Chapter Twelve: Fear

Ahsoka was not afraid of Darth Vader.

Maybe if she kept telling herself, it would become true. But she couldn't deny the fact that after closing off her bond with the twins that Leia slowly but surely began to warm up to Vader. At the very least, she let him hold her now, though she still certainly preferred Ahsoka. But she wouldn't play the mental Force games that Luke would let Vader play with him, quite stubbornly ignoring him in the Force. Which meant Ahsoka had to consider the truth that Vader was right that she was causing Leia to be fearful of him and that Ahsoka was afraid of him in the first place. The question was why was she afraid of Darth Vader. A question that surely, Ahsoka thought wryly to herself, most sentient beings in the galaxy wouldn't have a hard time coming up with an answer.

Regardless, it wasn't something in particular that she had to confront any time soon with Vader somewhere on the planet below them handling some dispute or another with his special brand of "negotiations." Five rotations so far. Just her and the twins.

"Just like old times," she said to herself as she ran a hand through Leia's soft hair. "One of these days, you two are going to learn to go to sleep without me. But today is not that day."

Like she always did when she managed to get up before them, she kissed both on the forehead, sending them the impression that she wasn't going anywhere before getting up. Even with Vader temporarily gone, there was still an Emperor to overthrow, and though she was gaining strength every day, she still was nowhere near the level of strength, endurance, and focus she had during the war. Maybe it would require war to get her back to that level again.

Just as she was about to palm the door to go to Vader's training area, the door slid open, and she found herself face to face with the very object of her fears. So much for not having to confront her fears any time soon.

The sound of his respirator filled the space between them as he waited expectantly for her to move out his way. When she didn't, he tilted his head at her, and Ahsoka imagined he was cocking an unimpressed eyebrow at her under his mask.

"Excuse me," Ahsoka said. Just because he was used to everyone giving way to him, a habit of his even before his fall, didn't mean she was going to.

"Where are you headed?"

"To train. The twins are still asleep. I should be back before they wake up for breakfast," Ahsoka added.

"Don't hurry. I can take care of my own children whether you believe that to be the case or not," he said curtly and used the Force to shove her aside so he could enter and brush past her without another word.

Ahsoka grit her teeth and pressed her lips together as she walked out the quarters and to her original destination while ignoring the tight clenching in her chest at the idea of him taking care of the twins without her and resisting the urge to want to hurt the man. Never mind that she couldn't even if she wanted to. Not yet, anyway, she thought to herself and then stopped in her tracks.

Not yet.

Where had that thought come from? Where had even that idea come from? That kind of thinking was the way of the Sith. She'd seen what happened to someone who chose that path up close and personal, especially coming from a not altogether baseless but, at least for Ahsoka, irrational fear of Vader.

Ahsoka sighed, resigning herself to something that she should have done weeks ago when she realized that she'd somehow edged closer to the dark side. Thus rather than engaging the training droids when she got to the training room, she sat in the middle of the room, hands placed loosely in her lap, and began to practice her breathing.

Meditating was not her strength. And not because it was something that Anakin himself had shunned and therefore hadn't really tried to teach her besides the obligatory ordering her to do so when a situation might call for it. She'd simply always had a problem with sitting still for long periods of time. The past two years hadn't helped, though she'd found other ways to meditate that strictly speaking the Jedi wouldn't count as meditating. The point of meditating, in theory, was to quiet the mind of all unnecessary chatter and find the root of negative emotions to release them into the Force. She thought she'd finally found a way to master this in her reclusion with the twins for the past two years. But really, all that had allowed her to do was not face her negative emotions. And because she didn't have to face them, because she had been content if not a little restless, as soon as the object of most of her negative emotions entered life again, there they all came back again.

Once her mind was still as it was going to get she probed the Force in askance about her fear of Vader. She wasn't afraid he'd kill her. After fighting in a war and regularly staring and then spitting death in the face, it was a fear that one quickly got over. She was, admittedly, afraid that he'd hurt the twins, and he'd proven her right weeks ago when they'd fought over Leia. She felt the Force ring with insincerity at the thought and frowned as she prodded the Force for an answer and received nothing in return except for silence tinged with the same insincerity.

She guessed that was a clue to examine closer exactly what had led to that incident between her and Vader. Apparently, it wasn't as black and white as she had dismissed it as being. Okay. Start from the beginning. How had Vader gone from being somewhat docile to her holding a lightsaber to his neck later? Start there. The twins. Lunch. Her being irritated that he was showing them how to use the Force and deciding it was time to put them down for a nap if they weren't going to eat. And then him losing his temper when she tried to take Leia anyway and throwing out baseless accusations.

The Force rang with both insincerity and an encouragement to look at something closer. She went over the incident in her head again, still not sure what the Force was guiding her to look at and so she took a few breaths and slowed down as she went through it in her head, paying close attention to when she felt the prodding the most.

The twins.

Lunch.

Her—

She felt the insincerity and encouragement there and frowned. Her? What had she done? Vader started that whole mess with his inability to control his temper. It was why she was insistent about not letting him be around the children without her.

There was that insincerity again.

Ahsoka sighed, losing focus and deciding to make sure Vader didn't traumatize the twins any further than he already had.

By the time she got back, Vader was out his restricting suit and had the twins in the high chairs he'd managed to smuggle onto the ship and was watching them eat breakfast while amusing Luke with the Force by levitating his spoon to feed him. Even Leia was watching in a mixture of fascination and wariness. The Jedi would have called it a frivolous use of the Force for certain.

Vader had them so entranced by feeding Luke, something neither twin had let Ahsoka do since Leia decided months ago that she could feed herself and Luke followed suit, that they didn't notice Ahsoka come into the room immediately like they usually did. Even though she'd given up on blocking their bond. Ahsoka swallowed the bout of irritation that she felt at that.

"You don't look like you trained?" Vader pointed out.

"I meditated," Ahsoka replied shortly, and finally, Luke and Leia noticed her in the room.

"Mama, look!" Luke said, pointing to the spoon Vader had levitating in the air before he opened his mouth to take a spoonful of whatever hot cereal that was his breakfast.

"I see," Ahsoka said tersely as she sat on the couch, trying not to be disgruntled that Vader didn't seem to want her around the children any more than she wanted him to be around them.

Eventually, Vader moved to the other couch with them, and she sensed him reach out to Luke in the Force. As always, Luke reached back and then fell quiet, and Ahsoka guessed Vader was showing him how to construct his own rudimentary mental shields.

"We train them together. That was the agreement," Ahsoka pointed out.

"You're sitting right there. You're free to work with Leia since you won't let me train her."

"I haven't stopped you yet."

"Consciously. But you're still the reason she keeps herself closed off from me," Vader insisted.

"I blocked the bond and suffered through whiny younglings for three days. She still wouldn't open up and reach back to you in the Force. It has nothing to do with me," Ahsoka shot back in exasperation.

Vader scoffed and rolled his eyes. Hard. Reminiscent of the days when he—Anakin? Ahsoka still wasn't clear about this identity crisis thing, and the dark side—was completely fed up with some gross idiocy he'd heard or witnessed. Ahsoka had to remind herself those days were long gone, and that man was never coming back.

"You blocking that bond that stopped your projection of terror of me to her, so I could go near her without her throwing a tantrum. It thus follows that that she's learned to keep herself closed off from me from you," he said in a very deliberate, sarcastic tone.

"Don't talk to me like I'm one of your soldiers."

"Believe me, Ahsoka, I don't deign to bother explaining the obvious to my men. I just remove them."

"So I've heard. And you wonder why I'm properly cautious of you with the twins."

"Since I found you on Sheba, please, graciously inform me when I gave you any reason to think I'd hurt the twins—Since Sheba," Vader added again.

Ahsoka was at least glad that he recognized he was mostly out of his mind back on Mustafar. Or if he didn't, that was going to be her argument. So she didn't argue as she said, "Three weeks ago when you decided to throw a temper tantrum and snatched Leia from me.

"I didn't start that debacle. That was your own fault."

"Clearly, we remember that very differently."

"Clearly. Because what I remember is you being unreasonable," Vader snapped.

Ahsoka got ready to answer, only to find she had nothing to say. Nothing vindictive or to rebut him anyway. And worse than that, the Force rang with the truth of his perspective.

"I've got reports to send to the Emperor. I trust I can leave them in your care without you poisoning them against me more than you already have."

He didn't wait for an answer and left, presumably to get his suit back on before he went to tend to his Imperial duties, leaving Ahsoka to simmer with what he'd said and the Force vindicating him. How, between a Jedi and Sith, was she the unreasonable one? The twins had been playing instead of eating, and she'd decided it was time for their nap. She got to make that call. When he'd gone insane, she was the one who'd fled with them and kept them from the Empire, reluctant about it as she'd been in those first few weeks. He didn't just get to show up, and because he was little more than their kriffing sperm donor until a few weeks ago, get to call the shots and try to take them from her.

That tight ball of fear—she loathed to call it that—that periodically came in her chest sometimes with Vader came back at the exact same time she felt a sense of clarity in the Force. And finally, she found the crux of her fear of the man. It wasn't what he'd do to her. Or even do to Luke and Leia. Because he was right. Besides being a general asshole, he hadn't done anything to prove her right. And the few times she thought he was losing himself around them, he backed off when she pointed it out.

She was afraid he'd take them from her just like he'd taken everything else she cared about when the Republic fell. And the only possible recourse she had to him trying was that they were attached to her. But if he managed to get them attached to him, Ahsoka might not even have that.

I won't turn because of you.

No. You'll turn because of them.

That's what her meditations had been trying to tell her. This wasn't about Vader. This was about her.

"Mama," Leia called.

Ahsoka snapped out her thoughts to glance the twins' way and saw Leia holding out the holocaster remote to her after managing to use it to get the appliance turned on.

"Turn it," Leia demanded.

"Please!" Luke added, barely able to pronounce the blended basic syllable.

Ahsoka took the remote and muttered, "At least you understand being polite, Luke."

Once she had the caster on the right channel, she sat down between the twins, and they climbed to sit in her lap and watch the bright cartoons, giggling and periodically telling each other to look at the screen. After months of trying, the two were finally talking more instead of using the Force to communicate. Vader took the credit for that since he didn't have the bond with the twins that she had. And Ahsoka wondered if she'd even been the one preventing that, a bond that might be able to motivate Vader to control his temper and be patient just like it had kept her from the dark side. Who was she to selfishly keep that from him?

By the time Vader returned, it was well after dinner, and the twins should have been asleep. In bed anyway. Luke had eventually fallen asleep on the large blanket that Ahsoka had placed in the middle of the living space sometime after for them to camp out and watch a marathon of the magical girl animations that she was still fond of and hadn't faced dramatic censorship by the Empire.

He glanced at them, camped out in the dark and watching a sparkling transformation before continuing on his way.

"When you're out of that suit," Ahsoka said without looking away from the holo, "Come back here for a minute."

"I have no desire to hear your unreasonable demands right now."

Ahsoka's immediate reaction was to snap that she wasn't always unreasonable, but this wasn't about her. She sighed. Vader had the temperament of a krayt dragon. That was for sure. But that wasn't changing any time soon, so she might as well act like she would around a krayt dragon that she might want to tame.

"It's not an unreasonable demand. I want to try something with you and Leia."

Whatever hostility he'd had toward her lessened as curiosity welled up in him. He left without an answer, but Ahsoka was pretty sure he was coming back.

When he did, she gestured for him to sit on the large blanket to which he raised an eyebrow.

"Come on. I'm interrupting me and Leia's show for this, so don't act all haughty," Ahsoka said as she muted the holocaster, much to Leia's disappointment.

"Mama. My show," the little girl demanded, pointing to the holocaster.

"I'll turn it back on," Ahsoka assured as she pointed to Vader and said, "Want to go to him?"

Leia looked at the comically imposing figure of Vader sitting on the blanket, and then shrunk back into Ahsoka's lap, causing Ahsoka to sigh. She sent something that was like a query through the Force, one that Leia answered by lowering her mental shields and allowing Ahsoka to feel the full range of the child's simple emotions. Joy and safety at being with Ahsoka. Fear that something would take her away from the person she associated with the former feelings. Not the typical clinginess of a toddler to their parent either. Ahsoka had seen that with May and her son. But something that was forming to become an unhealthy attachment. The kind the Jedi were so afraid of that they'd banned all attachments outright. The kind that led to the dark side.

Ahsoka sighed again and picked up Leia out her lap and hugged the small girl to her.

"Have I put this unreasonable fear in you, my love? Did I make you so overly-cautious of the galaxy in trying to protect you from it?" she asked aloud, ignoring Vader's bemused gaze on them. "It's okay. He's not going to take you away from me. I'm here."

For now, she was. Ahsoka didn't know what Vader planned to do once they finished planning, and she was back in fighting shape and ready to leave to start her rebellion. But that was Ahsoka's own challenge to face if the time came. She impressed the reassurance onto Leia and then pointed to Vader.

Leia still looked incredibly wary, but let Ahsoka pass her to Vader. Yet still, when Vader tried to reach her the way Luke would allow him, he received the same mental rebuff from her.

"I really don't wanna do this," she muttered to herself. But an extreme measure was the only way to fix the damage she'd done by inadvertently impressing so much of her fear onto Leia.

Ahsoka connected with Leia through their bond and then cautiously reached out to Vader's mind, only to receive the same rebuff from him that Leia had given him.

"Come on. Don't be difficult. This isn't about you and me. I'm trying to help you get through to her," Ahsoka said, trying to keep the exasperation out her voice.

Hoping she'd gotten through to him, she reached out to him again and resisted the urge to retreat at the coldness that finally touched back. That had been all Ahsoka intended to do, but then the black empty void at the place where her bond with Anakin used to be suddenly wasn't a black empty void. There she found the bond that she'd thought was gone and permanently severed years ago. It was mangled, no doubt, worn and shredded after years of mutual hate and rage at each other along with disuse. But it was still there. Which begged the question that if the bond was still there, then was Darth Vader really a replacement for the destroyed Anakin Skywalker? Or was he still there and still himself, just disfigured by all the darkness.

A philosophical question about this whole mess for another day, Ahsoka supposed, more concerned with whether this would help Leia.

"See. He won't hurt you," Ahsoka said, all the while sending a weak impression to the man that translated to her chanting "I'll kill you," over and over again. He sent something that felt like haughty amusement back.

That seemed to be the permission Leia needed because she unhesitatingly opened her mind up and reached out to Vader, only flinching back some at how cold his presence was, but allowing him to touch her. She didn't seem keen to play the mental tapping that Luke liked to play with Vader, but she didn't rebuff his touch, and Ahsoka got the impression that she was curious.

Leia set her curiosity aside, though, as she looked back at the holcaster and said to Ahsoka, "My show, mama."

"Fine! I'll turn back on your show," Ahsoka said, turning back on the sound.

Leia climbed out Vader's arms but didn't return to Ahsoka's either. Instead, she settled on the blanket between them with her chin rested on her tiny fists and focused all her attention on the cartoon.

"I can't believe you got my children into this stuff already," Vader grumbled.

"They could be into worse. They're not going to be building a podracer anytime soon at least."

"You say that like it's a bad thing."

Ahsoka ignored that comment and offered him the bag of her cookies that she wasn't sure he could even eat from the damage she'd also done to his esophagus when she'd injured him on Mustafar. It was really a wonder she hadn't killed him, but she knew better than most that it wasn't easy to kill Anakin Skywalker. Both physically and in mind and spirit as she might have found out tonight.

To her surprise, he took one of the small soft cookies with a fruit jam center while asking, "You're going to be too lethargic from this junk to train tomorrow, aren't you?"

"Yep," Ahsoka replied with a pop of the last consonant. "That means you can have the twins tomorrow all to yourself while I sleep through the day."

AN: Progress! Ish... But baby steps. They'll eventually be best friends again.

As to why Leia responds so negatively to Vader because of Ahsoka and not Luke, it's just a difference in personalities to me. Luke's a little more curious, and Leia's a little more cautious and takes her cues about trusting people from Luke and Ahsoka. And though Luke warmed up to Vader, mom's feelings trump brother's right now. So until Ahsoka told her it was okay, Leia just wasn't having it. You can interpret how you want though.

Hope you enjoyed. Review and follow, please! Thanks in advance.