Grains of sand had been rubbing up against the sweaty soles of her feet for what felt like an eternity, and Ahsoka had to suppress a slight shudder as she imagined what a nightmare it was going to be to clean out the ship once they were done with it. It had been a long time since she had bothered to be irritated by something as innocuous as sand, but spending too much time with Anakin tended to have that effect. She wondered, briefly, almost morosely, if Vader ever struggled with it, if it got trapped in his grates, got sucked into whatever it was that breathed for him, but the thought was almost too disturbing to be humorous.
"I have to say," she said as they approached a bend in the canyon, wind whipping around their heads, already too hot to bear, "I'm not exactly sorry to leave." They'd walked in companionable silence for a while, but it was starting to unsettle her nerves. It was never a good thing for either of them to be left to stew in their own thoughts for too long.
Anakin tilted his head toward her, scoffing, though his pace through the unforgiving sand didn't slow. "You're telling me."
"Hey," she said, a grin pulling at her mouth. "It could have been worse. No baby Hutt this time."
"Believe me," he said, good-humoured, though his eyes darkened. "There's been worse times than that."
Ahsoka hmmed in reply, vaguely unsettled for no good reason, still in better spirits than she probably had any right to be. Their reunion with Obi-Wan had been nothing like she had expected. Leaving him behind was – difficult, there was no question of that, but something about the certainty with which he'd carved out an existence here, the way the Force wrapped around him and Luke told her that his place was on Tatooine. Inevitably. Unquestionably. And underneath that horrible layer of pain and heartbreak and isolation, he'd shown them – optimism. Hope.
He'd always been the sturdiest of all of them, for all it had cost him. And maybe that sturdiness had come across too detached, too cold, when they'd been younger, when they'd been less able to understand, but it was, in a twisted, horrible way, what had enabled him to survive. Ahsoka thought she understood, now. He'd always loved them – the both of them, and others. That he'd never been able to express it in a way that her master could have understood it said more about the position of the Jedi than it did his own personality. She couldn't – couldn't fault either of them, really. Obi-Wan, the Jedi. The past was the past, the truth was the truth, and the truth was that no singular event or error had doomed them all. The truth was that they had been loved. The truth was that it hadn't saved them. Hadn't saved the Jedi, hadn't saved the galaxy, hadn't saved her or her master. Hadn't saved Padmé.
But the feeling in her gut wouldn't leave. Something coiled and bright that insisted it still could.
She had no idea how. She had the sense (and it sparked in her both relief and trepidation in equal measure) that it would fall to Anakin to figure it out.
"Skyguy," she said, pausing. The heat was so present, so oppressive, it was almost something she could reach out and touch. "Do you ever miss it?"
He stopped alongside her, swiped a hand across his brow. "What?" he asked, forehead furrowing. "Tatooine?"
"Yeah."
His jaw jumped. "No," he said, continuing forward, lying. Or maybe not. The answer was clearly more complicated than that, but she couldn't tell whether he was capable of acknowledging it or not.
"Okay," she said mildly, content not to press too much further. It didn't – matter, exactly. Or it probably did but so did so many other things and who was she to decide which things exactly would be worth the pain of bringing up? It was just – there was something there, something important in the answer, something about the letting go, the holding on. Something about not living in the past. Something about staying angry but moving on anyway, reconciling the bad parts with the good parts, and –
She was projecting. It was disturbing, that she could so often find her own fears and dilemmas reflected in her master's. Not for years now, of course –
(she hoped)
– but the past was continually catching up with them. A reminder, a warning. It shouldn't have been disturbing, really. She and Anakin were similar. They had always been similar, in a lot of ways. It was why they'd been thrown together, after all, perhaps with the misguided hope that they would somehow temper one another instead of encourage the tendencies in them that tended to give Jedi Masters, young and old alike, stress headaches.
They'd struggled with a lot of the same problems, over the years. Grappled with the same issues, been reprimanded for the same flaws, but somehow she'd come out the other end the better for it, though it hurt to admit. Though it didn't always feel that way. That was where their differences lay, she supposed. In their different pasts, in their different futures. She'd never had a Sith Lord for a father-figure, which had probably helped. And for all of their stubbornness, their righteousness, their furious compassion, Ahsoka just didn't love people the way her master did. With that all-encompassing fervour, that – that – possessiveness.
He hadn't learned that from the Jedi, but she didn't think he'd learned it from the Sith, either. Tatooine's suns beat at her back.
Maybe he truly didn't miss it.
The Force whispered at the back of her neck, as they approached a fork in the barely-discernible trail that wound through the canyon. They'd approached Obi-Wan's house from the lower path, though she could see now, with the aid of the Force, oddly cool, that the higher trail would lead them back to the ship faster.
"Anakin."
He paused, three footsteps already down the lower path, and looked back at her, eyebrows raised in question.
"This other trail will get us there quicker. Don't you feel it?"
"No," he said, lying to her again, face brokering no further discussion. "We should go back the way we came."
"But why didn't we come from this way in the first place?" She crossed her arms in front of her, shifted her weight impatiently. Sweat dripped down the back of her head. "It's just as well-traveled, and there's no recent tracks."
He gave her a look, one she hadn't seen in decades. It was just as irritating now, though it pulled at her heart in a way that it never had before.
"Look deeper," he advised. He was still, but his hands kept clenching half-heartedly into anxious fists before uncurling at his side. Nervous. Why? Ahsoka blew air out through her nose (another thing she hadn't done for what felt like decades – she still wasn't sure if what he was bringing out in her was her worst, or just her youth) and stretched out, feeling her way along the path, the Force singing to her of the rocks and sand creatures along the way, the occasional precipice, the danger of the heat, but –
"It's cold," she said, watching him. Obi-Wan's voice whispered at the back of her head, the ghost-like flicker of an oil lamp darting across her vision. He wouldn't meet her eyes. She asked him anyway. "Why?"
He chewed on his bottom lip, considering. Clearly itched to shove his hands into the sleeves of his robe, but it was far, far too hot.
"There was a village of sand people, up along that ridge. A long time ago," he hedged.
"But not anymore."
"No."
"Where did they go?"
His face was twisting in interesting directions. Ahsoka kept her expression smooth, disgusted with herself, a little bit, but there was something at the back of her neck, some instinct –
"They – they died."
She'd never been one to ignore her instincts, for better or for worse.
"I want to see it," she said, bracing herself against the flood of vehement denial that was twisting around her ankles, moving with the shift of sand. There was no wind.
"No, you don't."
"Yes, I do."
"No you don't."
"Yes I do."
"Well, I don't!"
The sand twisting at her feet dropped back to the ground with a hiss. "Why?" she asked.
His chest heaved in the thickness of the air, knuckles suddenly white. He'd bitten the bottom of his lip so hard it was bleeding.
"Because I killed them," he said, giving in and slamming his hands into his sleeves, shoulders caving in to a sulking, defensive silhouette that was as familiar as breath. The heat be damned, she thought, but it wasn't very funny.
"Why?" she asked.
"Because they deserved it," but neither of them believed it because it wasn't enough.
"Why?"
"They were killers," he told her through gritted teeth, "murderers –"
"Why?"
His voice broke. "I don't – I don't know." He swallowed gingerly. "No one's ever gotten close enough to ask."
She stepped closer. "Not them," she said. Touched a finger to his chest. "You."
"They took my mother." She knew already, but he didn't know that. He reached a cautious hand out, to hold hers very gently, eyes dark. "I'm sorry, Snips. I never – never told anyone, except –"
Her face dropped into a scowl. "Him."
There was that word, though. Took, like a belonging, took, like someone that was yours. Ahsoka understood vengeance, but to hear Obi-Wan speak of what had happened –
It had gone beyond that, in a way that she didn't understand. In a way that Palpatine clearly had.
She sighed, frustrated, and pressed her forehead into his shoulder, eyes squeezing shut. The more she learned about her former master, the less he resembled the person she thought she'd known. Teacher, traitor, friend.
Murderer.
And still, somehow, against all her better judgement, a comfort. His calloused hand reached up to pat the back of her head awkwardly and she bit back tears.
"Do you still want to see it?"
No. "Yes," she said, sniffing, feeling resignation coil around him and settle around his shoulders, grey and heavy.
"Why?"
She smirked against his shoulder, the tables turned. She supposed she deserved it.
"I don't know," she said, lifting her head reluctantly. "But if the past few days have taught me anything, it's that it's always better to confront the past than ignore it."
He looked at her bleakly.
"Sometimes I think the Force takes things a little too literally."
"I don't know," she said, jostling him in the arm as they headed up the path, tears firmly swallowed. "If I'd only confronted my past in a vision or something I wouldn't have been able to punch you in the face."
"Yeah," he muttered good-naturedly, following behind her. "You and everyone else in the galaxy."
Well. He wasn't wrong, exactly.
They trudged through the sand in silence, the suns still burning overhead in what was becoming midday. Air that was hot and dry but better than nothing whistled in between them and the rocks as they climbed higher and higher, the steep incline of the canyon increasing as its dark, jagged bottom drew further and further away. Despite this, the back of Ahsoka's neck prickled with cold, subtle at first, but at once biting and unmistakeable as they crested a hill. Stomach now a block of ice, she paused in front of a barren ridge, a plateau of bleak, ruddy rock.
It would have been easy to simply walk past it. Something about it encouraged you to ignore it, the shadows too deep, the wind suddenly non-existent. It was too still. Too cold. There was no sign of any settlement, current or past, but something – lingered. Something cold and slimy.
Anakin's face had turned white as bone.
"Okay," he said tightly. "Past confronted. Can we leave now? Do you – do you have what you came for?"
"I don't know what I came for," she said, settling onto the ground with her legs crossed, peering out onto the ridge with a frown. She felt him struggle for a moment, a metaphysical kind of indignant muttering fluttering out into the Force. He settled down beside her with a huff, hands hidden in his sleeves, sand shifting fretfully, agitated.
"I know it isn't easy," she said, measured against the anxious pounding of his heart. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be sorry." It wasn't quite a snap. "I – "
I never stopped to look back at it.
"Mom would have liked you," he said, more softly. He breathed out, slow. "And she would have – she would have hated what I did. What I'll – do. But I couldn't – "
Their voices echoed oddly against the rock. The air hung still and hot, but not enough to banish the trickle of cold at the base of her spine.
"I understand," she said, and wished she didn't.
She half-expected him to disagree, to insist that there was no way that she possibly could, but she sensed nothing. His lowered his eyes, shoulders sinking.
"Then I'm the one who should be sorry," he said. "I never wanted you to have to deal with anything like that."
"It wasn't your fault." She shifted, old hurts rearing ugly heads in the back of her mind, in the hollows of her chest. Some were fresher than others. The looming ceiling of the Chamber of Judgement flashed before her, all too brief. Some were ancient. "I mean. Some of it was. But technically you haven't done it yet." The plateau stretched in front of them, barren. She breathed out through her nose, the Force nudging at her insistently. "You know, when I left the Order, I thought I was finished being lied to. I thought – I thought I'd escaped that – that indignity for the last time." That was what the cold and creeping stillness was reminding her of. Something she'd felt before, from within the shape of her own heart.
"You were hard to find even before the Republic fell," he reminded her, a surprisingly nuanced voice of reason. "They didn't leave you out to hurt you, Ahsoka."
"I know," she said, hands curling into fists, sand slipping in between her knuckles. "Of course I know. But I'm not a child. And I'm not a Jedi. I've been a part of the rebellion for years and years now. I would die for our cause. I trusted Senator Organa, and he – he kept the truth from me. Obi-Wan, I understand, now. He hasn't been in contact with anyone, let alone me, and the secret he's keeping – I understand. Bail and Leia too, of course, but – "
She turned to him, jaw clenched.
"But the truth about you. About Vader. What if this had never happened? He's hunting me. And I've – I've suspected for a while, but there was no way of confirming anything. If I'd confronted him without confronting you – " Her fists unclenched. "I could have helped. I would have – would have liked to have known. I've been alone for years. I thought all of you were dead and no one ever thought to tell me otherwise." Her voice cracked. Stupid, stupid. She wasn't a child. But the sentiment wouldn't leave. It wouldn't have been better but at least it would have been the truth. "Didn't I deserve that much?"
Anakin stared back at her, unreadable.
"You deserve far more than that," he said finally, brow creasing, scar crinkling with the slight squint of his eye. He turned his gaze back to the plateau. "You deserve far more than – than this."
Maybe she did, or maybe she didn't. As a child she'd been taught that no being in the galaxy deserved anything. Especially not a Jedi. Entitlement was of the dark side, a harsh, intangible shadow of possession, of greed. Maybe that was why it felt so cold. Maybe that was why feeling it made her feel so – so –
"It's not a crime, Ahsoka. To – to want. To feel like you deserve. No matter what the Jedi say."
"I'm not a Jedi," she protested, but he knew. He always knew.
"I mean it," he said, insistent. "You were wronged. Not for the first time. There's nothing shameful about feeling angry about it. About feeling like you deserved a better hand."
She wondered if maybe now he was the one who was projecting. His face twisted slightly.
"You should be allowed to feel that," he said, quietly, backing down a little bit. "Just – just be careful. Don't lose yourself in it."
With him sitting right there, the perfect example of exactly what not to do, she was fairly certain she was safe, even though her footing was a bit insecure, even though she could feel the sand slipping underneath her. It was hard to get a grip, on ground like that.
"I was alone," she swallowed, stomach twisting in knots, "for a very long time. I thought – I thought I'd learned how to be. I thought the galaxy was finished springing horrible things on me, but lately it feels like it just hasn't stopped. I wish they'd told me." She looked at him, found a grim kind of sympathy in his gaze, felt another piece in the puzzle of Anakin Skywalker slide into place. It was something they had in common, she supposed. She could see, better than he could, the need for nuance in a galaxy like this. The shades of grey. But just because she could understand betrayal like that, could sympathize with that withholding of truth – it didn't mean it didn't still hurt. "But I'll try."
His smile was more of a grimace, but it was comforting nonetheless. He stood, shoulders relaxing to an almost comical extent as he turned his back to abandoned village.
"C'mon, Snips," he said, words almost drowned out by the distant howl of wind. He extended a hand. "Let's get out of here."
That's all for now, folks, but there's one more chapter coming your way soon! As always, thank you so much for reading and please take a moment to let me know what you thought.
- W
