Chapter Thirty-One: Place

Vader promised himself that he would always do the least amount of work that was possible to get away with during the few precious moments he got to spend with Luke and Leia. But when Sabé made her appearance, he couldn't pass up the perfectly discrete opportunity to integrate her into his circle. With her help, he could more quickly sift through the current higher ranking Imperial military personnel to figure out who was more likely to be loyal to him when he defeated the Emperor and who was likely to put up a challenge.

The clones' loyalty he would easily solidify, considering most of the Imperial army thought them to now be obsolete, especially after Sidious decommissioned the clone program on Kamino. He reassigned all clones still commissioned and in fighting condition to his fleet, the ones that worked directly under him having the elite shock trooper designation. Some of them would even take the place of the Imperial leaders deemed unfit to be in his service. The ones still on Kamino… well, Vader had a project for them.

But there was only so much vetting Vader himself could do while chasing ghosts for his increasingly paranoid master and also keeping his attention away from the fledging rebellion that Ahsoka was building. That's where Sabé and the other former handmaidens who'd been helping her investigate Padmé's death came in.

If there was one thing he'd learned about the human men who were mostly in charge of the Empire, it was that they both underestimated and couldn't resist a beautiful woman. Already exceedingly more well-trained than the average new recruits into Palpatine's military, Sabé and her group would be the perfect spies and, if needed, the perfect assassins. They had the perfect motivation to serve him because, in a roundabout way, serving him was serving their former mistress in the interest of keeping her children safe. The last time such a perfect opportunity fell into his grasp was when he'd stumbled upon Ahsoka and his thought-dead children three and a half years ago.

Vader scowled a little at the thought of Ahsoka. She'd been relatively quiet and reserved lately. Suspiciously so.

He knew from both Artoo and Threepio that Ahsoka tended to run herself thin, though it wasn't something he could particularly admonish her about since he tended to do the same. If he'd cared to admonish her, that was. But when he preoccupied himself with the twins on their visits, she frequently took the time to lock herself in her room for the better part of a rotation to rest. Hence why he hadn't thought anything unusual about her doing the same thing when they'd first arrived on Naboo, and he'd passed by her room to see her knocked out after falling asleep reading what looked like a financial report.

Except for a brief bout of hostility upon the discovery of Sabé, though, Ahsoka's mood worsened, and she isolated herself yet again. Her bad mood was so obvious throughout their second and then third day on Naboo, Luke and Leia even started to notice, and generally Ahsoka carefully shielded the two from her more negative emotions.

Not so long ago, Vader would have given anything to get Ahsoka to be quiet. To put an end to her blunt, honest remarks and accusations that never failed in making him confront uncomfortable truths about his past failures and what he couldn't do if he wanted to avoid repeating them. Now, the lack of that adversity and hostility, of constantly challenging him, meant something was very wrong. If something was wrong with Ahsoka, she was distracted. And if she was distracted, she couldn't adequately protect Luke and Leia when he couldn't be there, which meant getting to the bottom of this.

He took the approach to dealing with the matter that he always took with everything. Getting directly in its path and taking it head-on.

"What's your problem?" he demanded when he found her holed up in her room late that evening.

She regarded him the way she always did when she thought he'd lost whatever remaining sanity he had.

"Problem?" she asked, raising an eye marking.

"Yes. Whatever is agitating you has you broadcasting so loudly, it's a wonder half the planet doesn't sense you."

"I'm not broadcasting that loud."

"The fact that it's so apparent that I have to ask you about it tells a different story."

"Or maybe it's just this," Ahsoka said at the same time Vader felt a rough mental knocking as she found him through their old bond.

"My skill in the Force is not so unrefined that I cannot tell when I can only sense something from you and when you're projecting," Vader replied, never mind that their bond was probably making the projection worse.

Ahsoka gave him an unimpressed look, the one she'd perfected over the years of raising Luke and Leia and could make the two back down even at their most difficult. He wasn't her child, though, and so he fixed her with a dark look of his own.

When he wouldn't back down, she broke their gaze and sighed. "Just leave it, Vader."

Vader scoffed. "Coming from the master of being unable to leave things alone."

She couldn't disagree with him if she wanted, and Vader knew she knew that. Ahsoka made it her personal life's mission to not let anything go with him. To hinder him at every turn when she disapproved, to redirect his ire and hate to something more advantageous to her, and when all else failed, to make sure he very well knew she was displeased. Even when he threatened her or fought her as had been the case when they disagreed about the Jedi, she didn't leave things be.

"I don't wanna talk about it," she muttered, rolling away and turning her back toward him.

"Tough."

"Vader. Get out."

When he didn't, she rolled back over to face him, her expression now hostile. It might have worked on anyone else, the Imperial soldiers who spoke about "the Fulcrum" in quiet whispers of her prowess when she went out on a mission. But he'd taught her that look. He wasn't going to be intimidated by it.

"I am not above fighting you and forcing you out right now, Vader."

"As if you could."

"Not normally. But without your suit, I've got the advantage."

He'd forgotten about that, though he didn't know how. Although his new treatment was working, he'd found himself with a familiar tightness in his chest while chasing after the twins and had been forced to use his ventilator while the twins were occupied with Sabé's stories about Padmé. Just thinking about the crippling weakness caused him to lose his practiced restraint over the dark side. Rather than tell him to stop projecting, though, Ahsoka's presence reacted by flaring to meet his. If a fight was what she wanted, he certainly had no problems giving it to her.

"Mama. It's loud."

Both Vader and Ahsoka turned to Luke. He was standing sleepily in the doorway in his pajamas, his tone conveying his frustration at being awakened.

"Sorry. We didn't mean to talk so loud," Vader said tersely.

"I mean up here," Luke said, tapping his finger on his forehead.

Simultaneously, both he and Ahsoka retreated their Force signatures behind shielding.

"Sorry for that too, then," Ahsoka said, having a much easier time removing the earlier hostility from her tone than Vader had. "Let's get you back to bed, little one."

She walked past Vader, decidedly not looking at him, and took Luke's hand. As he watched her walk away, Vader didn't need to be a genius to know that she wasn't coming back. Luke and Leia were nowhere near as clingy to her as they'd been a few years ago, but Ahsoka would take the excuse of them needing her to avoid him for the rest of the night.

Times like these, he really wished Padmé were still alive. Not that there was ever a time he hadn't, especially those early months of the Empire when he had nothing and no one to live for, and the Force seemed unwilling to allow him to just die, no matter what he'd done. Then when he'd discovered the twins, he wished she were still alive not for his own sake, but for theirs. Even if it meant she hated him for all that he had done in her name. All that he had done to her in the end. At least she wouldn't be dead.

The Force whispered something—an accusation, a truth—at that thought, but Vader would not go down that path. The past was better left where it was and that truth unknown.

Regardless, the desperate desire for Padmé to be alive was a lot less nowadays. However, there were times he sorely wished she still lived to give him some of her patient advice that he hadn't appreciated as much as he should have. To feel her put her hand on his arm to soothe him and encourage him to think things through.

Like you should have let her before you pledged yourself to Sidious, a treacherous voice that sounded a lot like Ahsoka said to him.

Another truth better left in the past.

Still, he couldn't help but wonder what Padmé would have advised him if she was here. If she was, it certainly would not be the first time he'd run to her for advice on how to deal with Ahsoka when she was in one of her moods, or they'd had a disagreement. There had been a lot of those during her apprenticeship to his former self.

"You have to be patient with her," Padmé had advised gently. "Don't be so overbearing. She's a teenager. It's a difficult time for her, even as a Jedi. You can't force your way in. That'll just make her close off even more. Just be there, Ani. Talk about or do something else with her. She'll eventually open up. You'll see."

Ahsoka was far from the sometimes moody teenager she'd once been, having mellowed out considerably in the last few years. He wasn't sure if that's just what happened with womanhood, raising the twins, or running a rebellion—likely a combination of all three. But maybe Padmé's old advice would still work, even if it meant having to exercise the two things even he could admit not having much of.

Patience and tact.

Patience with the one person in the galaxy who knew best how to test those boundaries the most when she wanted to. Even better than the Emperor. And tact? Well. He'd never been known for that.

Vader was tempted to just forget about it. If she wanted to brood, so be it.

But he had too much pride to simply let her dismiss him the way she had and determined to confront her again anyway. Just… less forcefully this time.

He found her early the next morning, sitting next to the lake barefooted and looking like she was trying to meditate. If he wasn't sure something was wrong before, now he was certain. She was never one for sitting still, even to meditate, unless something was truly bothering her. Based on how off-balanced and agitated he still sensed her to be, meditating wasn't working.

He started to just sit next to her before he remembered. Tact. Right.

"Would you mind if I joined you?" he asked.

"Would you even care if I did?"

No.

"Perhaps."

"Whatever," Ahsoka groaned as she opened her eyes and put her feet in the lake. "Meditating wasn't doing anything anyway."

"Doing anything about what?"

Ahsoka didn't answer. Vader should have known she wouldn't make it that easy for him.

Fine. Patience. Talk about something else. It wasn't like he didn't have a long list of things he probably needed to discuss with her anyway, but most of those were probably guaranteed to start an argument between them, and then he'd be even further from his objective. He needed something simpler. Not small talk. Force, he hated small talk. But something… something calm.

"Why do you call Padmé the twins' first mother?" he decided on. He figured he may as well satisfy his curiosity, even if it was always a risk bringing up anything to do with Padmé between the two of them.

Ahsoka gave him a look between unimpressed and baffled as she answered, "Because she is…"

"I mean, why call her first mother? Why not birth mother?"

Ahsoka stilled looked a little baffled, and Vader reminded himself to be patient even if it wasn't that hard to grasp what he was asking. Finally, she shook her head and turned back to look at the lake.

"Oh. That. I guess it's more of a cultural thing. There's no such thing as an orphan for togruta. There's not even a word for the concept. Childrearing is traditionally the responsibility of the whole community, and if the biological parents die, someone just takes the youngling into their family. Usually, whatever family the child gravitates to the most," Ahsoka said with a shrug. "The biological mother is always the first mother. And children take their first mother's family name to honor her for the sacrifice of carrying them. It distinguishes her from the many other mother figures a togruta may have in their lives, whether the first mother lives to raise them through to adulthood or not."

"So, what would that make you?" Vader asked. "Second mother?"

Ahsoka laughed. "No. Just Luke's and Leia's mother. It's easier to comprehend if you know togruti. There's a word for first mother and another word for mother. The first mother is a mother, but a mother isn't always the first mother." A pause. "That wasn't confusing. Was it?"

"No. It's just li—"

"Just like what?"

"Nothing," Vader replied. Yet another thing better left in the past. Ahsoka gave him that look again, and Vader scoffed, "You make that face so much that Leia looks at me like that now."

"You deserve it. I have to put up with her demanding personality and bad temper. It's like Padmé had nothing to do with that girl except for her looks."

"You say that as though it's a bad thing."

"Not always. She can be surprisingly kind and thoughtful when she wants to be," Ahsoka replied, raising an eye marking at him and giving him a knowing smile.

"I have no idea what you're getting at," Vader replied immediately, concentrating on the lake.

"You're actually worried about me."

Vader scoffed. "Don't delude yourself. I'm not worried about you. Only concerned as far it has to do with making sure you don't lose focus on our end goal and protecting Luke and Leia with your life."

"Right."

She rolled her eyes and scowled as she said this, and a feeling in the Force told him that he'd unwittingly managed to remind her of whatever was bothering her.

"Out with it," Vader demanded. Tact and patience be damned.

"It's stupid."

"Perhaps. But I'll determine that."

Belatedly, Vader realized that wasn't the best response and prepared for Ahsoka to make some snippy remark and leave. To his surprise, she didn't move. Not immediately anyway. Just sat in thoughtful silence.

Then she said grudgingly, "I cannot believe I'm about to tell you of all people this. But maybe you're the only one that can give me an answer because you know about everything," She paused again, and this time Vader elected to be patient with her. Again.

Finally, she began, "You know those early days of the Empire, when I'd lost everything, it was just me and the twins. I wasn't used to not having any backup or someone there to help me figure things out, but that didn't matter. They were the only thing I had, and they needed me. So I had to figure it out for them, even though I had no clue what I was doing. They were the only thing that kept me going. It was probably a little unhealthy, and in the long run, might not have been good to make them help me bear the emotional weight of all my traumas, but it gave me purpose. It made me not feel… pointless. Like the galaxy didn't need me. And now I've got the rebellion too, but…"

Vader wasn't exactly sure what to do when he sensed her become self-conscious. What was he supposed to say to her laying her heart out like this? He'd never bothered to consider how hard the rise of the Empire might have been on her. How could he have when he had to live with the fact that everything had gone so wrong for him? Even now, the memory of the first two years of the Empire were hazy at best while he'd been drowned by and under the complete controlling grip of the dark side. And when he tried to let it go, the guilt and grief of what he'd done drove him so insane he was sure he'd tried to commit suicide at least twice. It might have been more.

But now that he could think beyond his own troubles, at least when it came to Ahsoka, he remembered that he floundered and had to adjust when the twins first came into his life at nearly two standard years. At the time, Ahsoka seemed able to interact and deal with them with the same grace and calm she did on the battlefield. It never occurred to him how hard it might have been at first. A teenager, built to be the sword of a government, suddenly responsible for two newborns. Without Obi-wan. Without Padmé. Without him. But like everything she got into, Ahsoka toughed it out and made the best of it. That didn't mean she had not felt the weight of her burden or that the circumstances hadn't wounded her.

The Sith way to respond to this would be to tell her she was acting weak and foolish. The Jedi way, to tell her to be mindful of her feelings and that she was made her stronger in the end, was no better. Both ways would probably end up sparking her fury.

Just be there, Ani, Padmé probably would have advised him.

In the end, Vader reached for the mental bond that he pretended not to notice was slowly but steadily repairing itself and sent something across it that was like encouragement. Ahsoka responded by wrapping its coolness around her, not shying away from his darkness.

"Sometimes, I can't help but wonder about the future. When the twins are grown up and don't need me to be their mother anymore. When we defeat Sidious, and there's no need for a rebellion, and you're the emperor. What's out there for me then? A veteran who's been fighting wars since she was a teenager but no use when there's no war to fight. "

What happens when you don't need me anymore? Came the verbally unasked question across their bond though Vader wasn't sure Ahsoka meant to send it or even knew that she had.

Truthfully, he didn't know what would happen once they defeated his master. Some days, he wondered himself. His entire life, former and present, there was always an enemy to chase, a noble cause to fight. He'd be emperor. That much he was sure of. He'd even started to get glimpses of it in his meditation. Nothing particularly clear, but definitely a strong impression. Beyond that, though, Vader did not know.

What he did know was that at the very least, they'd be putting down skirmishes, challengers, and terrorists for years after they won, even if Vader knew they would stand no chance against his Empire's might. But if he didn't need her to help in that effort, Ahsoka was vastly underestimating her talents. Plenty of systems would willingly seek her out for their own gain once she'd served her purpose of helping him take the Empire.

Something dark, primal, and possessive rose in him at the thought of Ahsoka pledging her loyalty to helping someone else. Even if that didn't mean she was betraying him or his Empire. No. That would never do.

"If you want me to reassure you that you'll still be needed after all this is over, I can't. I'm not sure what the broader galaxy will need once I'm emperor. Perhaps they won't need a veteran who's only good at fighting wars but doesn't have a war to fight," Vader admitted. Before she could become frustrated at him and storm off for being unhelpful he added, "But regardless of what the galaxy and the Empire needs, I assure you. Fail together or win together, there will always be a place for you at my side, my friend."

The last part slipped out without any thought, surprising him as much as he sensed it surprised Ahsoka. But… it wasn't untrue, now that Vader thought about it. They were complicated on the best of days and positively explosive on the worst, but Vader supposed she was a friend. He hadn't had one of those in a long time.

"Friend?" Ahsoka asked.

He wondered if she heard the Force humming in approval too.

"I will not repeat it."

"Sith Lords can have friends?"

They probably weren't supposed to. Palpatine certainly didn't. Only pawns, some of whom he favored more than others. But Jedi weren't supposed to have attachments either, let alone a wife and children. Vader had no clue why he thought he would be any better at that after becoming a Sith, especially once he discovered Luke and Leia lived despite his attack on Padmé while she still carried them. Appearances were important, though. Even more important serving Sidious than it had been when serving the Jedi. There would be time to explore other Sith and dark side philosophies when Sidious wasn't around to punish him for it.

"Do not try my patience," he warned instead. There was no real bite to his tone.

"Whatever. Wouldn't wanna be your friend anyway considering the type of people you consider friends. Like Tarkin," she added wryly.

Tarkin wasn't a friend. He was a necessary acquaintance who Vader decided would be easier to cooperate with than to actively challenge for now. Tarkin certainly would be no use to him once Palpatine was dead. If Takin survived past Palpatine's death because he would certainly be one of the Joint Chiefs to challenge Vader's claim to the Empire. That was without the grudge Vader still had against the man for his involvement in Ahsoka's trial. He might not have framed her. He might have even been just doing his job. But he'd been complicit in the Senate's and the Order's desire to maintain the illusion of peace and safety on the galactic capital by using Ahsoka as a scapegoat. That was something Vader had no intention of forgiving.

Ahsoka didn't know all that.

"I can't be angry with or hate Offee, but you can with Tarkin?" he asked.

"Barriss was a pawn in a game none of us knew we were being used in. Tarkin has had it out for me since the Citadel."

"He hasn't."

"He pushed for my prosecution and for the death penalty even when he had no evidence."

"He was just doing his job."

"Doing his job? His job was to find the real culprit. Not—" Ahsoka paused. "You ass. You're messing with me."

Vader shrugged in answer, and the two lapsed into a companionable silence. They might have stayed there for the rest of the morning if not for the sound of Luke and Leia shouting at each other coming from the house.

"I don't know what's harder. Running the rebellion or those two," Ahsoka said, getting to her feet. "What do you think?"

"Definitely those two. Leia may have my temper, but Luke has Padmé's stubbornness."

"Tell me about it," Ahsoka replied as they started for the house before the twins broke something in their fight. She paused, though, grabbing his arm to stop him.

He raised his eyebrows in askance, and she looked away from him before looking back up.

"Thank you, Anakin."

A few years ago, her calling him that would have infuriated him, but from her, this was something he'd allow. Sometimes.

Still…

"I keep telling you. That name no longer has any meaning."

"Who are you trying to convince? Me or you?"

"Besides," Vader grumbled, ignoring her question, "You're a lot less entertaining when you're in a bad mood even if you do infuriate me a lot less when you are."

AN: Shockingly, no one asked me why I kept using the term "first mother" instead of "birth mother." I was sure someone was going to ask me about that. But no one did. Not that I mind. It meant I didn't have to tell people that I explain it later. Anyway, there's so much potential for different cultures in the Star Wars universe, and I take every chance I can get to add it in my story and give this story flavor.

Anywho, this was a big step for Vader and Ahsoka. Because now there's the mutual acknowledgment that they're more than a convenient pawn to each other. That even at their most explosive and even though their relationship is a little toxic right now, they consider the other a friend. The door to something more than that could not be opened, in my opinion, without them getting over that hurdle. Things begin to start falling into place a little faster after this. But only a little. Also, writing Vader trying to be nice and considerate but still being all Vader-y was a delight to write.

Anywho, hope you enjoyed. Review, please!