It had been an interesting few days for Asajj Ventress. She'd risked coming to Coruscant for a particularly juicy bounty and ended up entangled with a conspiracy started by a Jedi of all things. The novelty of it had quickly worn off once she'd lost her lightsabers, the bounty, and almost her head.

Now that the authorities knew she was here, they were out in force and it was far past time to leave. Ventress could think of only one thing to do.

She took a sharp left, passed under a garish sign, pushed her way past a knot of drunken maintenance workers and took a seat at the bar. The first shot burned her throat and a fair chunk of the few credits she had left. She took her time with the second drink, tilting it back as she glanced around, and nearly spat it all out onto the barkeep.

It looked like she wasn't the only one who was desperate for a stiff drink.

Wedged into a corner seat, the Jedi – Ahsoka, her memories provided, was bent over and scrutinizing the contents of her bottle. It looked like she hadn't quite worked up the courage to actually drink any of it yet.

The Jedi hadn't noticed her, and she would normally have preferred to keep it that way, but…Ventress ignored the sputtering barkeep and crossed the room with an assassin's grace, sliding into the chair next to the Padawan and pouring herself a drink. Whatever retort the little Jedi was going to make as she finally realized she had a drinking partner was choked off in surprise and Ventress enjoyed the alcohol almost as much as the girl's shock. Normally she'd have to leap out of the shadows and stab someone to get a reaction like that.

"B…What are you doing here?"

Ventress' answer was to slosh the liquid in her glass around before tossing it back. Her smirk only made Ahsoka more confused. She had a second drink in hand before the Jedi found something to say.

"Hey!"

"I'm thirsty. And you owe me a lot more than a few drinks."

"I…heard that you helped Anakin to clear my name. …Thank you."

"Well, he did threaten to kill me. Your master has quite the temper, for a Jedi."

Ahsoka gave up completely on trying to look Ventress in the eye, and the former Sith raised an eyebrow at her reaction. She'd always known the Jedi were nowhere near as wholesome as they made themselves out to be…it seemed that Ahsoka was starting to realise it too.

"So where is your master? Does he know his little Padawan is off drinking her sorrows away?"

Ventress could feel the emotions boiling off the girl next to her. The morass of confusion and loss was a far cry from the cocky Jedi she'd crossed blades with before.

"He's…not my master anymore."

"Oh? But you were found innocent, vindicated in the eyes of the Republic. Returned to the Jedi order to fanfare and celebration."

"The order." It was more a snort than a reply. "The order expelled me without even a chance to defend myself. Protecting a Padawan wasn't worth risking relations with the Senate. I saw my teachers, my friends, people I trusted and respected, and…and none of them said a word in my defence. Not with Yoda and Windu and the rest glaring down at them like they'd be next on the chopping block if anyone dared to disagree with the council."

Now Ahsoka took a drink, filling her glass to the brim and awkwardly bringing it to her lips. She got half a mouthful in before gagging. She tried again, forcing herself to chug the foul brew, coughed herself raw and then poured herself another glass.

"You would not believe what happened…"

Oh yes, Ventress thought. Definitely worth coming over here.

"So then, Master Windu was all 'This was your real test! Welcome back! And you're a Jedi Knight now! 'Cause the force said so! So I said, eat grotz, and I left!"

Staggering half-drunk through the streets and laughing her ass off was no way to avoid drawing attention, but at the moment, Ventress really didn't care. She hadn't had a laugh like this in a long, long time. Ahsoka was clinging to her arm with one hand and swinging her bottle around with the other, while regaling her new best friend with tales of Jedi dickery. She had no shortage of material.

There was no Sith technique that Ventress knew of for ridding oneself of a hangover, so she made do with enjoying Ahsoka's misery. The little Jedi's first hangover hit her like a speeding transport, and Ventress leaned against the doorframe to the washroom to watch her crawl past across the floor and loudly vomit into the toilet between bouts of cursing and wailing.

Once she was bored of that, she looted the dingy hotel room's last scraps of recaf powder and began brewing a hangover helper. After a long moment's consideration, she split the pittance available and set a second cup aside. After a few minutes and the occasional heaving sound, Ahsoka staggered into view, groaning and smelly.

"Never…again…"

Ventress shoved the cup towards her as Ahsoka fell into the chair opposite.

"Drink. It helps."

Her first cup of recaf didn't go down much easier then her first shot of alcohol, but after a minute the cup was drained and some color was returning to Ahsoka's face.

After the cup was empty, there wasn't much to do for the two to do but stare at each other. Or avoid staring, in Ahsoka's case. She could only pretend to sip from the empty cup so many times, and Ventress seemed to be enjoying her discomfort.

"So…"

What exactly do you say to a woman who'd tried to kill you after getting drunk together and waking up next to her?

"Thanks for the…recaf…but I need to get going."

"Not so fast. I'm still short two lightsabers, and I doubt the Jedi would let either of us just stroll into the temple and pick them up. It'll be hard to make a living without them."

"What, can't you make more?"

"My…master gave me his second blade. And even if I knew how to make them, the crystals aren't easy to find."

"Really? Dooku never showed you how to-"

"I wasn't talking about Dooku!"

Ahsoka leaned away from the anger flowing towards her, and heard the table crack beneath Ventress' palm from an unconscious outpouring of the force. When Ventress' anger ebbed for just a moment and she looked away, her expression was distant and…softer.

"…Alright. I can show you how to make a lightsaber. I suppose I do owe you that much."

"At least."

"The real trouble will finding the right crystals."

"You must know where to find some."

"I am not looting a temple for you, Ventress. But…I think I remember a holocron entry on how the Sith would artificially grow crystals for their lightsabers…It shouldn't be too hard to figure out."

"All right then. Let's get going."

"Wait, you're just going to waltz outside? The Republic knows you're on Coruscant!"

"You don't really think I would have come here without a way to leave, do you?"

"Oh. I guess not."

Ahsoka looked around for a distraction as Ventress grabbed a bag and slung it over her shoulder, her face hidden beneath the folds of a deep hood. The two stepped outside and downwards, walking through the back alleys and shadowed low-levels of Coruscant, the dark places that the Senate and citizens above liked to pretend didn't exist. If it wasn't so miserable to look at, Ahsoka would have thought it a poetic depiction of what the Republic was really like. A shining, prosperous face for a rotten, greedy core.

After a few hours and more turns than she could count, and after threatening an lecherous Gran who tried to suggest 'extra payment' when Ventress showed up with a second passenger, Ahsoka was seated next to Ventress in the cramped hold of a bulk freighter moving out-system.

An hour into it, the threat of another of Ventress' glares was the only thing keeping her still, and Ahsoka nearly banged her montrals on the low ceiling when Ventress suddenly spoke.

"You've left the order. You have no master. What will you do now?"

"I…don't know. The Order was everything to me. Purpose. Structure. Without it, I…I don't know what I have."

Silence returned, but for the hum of the ship's engines and the chugging of outdated components keeping the systems online.

"Hey, Ventress?"

"What?"

"You became a bounty hunter, right? How does that work?"

The former Sith turned to face the former Jedi, and though Ahsoka couldn't be sure, Ventress might have been smiling. Not sure, but not because of the hood she was wearing, or because of the darkness they were sprawled in. She wasn't sure because she didn't think Ventress was capable of a smile without spite or malice behind it.

Maybe she was wrong. Maybe it was just her imagination.

But maybe, after teaching Ventress how to make a new pair of lightsabers, she could stick around and find out.