women adds, and they both chortle together all over again.
And are interrupted by another bzzerp on Aayla’s official comm.
“Again?" Depa adjusts one of her braids with innocence. "...should you step out?”
Aayla can sense something bubbly and far too knowing from her friend, so she refuses to look up and establish eye contact.
“Not this time. It’s Plo ...extending his thanks that I sent word.”
[General Plo K.] to: Private Message
Good news, indeed
I’m grateful to hear you’ve spoken to him and he is well.
I’ve seen the updates from medical, but they are not the same
Many thanks from me and the men
“...from The Wolfpack,” Depa amends after Aayla reads his message aloud and fires off a quick reply. “Caleb is already jealous on Grey’s behalf - he’s been thinking of ways to name the battalion after him.”
“How’s that coming?”
“Grey pretends very poorly to hate the effort … but he’s still trying to find something that will stick.”
“The thought counts”
“Yes it does,” Depa gives her a pointed look.
Oh.
Well.
Yes, alright.
It matters that Aayla took the step to go see Wolffe even if he wanted exceedingly little from her.
It matters that Bly asked her to go at all.
It’s a start.