Chapter Thirty-Six: Reasons

Despite his assurance to Ahsoka that he would be fine without his mask, Vader hadn't even been sure he could make the trek to the hollow tree trunk that he'd found for their shelter. He'd been gaining back his respiratory endurance without the suit slowly but surely, but that was in controlled environments with a ventilator and his med droid nearby. Indeed, he'd had no intention of ever testing his stamina on a mission any time soon. But his current predicament necessitated that unless he wanted to spend all night running from predators.

Vader was pleasantly surprised that he was able to endure better than he expected, and he probably would have endured better were it not for the painfully, stinging gash in his side. Halfway to their hiding spot, it began to zap away at his endurance, and he'd channeled the pain into the dark side to give him strength and stay the need for him to rest. The temperature dropping and the humidity drastically lessening along the way helped.

When they finally found the hollow trunk, Ahsoka helped him look for something that would be large enough to block the opening. By the time he used the Force to shift a large fallen tree in front of the opening, he all but collapsed in the corner from the exertion.

"You're not okay," Ahsoka stated.

"I'm fine," Vader grumbled in response, hating that she was keen enough to notice his weakness despite trying to hide it.

"You're not."

"I'm—"

"For just right now, can we stop pretending that you didn't use to be Anakin Skywalker and that I didn't see you in worse conditions than this at some point during the Clone Wars," Ahsoka asked bluntly. "I didn't think you were weak then, and I don't think you're weak now."

Vader gave her what he hoped was a dark look, but that probably look pretty pathetic given his weakness right now. The unimpressed look Ahsoka gave him in return told him that he was probably right. Either that or she knew he wouldn't do anything to her despite it, even if he could find the strength to.

"Whatever," he finally grumbled as he sagged more against the barked walls.

Ahsoka rolled her eyes and shook her head as she began to strip off the wet layers of her disguise until she was wearing only the tank top and shorts she'd worn beneath it. Then she took off the utility belt with her lightsabers on it and knelt down in front of the pile of stones she'd collected earlier. She then cleverly used one of her sabers to heat them up and then put them in a pile in a hollow she'd dug up to heat up the small space.

"Now that we won't freeze to death, get out that suit and take off your tunic so I can look at that cut."

It wasn't that cold, but Ahsoka always was more sensitive to colder temperatures.

He did as she suggested without protest. Once he was done, he angled himself so she could inspect the gash in his side.

"It's not long, but that's pretty deep," she said as she dug into one of the waterproof pouches on her belt for first aid supplies. "I'm going to have to stitch it up."

"You can see well enough for that?" Vader asked. It wasn't totally dark, not with the light of two of Eriadu's three moons streaming through small openings in the hollow, but it was dark enough.

"My species can see in the dark better than yours can," Ahsoka said as she cleaned the site of the gash.

Right.

She worked in silence after that, using some kind of paste to numb the area some before she sewed his skin back together. He leaned back against the wall to rest his eyes but didn't let himself fall asleep even though he was exhausted. There was no telling what other predators were in these damn wildlands, and the extra seconds it would take for him to wake could be the difference between fleeing and being something's dinner.

"That should do it," Ahsoka said when she was done. "Still, if we don't find the rebels tomorrow, you should call us an evac to get us out of here."

"So certain still that the rebels are hiding here?" he asked as he put his tunic back on.

"Why not? We're spending the night. Besides, these wildlands are the perfect place to hide out until everything dies down. If my spy hadn't inadvertently led us here, we would have never thought to look some place so uninhabitable. We've been thinking of using the same logic to find places for a consolidated rebel base. Jungles. Frigid planets," Ahsoka explained while putting her things away.

"So, you've instilled the same lack of self-preservation in your subordinates as you have?"

"You fought a duel on a lava river—and then built a fortress there," Ahsoka deadpanned.

He hated when she had a point, and she knew he knew it based on the smugness he sensed from her at his lack of response.

Ahsoka then huddled in her own corner, rubbing her hands up and down her arms as her burgundy lips got a purple hue to them that would be concerning if she were human. But her lips always got more purple in them below a certain temperature, even when there was no danger of hypothermia. She lit her lightsaber again to reheat the rocks.

The third time she got ready to reheat the rocks an hour later, Vader huffed and said, "You can either do that all night or do the sensible thing and rest next to me instead of huddling in your corner. I'd prefer the latter because I'm never going to get any rest if you keep lighting your lightsaber all night."

Ahsoka looked at him like he was the predator they were hiding from. Before Vader could remark on it, she made her way over to sit next to him before slowly leaning toward him for warmth. She must have really liked the warmth because she very quickly got over her hesitancy and practically curled her entire upper body onto his chest. Just like his former self used to let her on chilly nights during the Clone Wars while camping out for days and weeks to ambush an enemy or while waiting for an evac.

"You needed me to keep you warm back then just as much as I needed you to keep me warm. You just wouldn't admit it. Just like you won't now," Ahsoka replied aloud.

Like all her observations that might be true, he didn't respond to either confirm or deny it. And like always, he sensed her smug satisfaction at having outwitted him. It didn't matter. It proved nothing.

For the umpteenth time in months and the third time that Vader was aware of that day, something warm bloomed across their old bond; again managing to penetrate the darkness Vader usually kept it submerged in. With nothing more pressing to worry about for the moment, Vader decided to inspect it. He seldom uncovered the bond from the icy depths of his power in order to keep Sidious fooled into thinking he had no personal attachments except his master. But either he or Ahsoka had to be doing something for the bond to keep blooming to life despite his precautions. And it had to have been something recent because he'd never had this problem before.

He withdrew the darkness from around their link enough so he could mentally reach across to inspect his end of it, not realizing that Ahsoka had done the same on her end until they met in the middle. The same warmth bloomed across the bond again, this time unhindered by the darkness that usually covered it. Vader wasn't so emotionally out of touch that he didn't recognize it.

It took Ahsoka a while longer.

"Vader, what was that?"

"That was…" he began and then trailed off. His hesitation was long enough for Ahsoka to catch up.

"Oh, no," she gasped. She then sat up to look at him and repeated, "No, no, no, no… No! You have a crush on me."

Trust her to always catch him off guard with what came out her mouth.

"I—what? That did not come from me. That was you."

"Why would I like you like that?"

"Why would I?" he shot back.

"I don't know. But it explains why you've been acting so strange," Ahsoka said as she moved away from him, which wasn't far considering how confined their hollow was.

"Strange?"

Ahsoka didn't answer him as she dramatically covered her face with her hands and said, "It takes you seven years to get over Padmé's death enough to like someone else in a romantic way, and you want another scandalous relationship? One probably more scandalous than the first? What is it with you and scandalous relationships?"

"There's nothing with me and scandalous relationships. Whatever that was over the bond came from you," Vader shot back.

Truthfully, Vader wasn't sure where whatever that was in the Force between them had stemmed from. And it was impossible to know when it had started considering that they both generally ignored the bond.

Except, they didn't ignore it. How often had she nudged him across it when they spent time together out of annoyance or smugness or even fury? How often had he done the same? And when had she started being able to pick up on his thoughts so much that she responded to them as though he'd said them aloud? Not even his former self had been that in sync with her if he wasn't actively trying.

Ahsoka tried to give him a skeptical look, but it was tainted by her own uncertainty. Good to know he wasn't the only one.

After a few moments of staring at each other in the dark, Vader finally replied, "Kriff."

Ahsoka sighed. "Tell me about it."

"Being dramatic about it isn't going to do us any favors. You are blowing this out of proportion."

"When it comes to you, I can never blow things out of proportion enough," came her dry response. "Regardless, you need to stop this."

"I need to stop nothing. This is all you."

He sensed a response about to come from her before she stopped herself and sighed. Then she said, "Okay. Let's just assume for now that it's both of us." Before Vader could adamantly reject that notion, Ahsoka continued, "There's this show my agents like to catch up on between missions. Something called Thirteen Reason Why. You and I are about to come up with a list of Thirteen Reasons Why Not, and maybe it will nullify whatever… insanity this is, regardless of which one of us it's coming from. Nip it right in the bud before it can become anything else. And it'll give us something to do because neither of us is going to sleep any time soon now."

There was no way Ahsoka was so naïve that she really thought coming up with a stupid list of reasons would deter whichever of them this feeling between them was coming from. That's not at all how this worked. He should know. He'd spent years drowning himself in the dark side of the Force trying to deny and numb the sensations of his own feelings. It only led to insanity and a lot of unnecessary pain and suffering that even the dark side of the Force didn't require to access the depths of the power it could grant, though Sidious certainly wanted him to believe otherwise.

He didn't have the energy to argue with Ahsoka, though. He supposed he would humor her.

"Fine. Number one. You're a Jedi."

Expectedly, she responded, "I'm not a Jedi anymore."

"Your way is in direct opposition to the Sith way. You're Jedi enough. Otherwise, we wouldn't clash as often as we do."

She snorted. "We clash as often as we do because you find it entertaining, sadist and masochist that Sith tend to be. But ok. I'll give you that. Naturally, number two is that you're a Sith. An unconventional one, but still a Sith."

He couldn't argue that one.

"Three. Palpatine," he stated simply.

It was self-explanatory enough that Ahsoka didn't argue with him or ask about it. They both knew that one of the man's main tactics was using those closest to people against them. They both already had two weak links that the man could exploit. No need to give him a third. No need to provide Palpatine with something that would make them hesitate if it came down to him or the other.

"Four. The Rebellion."

Perhaps that should have been self-explanatory also, but there was an underlying frustration in Ahsoka's tone that seemed to have nothing to do with their current dilemma.

"What's going on with the Rebellion?"

"A… tension between me and some of the members of High Command," Ahsoka admitted.

"Tension?"

"They think I'm… too rough around the edges to be the eventual face of the Rebellion. They want someone a lot more eloquent with words and more politically minded. Someone like Mon, maybe. They haven't said it outright, but we've had some back and forth about my methods. They think I'm hindering any progress they might be able to make in the Senate and am only provoking Palpatine's paranoia with the promise of another war," Ahsoka said with a roll of her eyes.

"I see the loyalist committee is still as inept about the way the galaxy works as they were during the Republic," Vader said, rolling his eyes along with her.

"Padmé was on that committee."

"But she knew when the only option was to pick up a blaster and shoot the problem between the eyes." Vader then continued indignantly, "You built that rebellion from the ground up while they were floundering and hoping their meekness would penetrate Palpatine's non-existent heart and get him to give them back their Republic."

"To be fair, they probably don't know he's a Sith, and if they do, they don't really know what that means."

Vader ignored her and continued, "Diya hated the Republic as much as she hates the Empire now. Without her darknet communications systems, they wouldn't have a secure way to keep contact with as many systems as you do. The Jedi that you haven't let me kill only joined because they heard you were leading it. They have no reason to trust the Senate that applauded Palpatine and me for their extermination. If they remove you, they have no rebellion. Instead, they'll just have created a new enemy for themselves."

"They're not going to try to remove me. They're just… going to try to make me see reason and hand it over to them."

"So they can botch their rebellion like they botched their own Republic and the war."

"Palpatine was responsible for that, and you know it."

"They enabled him. They applauded when he announced his Empire. I wasn't there, but I know. They loop that moment in the Imperial propaganda for Empire Day every year."

Ahsoka gave him a longsuffering look before shaking her head. "Either way, when all this is over, I'm already going to have one hell of a time explaining to them why we should negotiate and create a new Empire with you. They're already going to see it as a betrayal. If we were a thing, they'd think I was compromised and might turn the Rebellion against me."

"They'll try. And it'll be their last act of defiance before they meet a swift death by my hand for denying my offer of peace, which is more than what they'll get trying to negotiate with Palpatine."

Something bloomed across the bond again, and this time Vader was definitely sure it was from Ahsoka. She was sure too, because she quickly said, "So number four. The Rebellion. Number five, Padme. Since you brought her up."

Another self-explanatory thing, thus Ahsoka continued, "Six and Seven: Luke and Leia."

"Don't Luke and Leia count as one?"

"Two people, two items on the list. We're explosive enough now as friends, and I use that term loosely. Luke and Leia see us fight too often as it is. The last thing we want to do is normalize that kind of behavior for them, so they take it into their future relationships," Ahsoka explained. "Which leads me to eight. Our very unhealthy co-dependency."

He didn't know on his own what she meant by that, but suddenly he got the impression of a lot of thoughts and feelings from her that gave him insight. They were caught in what seemed like a never-ending loop of hating each other and not hating each other, whatever not hating each other meant. She lived for their explosive verbal altercations as much as he did. And he was looking forward to the next time their opposing ideals saw them clashing on the battlefield. Yet she always turned around to defend him. He knew that from Diya. And he'd probably kill anyone that so much as thought about saying or doing anything to harm her. He would already have to resist the urge to cause an unfortunate accident for those he knew to be on her Rebellion High Command. Ahsoka's inevitable fury and the Emperor's guaranteed punishment be damned. They had no right. They—

"Number nine. You're possessive and controlling as hell. I don't belong to you."

It didn't take long for Vader to figure out that she'd picked up on his thoughts as sure as he'd picked up on hers earlier.

"Number ten. You almost killed me," Vader said.

The atmosphere in the hollow immediately thickened with tension. Vader was sure it would have been worse if the mechanical sound of his pacemaker were present.

"Number eleven. Because you tried to kill me."

"I…" Vader began but then trailed off. He shook his head and said, "That was never my intention."

"Wasn't it?" Ahsoka asked quietly.

"Not on Mustafar." Because that's what they were talking about. Every other time they wanted to kill each other or that he'd intended to stemmed from that incident.

"Number twelve. I don't trust you."

Especially not with my heart, was the rest unspoken. They were at this point because of a series of his ill-thought-out decisions that they now were fighting to undo the consequences of. And that wasn't counting the personal reasons she had not to trust him. Because how many times had he failed her in his former life and in his new one? When the Order expelled her to be tried at the behest of the Senate. When he didn't fight the Council for splitting up their team in the name of giving her space and independence when she might have needed him most. When he'd attacked Padme, almost killed her, and left her to fend for herself with two newborns in a galaxy out to obliterate her because he'd been so consumed by his own rage and hatred and deceived by Palpatine's pretty lies.

She was right not to trust him. He'd shattered her heart once already.

It bothered Vader a lot more than he wanted to admit even to himself. Because he was confident that he could trust her with the entire galaxy if he gave it to her. More than he could trust himself with it. Everything he touched, he ended up destroying.

"What's thirteen?" he asked.

"Can't think of one," Ahsoka said quietly.

"Me neither."

"Guess it's twelve reasons why then."

They fell into silence, such silence that Vader thought she'd fallen asleep after a while. Then she sighed, shifted back towards him, and curled up against him the same way she had before their unsettling discovery.

"We're mature adults, and I'm a lot colder than I am dismayed that you have a crush on me," she said in explanation.

Why did he get the distinct impression that she was lying?

"If you try anything," she added, "I'll kill you."

Vader huffed. "You will try."

That feeling came back across the bond, and once again, Vader couldn't tell who it had come from. The dismay that followed definitely came from them both.

They were doomed.

AN: I told you all to convince me to post a chapter early, and you did such a good job that I decided to put the next chapter up today. Like serious. You all really came through with the reviews, favorites, and follows. You deserve this. I will respond to reviews sometime today.

This was one of the first chapters I conceived for this story, and it was one of the chapters I was so looking forward to writing. It really forced them to reassess their relationship. If you noticed, they both say that they ignore their bond, but I very deliberately made sure to show that they didn't. They rely on their bond with each other quite often for two people mutually ignoring it.

Anywho, no more early updates for a while They will be on schedule. I have to finish a final tomorrow night, do a video project and then sleep for two straight days afterward because it has been a long six months for me.

Hope you enjoyed! Review please.