Chapter Forty-Eight: Anchor

Vader had been doing everything he could to categorically ignore Obi-wan for the most part. Just because Ahsoka brought him along and asked him not to kill him didn't mean Vader had to acknowledge him. But at the man's suggestion, he turned directly to the Jedi and deadpanned, "Are you insane? And potentially expose ourselves and ruin all our plans against Palpatine? Contingency already throws a spanner in everything."

"I have to agree with Vader on this one," Ahsoka said. "No offense—"

"What she means is that we mean every offense," Vader clarified.

Ahsoka continued without addressing him, "But the Jedi's idea of dealing with Palpatine was going right up to the Senate to assassinate the sitting head of state with no proof of his crimes except one of your knight's word, regardless of the fact that it was true. After playing politics for the better part of three years of war, you all really didn't think the politics and repercussions of that one through. So excuse us both if we're skeptical of anything you're going to suggest. Especially when your suggestion is to show Palpatine our hand."

"I was not consulted about that decision. I would have argued against it," Obi-wan replied.

Vader scoffed and rolled his eyes. Hard. "Yeah. Just like you argued with the High Council about letting your friends think you were dead. Or like you argued against Ahsoka's expulsion and trial. And like you argued against getting my former self to spy on Palpatine."

Vader sensed the Jedi's control over his emotions falter, hurt and guilt flashing across his expression and briefly permeating the Force. Vader silently reveled in his accomplishment as silence fell between them. Not even Ahsoka reprimanded him for his cruel remarks. She was too kind to admit it, not liking to encourage his cruelty, but she knew he wasn't wrong. There was a reason she hadn't been willing to talk to Obi-wan before the Clone War's end. In his former life, in his weakness and vain attempts at trying to be the person and Jedi that everyone wanted him to be, he tried to get her to talk to her grandmaster. But Ahsoka had never been the type to willingly or easily acquiesce to anything before she was ready to do it herself. She'd brushed off his attempts, threatening to put him in the same category as the rest of the Jedi if he didn't back off.

Now they had reversed roles. And just like Ahsoka had no intention of forgiving him back then, Vader had no intention of letting any bygones be bygones or making this chance she wanted him to give Obi-wan easy. Obi-wan's betrayal started long before he arrived on Mustafar to kill him. Mustafar had just been the inevitable culmination.

"That," Obi-wan finally replied after a few moments of tense silence, "isn't fair."

"I wasn't trying to be," Vader stated firmly.

Ahsoka finally looked at Obi-wan and chimed in. "I've done all I can. He hasn't killed you yet. He's even willing to end his crusade against the Jedi under the right circumstances."

There was no circumstance under which he'd end his crusade against the Jedi. Ahsoka was just delaying the inevitable. Ahsoka sensed his thought because she sent, Be quiet, across the bond before continuing.

"But you have to earn our trust again. So go ahead. Explain your plan. Prove our reservations wrong."

"Think about it. The real goal here shouldn't be to hide anything from the emperor. It's impossible. Rax is going to miss a report, or someone's going to find these dead bodies, and he'll know anyway. You could hide your involvement, but all that would do is put the Emperor on high alert to a new enemy and force him to revise his plans. To abandon this base in favor of another, and then we'll be back where we started before we knew about Contingency," Obi-wan explained. "Your real goal is for him not to become suspicious. And the best way to do that is to just inform him of what you found. The sooner, the better. Right now would be optimal."

"And what? Let him explain it away, give his justified reasons, lie that he always planned on including me in on this plan?" Vader asked.

"Precisely," Obi-wan said. "He lets you in on the plan, however limitedly that's going to be, and that buys time to investigate, follow the threads of this plan, see who and what else is involved, and stop it before there's a chance for it to be initiated."

Vader refused to admit it was a good plan, not when it came from Obi-wan. Ahsoka, however, had no such reservation and turned to him.

"It's a good idea. And it'll reinforce your cover and continue to prove your loyalty to him for now," she said. "What other choice do we have? Obi-wan's right. We can't hide this. Even if Palpatine is still suspicious, it'll be a lot less than if you try to hide that you know about this and he inevitably finds out that you do. Then we'll have a huge problem."

A huge problem on top of the problem they already had of Palpatine planning to destroy all semblance of government stability if they killed him. But they had to do something. Palpatine, no doubt, expected that Vader planned to betray him one day. However, Vader had very carefully crafted a persona of brute strength, impertinent directness, a lack of finesse, patience, and understanding when it came to the nuance of politics and people, and general shortsightedness outside of his evident proficiency for physical battle. Trying to hide that he'd found this facility would undo all the misleading that persona did. Certainly, he had moments where he stepped out of character to make the act seem more authentic. But trying to outmaneuver Sidious by stepping out of that character now was not one of those times.

There were a thousand things that could go wrong with Obi-wan's plan. But there were a thousand things that would definitely go wrong if he didn't go along with it. Even if it only bought them a little time, it would be enough to start redoubling their efforts to get things in motion. First and foremost of which was the completion of the fleet that he and Ahsoka ordered for the Rebellion six years ago.

"I still don't like it," Vader said, pacing away from Ahsoka and Obi-wan.

Obi-wan stayed put. Ahsoka followed him.

She moved to stand directly in front of him, effectively ending his pacing. Vader didn't know when she'd gotten so comfortable invading his personal space, nor did he know when he'd started letting her. For the longest, she'd kept her cautious distance from him for all that she claimed not to fear him. Even when they weren't fighting, she'd always kept an arm's length from him as though waiting for him to lose his temper and attack her.

When their anger and hate toward each other began to cool and their ever-growing tolerance toward each other began to escalate, they went out of their way to avoid each other's personal space. It was easier to not be tempted by their mutual curiosity to see where these new feelings and this new connection might potentially lead; reasons they shouldn't be damned. Vader had done that once, in a previous life. It was a miracle the good that was the twins had come out of the incredibly sordid affair at all.

He should have pushed her and continued to pace. One of them had to be the reasonable one at any given time. But as with a lot of things when it came to Ahsoka, he allowed it.

Ahsoka looked him in the eye, oblivious to the torment having her in such proximity was causing him and said, "You're terrified of Palpatine. Aren't you?"

His first instincts were to deny such a thing, but her caress across the bond told her it was pointless. He wouldn't even admit such a thing to himself, let alone speak the words aloud. Still…

"Not totally."

"Not of what he'll do to you maybe but what he'll do to anything it looks like you care for. Us. The Empire. The galaxy," Ahsoka stated. "Don't worry. You got this."

The dark side threatened to rise up in him, the side of it that was possessive and overprotective and urged him to stake his claim on those that belonged to him whether they liked it or not. He wrestled it under his control again and finally walked past her, getting her out of his space as he unhooked his mask and helmet to put them back into place. When they were finally on, he said, "I'll contact him in the data room. You both need to remain silent and out of sight."

Neither Ahsoka nor Obi-wan argued with that, standing outside the data room and out of sight of the holoreceiver as he put in the codes that would allow him to directly contact the Emperor. As he did this, he carefully and meticulously wrapped himself with layers of the dark side, deeply immersing himself into its power. Purposely pushing the few bright spots in his life to the back of his mind and instead focusing on all the reasons he had to rage, to hate, to suffer. Though many of those afflictions were done at some other's hand, the root cause was Palpatine's manipulative hand turning people against each other for his own gain.

He knelt down on one knee with his head bowed, and a few moments later, the Emperor's image appeared on the receiver.

"Rise, Lord Vader," the man said.

Vader stood to his feet and looked at the image, mood instantly plunging at the sight and driving him further into the depths of the dark side.

"Where have you been?" the man asked. "I contacted your flagship and was told you'd gone on a classified off-grid mission. Without informing me?"

Vader would never know how he'd ever missed Palpatine's true intentions toward him. Before the Empire, when the man was still acting as Chancellor, he would have thought the man's line of questioning was simply out of concern. Now Vader knew that it was his master's way of keeping him on a tight leash and under his complete control. There was also the veiled threat of punishment at a later date if he gave the Emperor the wrong answer.

"I received reports of rebellion activity on Jakku," Vader replied. It was true, from a certain point of view, as both the Jedi and the Sith liked to argue. "It appeared they gathered enough resources to sustain an underground base in the area. What I found was Contingency."

There was little he could do to stop his rage from surfacing at what he'd found. But Palpatine probably expected that anyway. Just for entirely different reasons.

Vader said nothing else. His blunt statement of what he found was accusation enough with just enough hint of disrespect to both offend his master and be expected of him had he not been planning to depose Palpatine.

"Ah, yes," the man said. "It was never my intention to keep the operation hidden from you."

Nothing that could reflect poorly on Sidious was ever his intention. Still, Vader kept that comment to himself and let his master continue explaining himself.

"Surely, you see the necessity of keeping it hidden and the necessity of having such a plan."

"No," Vader responded bluntly, seething at the implication of his unawareness. "I do not see the necessity of planning to destroy the Empire we have gone through such pains to establish."

"An Empire that if our enemies were to succeed in removing us, would not be strong enough to withstand those who would find the audacity to strike against it and cause chaos. No person in the Empire can match our combined might and control. Thus the only thing to do as to not tarnish our legacy and to maintain victory from beyond is to make sure that those who would oppose it would be unable to take advantage and usurp control."

Vader knew better than to ask about peace. About order. Because a plan to destabilize the Empire and then lure the remnants of it and the Rebellion to a final conflict on Jakku would do nothing except cause grief, pain, and chaos. But the Emperor did not care about that. That was the kind of thing he lived for. If he could not have the galaxy, no one would. It was not their legacy Sidious cared about. Only his own. What he had glimpsed of the man's plan made that abundantly clear. The only reason he was now including Vader in it was that he had no choice. And Vader knew even that would be limited.

Vader refrained from replying for a few moments. He would have to word his next inquiry very carefully.

"Have you seen that our fates are so precarious as to necessitate such a plan? Who could possibly—?"

"While I do not doubt our might in a direct conflict, the Jedi are devious and persistent. I am sure that is something you have observed in your continued efforts to ensure their extinction. Contingency is meant to deal with one slim possibility in the event that it becomes an inevitability. We must account for all possibilities, Lord Vader, no matter how slim the chances of them coming into fruition might be."

The words were vague, but Vader understood the sentiment. Not only was Sidious accounting for the slim chance of a rebellion succeeding in a hostile takeover, but he was also preparing for what he thought was the slim chance of Vader betraying him before he outlived his usefulness. Vader held back a sneer. There was no slim chance about it. His betrayal of Sidious and claiming of his throne was a certainty. Vader had already seen it. Contingency was only another obstacle to maneuver around.

"Perhaps, you can glean more understanding from Gallius Rax. He's the one I've put in charge of this operation," Sidious said.

Vader paused before saying, "Rax has recently met…an unfortunate demise."

Sidious frowned, and Vader knew he had pressed the man's patience too far. Gallius Rax had been necessary for this undertaking. He reminded himself to thank Ahsoka for that at some point.

"We will further discuss the matter on your return to Coruscant," Sidious finally declared.

Vader understood it to mean that as soon as he was back with his fleet, Coruscant was his next stop. Vader dared not complain about it, though. He was already in enough trouble.

"Yes, my master."

Sidious cut the communications.

If there was any legitimacy to the Jedi philosophy that when someone fell to the dark side, it twisted them so much that they effectively killed their former selves, then the proof was the change Ahsoka sensed in Vader when he contacted Palpatine. Like a thick, toxic shroud, the dark side consumed him until even Ahsoka would have had to inspect him closely with the Force to recognize him. When the conversation between the master and apprentice began, gone were the easy, somewhat informal cadences that she was used to, replaced by a stiff, formal cadence that left no room for personality. Gone was the lack of tact, the sarcasm, the argumentative tone, replaced with something more deliberate and cautious. Gone was her only real friend (and probably something more), replaced with a creature that pleased the Emperor.

This was the Vader the galaxy feared. This was the Vader willing and able to commit great atrocities at the Emperor's behest. This was the Vader that Breha feared would hurt Ahsoka one day. This was the Vader that Ahsoka had never encountered because the person behind it kept that side away from her and the twins. The closest Ahsoka may have ever glimpsed of it was back on Mustafar all those years ago in the immediate fallout of the Republic's fall. But even then, he hadn't been this black void. A void so black, it was like he'd disappeared from the familiar place in the back of her mind where she knew his presence in the Force to reside.

So it was with far more relief than Ahsoka would ever admit that Vader's conversation with Palpatine finally ended. Slowly, she sensed Vader—the one she was familiar with, not the black despot that he forced himself to be for the Emperor—begin to claw his way back to the surface, battling his way out of the depths of the dark side until he wasn't utterly consumed by its hold.

Ahsoka came from behind the wall and went into the data room, finding Vader standing stiffly with his hands at his side. She moved to stand in front of him and asked tentatively, "Are you okay?"

For a long time, he didn't answer. He might have escaped the hold of the darkness, but it didn't give up so easily, and still, he fought to wrestle it back under his control rather than the other way around. Finally, he replied, "Just… give me a minute."

A minute might be all he needed to wrestle the darkness under control, but he didn't have to fight it alone. It was probably a dangerous idea to touch his mind with the Force. There was no telling how he'd respond to it in this fragile state nor what the backlash might do to her psyche. That said, what she did decide to do was somehow both a safer and riskier alternative. Tentatively, she reached her hand out, catching his gloved right hand in hers. He didn't do anything for a while, and Ahsoka wasn't sure if that was out of surprise or rejection or distraction or something else.

As an unspoken rule, they avoided physical touch. Not that they hadn't avoided it anyway. When they'd both been Jedi, Vader had always been more tactile than most Jedi. But even a hug or a pat between the montrals or a playful shoulder shove were far and few in between. Limited mostly to high stress, emotionally charged situations when the stoic Jedi persona he'd tried so hard to maintain cracked. Rare enough that it wasn't something she learned to expect but still another odd thing about him compared to other Jedi that she just got used to. Still, her upbringing in the temple meant she'd never been comfortable enough to initiate much contact herself. By the time she'd seen him again after the Empire's rise, days filled with hugs, comforting caresses, and kisses while raising the twins and passionate embraces during her brief relationship with May had gotten her more accustomed to the familiar comforts of physical touch. But Ahsoka had hardly wanted to be in the same room as Vader and vice versa at that point. The only time they had gotten in each other's personal space was for harm.

Lately, the avoidance had everything to do with not being tempted by their growing non-platonic attraction toward each other. They already gravitated more into each other's personal space when they were in the same place now, but physical touch of any form was a boundary not to tempt. And Ahsoka would not be hurt or surprised if Vader turned it away.

He didn't, though. Instead, after a few moments, his fingers curled around hers and clutched her like she was an anchor so that the depths of the dark side couldn't pull him back again.

When he spoke again, the formal cadence was gone, but he was curt and sparing with his words.

"We must act quickly to get ahead of this."

"But how?" Ahsoka asked. "You may have bought us some time, but no doubt the Emperor's going to tweak the plan. And there is no telling how many moles and plants there are and where they're at to sabotage the Empire and bring it to ruin if we kill the Emperor."

"Sabé and her task force already have their hands full."

"So does Diya. And I think it's too dangerous for her, let alone any of my other spies," Ahsoka added.

"Then let us do it," Obi-wan cut in.

Ahsoka turned from Vader to look at her former grandmaster. She'd been so wrapped up in Vader and working out their new obstacle, she'd forgotten he was there.

"Who's us?" Ahsoka asked.

"Stinger Crew," Obi-wan said, referring to the name they'd given Cal and his team, named after Greez's ship. He continued, "It makes sense. Before they ever found me, they traversed the galaxy and infiltrated Imperial bases, trying to figure out how to unlock a vault to get to a holocron with a list of Force-sensitive children. They even infiltrated the inquisitor headquarters. If they were able to do that, surely they'd be able to effectively investigate Contingency."

"That's… not a bad idea," Ahsoka replied. Then she turned to Vader and said, "And they managed to escape you. That's got to count for something."

"I am not entirely sure how much faith I'm willing to put into a group of criminals who thought it would be a good idea to start rebuilding the Jedi Order mere years after the rise of the Empire with dozens of inquisitors and Force adepts prowling around the galaxy hunting them."

"They destroyed the holocron. I told you that."

"The fact that they thought it was a good idea at all gathering that many Force-sensitives in one place and making themselves both a beacon and an easy target says substantially more."

Ahsoka wondered if he was aware of the way he was now playing with her hand. Going back and forth between intertwining their fingers, rubbing a thumb against the palm of her hand, or lightly tapping his fingers on the back of it.

Finally, Vader sighed and said, "But as much as I disagree with it, I also have no one else to trust with the task."

"Rest assured. I'll be with them," Obi-wan said.

Ahsoka let out a snort of a laugh. She wasn't sure if Obi-wan was serious or messing with Vader. Either way, the statement couldn't be reassuring. Never mind that Vader didn't trust Obi-wan, but Obi-wan had been known for being accident and trouble-prone during the Clone War. Commander Cody was always grumbling about the man not being able to keep up with his lightsaber and acting like he had no sense of self-preservation. Obi-wan was more likely to get Stinger Crew into trouble than he was to keep them out of it.

"And they thought we were reckless," Vader grumbled in response to her thought, an occurrence that happened so frequently between them that she'd stop wondering at it.

"No. They thought we were impertinent," Ahsoka corrected. "We were."

"We shouldn't push our luck with the Emperor any longer. You need to get out of here," Vader said. "Were you caught on camera or seen?"

"I don't think so. And I took out the guards manning the bunker above ground before we took the lift down here."

Vader nodded, though Ahsoka was sure he'd be checking the security systems and modifying them himself when she and Obi-wan were gone.

He pulled his hand from hers. Ahsoka ignored the part of her that missed his touch, even through the thick leather of his gloves. He took the mask and helmet back off, the weird whistling of the pacemaker no doubt tasking his respiratory system more than it would be taxed without it. Then he strode out the data room, presumably heading toward the lift that would take them back above ground. Ahsoka followed in silence with Obi-wan close behind.

Once they were above ground and inside the control center, Ahsoka paused, turned to Obi-wan, and asked, "Mind giving us a minute?"

Obi-wan gave her a very pointed look. One that told her he still had his reservations about all this and that she was in for a long talk with him once they were in hyperspace. Once he seemed satisfied that she understood that, he sighed and went to stand outside in the hot, Jakku desert air.

Before Vader could ask what she wanted, Ahsoka asked, "Is it always like that with Palpatine? I mean…with the dark side. You use it all the time, and it's part of you, but I usually recognize you in the Force. That back there…"

"I'm not fond of delving that deep into the dark side and giving it so much control either," Vader said, answering the statement that went unsaid in her observation. "But it's necessary to continue deceiving him."

"How do you…" Ahsoka trailed off, for once frustrated at her lack of understanding of the dark side of the Force as she searched for the words to describe what she'd sensed. "How do you come back from that? How do you go completely off the deep end like that and pull yourself right back so easily?"

She remembered how hard it had been to pull herself just from the edge of falling into the dark side. She couldn't imagine going so deep into the depths of its total darkness and then pulling back to just traverse its shadows instead.

"It's gotten easier over time. There was no choice in the matter."

"Yeah. But how?" Ahsoka insisted.

He turned his gaze from her, and when he looked back, his eyes, which had been entirely yellow, had flecks of their natural blue in them. She could always tell how close to the surface the dark side was in him by how much blue was in his eyes. When the twins were around, they were almost always wholly blue as he kept the dark side at its most suppressed around them.

Finally, he said, "I think about how if I don't get it under control, you'll probably impale me. That or nag me to death. I haven't figured out which one I would prefer."

He meant to tease her, despite his even tone, but the words still wrung with truth. Part of it. It was the closest thing he'd ever get to admitting that he used her as an anchor. Ahsoka would spare his ego and not point it out. She'd spare them both. Neither was ready to talk about what that meant. About what it meant that he hadn't said he thought about the twins, something that would have been a safer answer.

Instead, she laughed, leaned her forehead on his shoulder, and grabbed his hand again.

"What are you doing?" he asked but didn't push her away.

"I don't really know," Ahsoka admitted. Then, emboldened by his acceptance of her into his personal space, she closed the distance between them and pressed herself flush against him and closed her eyes.

She reached out with her senses toward his presence and then blanketed herself with it. Now, having truly seen him immersed in the depths of the dark side of the Force, she realized that his Force presence was more like nighttime on Tatooine. She'd only seen it once, years back when Bail sent her to find Obi-wan. Cool, dark, definitely filled with hidden dangers that used the darkness as a cover, but with just enough light from the stars littered in the sky to not be completely blinded. Even for a human, Ahsoka was sure.

"I'm going to tell Obi-wan about the twins."

"I suppose you wouldn't change your mind even if I argued with you about it." He was playing with her hand again.

"It was cruel of me to keep it from him in the first place." She pointedly ignored the rising tension, very distinct from the one she'd gotten used to during their usual disagreements. "He really misses you, you know. He felt—He feels so guilty. About everything. He just needs time."

"He misses Anakin Skywalker. And that person has been gone for a long time," Vader reminded.

"Maybe," Ahsoka breathed. She wouldn't argue with him about that today. She rubbed her thumb along the back of his hand. "But I think he'd like to get to know the new you too. The one I know. Not the person you have to be to trick Palpatine and the rest of the Empire."

"It is far too late for that," Vader said after a few beats. A pause. Then, "You should leave now."

"Yeah," Ahsoka said with a sigh. "I should. Before Obi-wan gets too antsy waiting."

She stood up straight and took her hand out his grasp, leaving out the doors of the control center without giving any wistfulness a chance to root.

"Ready?" she asked Obi-wan.

"If you are." His eyes went past Ahsoka, to where Vader was still standing a few feet behind her.

Ahsoka sensed a quick exchange between the former master and apprentice pair that might have been an agreement to withhold judgment for the time being.

"I am," Ahsoka said, leading the way back to the dunes not too far away, where they'd hid the speeder they borrowed from the settlement they'd left their ship at.

The ride back was filled with a pregnant but companionable silence. Obi-wan, Ahsoka got the feeling, needed to gather his thoughts. Ahsoka needed to erase and forget the phantom sensation of Vader's hand in hers and his body pressed flushed, though chastely, against hers. To get her own feelings back under strict control and resemble something more becoming of the twenty-six-year-old woman she presently was. Not the fifteen or sixteen-year-old teenager she'd once been, who hadn't known what to do with being attracted to someone.

It took a few hours into their hyperspace trip for Obi-wan to approach her where she was sitting in the cockpit with her datapad.

He settled himself next to her in the co-pilot's chair while Ahsoka set her datapad aside. Only once he had her total attention did Obi-wan begin to speak.

"I'm going to be completely honest with you. I didn't get enough of a glimpse of Vader to be able to gauge whether or not you're right about him. Therefore, I can't say I've changed my mind about what you've gotten yourself into. Nor can I say that I don't think you aren't setting yourself up for disappointment.," Obi-wan said bluntly, straight to the point.

Ahsoka didn't say anything yet. Obi-wan had more to say. She'd give him time to say it.

"That said, I can see the merit in your thinking that our best chance of defeating Palpatine and the Empire for good is having Vader on our side. The Death Star was enough to convince me of that, but especially now knowing about Contingency," Obi-wan said thoughtfully. Then he sighed and said, "And maybe—strictly maybe—if there were a way to bring him back from the dark side, to save him from the Sith, you're probably the only one alive right now that could."

Ahsoka sensed a lot of things from Obi-wan. Guilt. Wistfulness. An old weariness of the soul. Worry. But not sincerity, though somehow, he also wasn't lying.

"You don't have to tell me that if you don't believe it's true. You wouldn't be the first person. Vader is one of the few things Breha and I disagree on," Ahsoka stated.

"I think it's true that you might be the one who could do it, not that I'm sure it's possible, young one."

Ahsoka sighed. "I suppose that's better than a few months ago. What changed?"

"Nothing in particular. Just… I suppose watching you two back there reminded me of something."

"What exactly?"

"Did Anakin… Did he ever tell you about the things that really transpired behind the scenes after your exoneration? With the Council, and the Senate, and Tarkin?" Obi-wan said with a sigh like just thinking about it was as tiring as experiencing it.

"Not really. He told me it wasn't anything to worry about and that he was handling it. I didn't want to deal with it, anyway. So I believed him. He wouldn't even let Padmé tell me anything other than it was something to do with botched paperwork."

Obi-wan laughed. "It was far more than botched paperwork, my dear. Your exoneration wasn't so much an official exoneration as it was that with Barriss' confession, their theory of your involvement was proven untrue. Therefore there was no basis to finish the trial. But between the fact that you and Barriss had been friends and the manner in which Anakin discovered and revealed her involvement, you weren't totally cleared of suspicion in the legal system. Some in the Senate, as well as Tarkin himself, were advocating for a new trial. In fact, right after your reinstatement into the Order, they wanted to have you go for more questioning."

Ahsoka narrowed her eyes. "Really? I knew some people still thought I was guilty, but they were still gunning for me from the legal side of it all?"

"Oh, definitely," Obi-wan said. "The last thing the Republic wanted was to make it seem like they'd been made a fool of, so they tried a different avenue to get to you."

"Glad I didn't know that," Ahsoka muttered. "I would have left the Order and gotten as far away from the Republic as possible if I had."

"Anakin did know that as he so eloquently informed the Council in the days and weeks spent arguing with them, Tarkin, and Tarkin's prosecuting team." Obi-wan tried to sound disapproving but failed miserably. Ahsoka knew he always had taken a muted satisfaction in watching Anakin's antics.

"I knew he was having a lot of meetings with the Council, but I didn't know it was over that. I thought it was preparing for the knighting. He told me he was bribing them to allow Padmé to be there or something like that," Ahsoka recalled. She'd suppressed a lot of that fallout deep within her memory. Not to mention, Anakin had kept her busy with last-minute training in preparation for her knighting.

"We both know Anakin wasn't necessarily gifted with a way with words, but he found the right ones then. He fought for you. Harder than I'd ever seen him fight for anything. The Council even tried to suggest as an appeasement to the Senate and the prosecution and a way for the Order not to attract any controversy to push your knighting back five or six standard months. Give everything a chance to blow over. Naturally, Anakin didn't like that. He threatened to leave the Order, leave the GAR, take you with him, and then go to the biggest news source he could find and spill every classified secret the Order tried so hard to keep hidden." Obi-wan laughed. "He said, and I'm directly quoting, 'How's that for a kriffing controversy?'"

Ahsoka wondered if Anakin had come up with that on his own or if Padmé assisted him. Because that was one hell of a political maneuver using leverage he'd definitely had at the time. Then again, Anakin had always just hated playing politics. He'd never been incapable of grasping them. When she'd explained the politics and nuances of the Rebellion to him once, he'd thought the entire thing was ridiculous and that all of High Command needed to be threatened with a lightsaber. But he hadn't been incapable of grasping their reasoning.

"In hindsight, maybe it should have been apparent then that he was willing to turn on the Order if the choice were ever presented to him. If we weren't already stretched thin with the war, he would have certainly earned censure for it. But Anakin got his point across and was fully prepared to turn over his lightsaber right then and there," Obi-wan said, sounding somewhere between dismayed at Anakin's audacity and proud of his indignation. "There would have been little the Council could have done to stop him without arousing suspicion. The Council agreed to your immediate knighting and to push back against Tarkin, the prosecution, and even part of the Senate who were trying to save face after such an egregious error."

Ahsoka huffed. "No wonder they tried to keep us separate after that."

While it was clear that Anakin always had attachment issues, that kind of behavior, even in her rightful defense, would have screamed unhealthy attachment to the Council. Add her own underlying rage and rebellious nature at the time into the mix, and as far as the Council would have been concerned, the best way to solve both problems would be to keep them apart from each other.

"You noticed?"

"It was fairly obvious. Turns out, I didn't need Anakin's encouragement."

"Didn't we find that out," Obi-wan said with a chuckle. "You know, when Yoda paired you with Anakin, it was both with the hope that you'd quell each other's similar qualities that were unseemly a Jedi and because Yoda wasn't sure anyone else would be able to deal with you." At the innocent, clueless expression Ahsoka gave him, Obi-wan said, "Anakin didn't, but I did go back and read your record. It was quite interesting."

Ahsoka shrugged. So maybe she'd gotten in trouble a handful of times as a youngling and an initiate because of her snippiness and curiosity. Because of one or two indignant outbursts or acts of civil disobedience over something that wasn't fair. That hadn't just happened when she became a padawan.

"Can I be truthful with you?" Obi-wan asked.

"I wouldn't want anything else."

"Truthfully, when he turned and I found out you'd followed him to Mustafar, I was afraid you'd follow him to the darkness."

"Wanna hear my truth?" Ahsoka asked in return, not offended by the implications of the comment. She didn't wait for Obi-wan to agree. "After I left Mustafar, after Padmé died and I was on the run, I hated him so much for turning on us and wanted the man I knew back so much, I almost did."

Because Ahsoka couldn't say for sure if Luke and Leia hadn't been there that she would have stopped herself. The demands of two newborns had added to her stress and initial dismay, but she couldn't say it would have made a difference. Maybe delayed her getting close to the edge. But she couldn't be sure she would have pulled herself back. Ahsoka had decided long ago it was better not to dwell on something that never happened.

"What stopped you?"

Ahsoka knew the answer to that without a doubt and opened her mouth to say it until she remembered she still hadn't told Obi-wan about Luke and Leia.

"I'll show you," Ahsoka said instead. "When we get to Alderaan. Hopefully, you won't hate me afterward."

"I'm a Jedi. We don't hate."

"You might after this. And I'd completely deserve it."

AN: 1) I was really looking forward to getting to this chapter because it answers a lot of questions about Vader in this story. I have gotten a few comments about the "duplicity" of Vader. How sometimes he's very clearly "Vader," but sometimes not the Vader we know from canon. And how sometimes he seems more Anakin and sometimes he's a lot more Vader and sometimes you can't make sense of him. That's the point. He's supposed to be that way because he presents himself in many different ways depending on who he's dealing with. So when dealing with Palpatine and pretending to be Palpatine's most loyal enforcer, he's the Vader from canon. When he's with the twins he's probably closer to the Anakin from the Clone Wars. And he's probably at his truest self when he's with Ahsoka although there's clearly a lot of unbalance to him. And with everyone else, he's probably somewhere between the person he is with Ahsoka and the person he is for Palpatine.

2) As a law student (who may or may not become a lawyer because eh), I am absolutely fascinated with the fall out of Ahsoka's "exoneration" because if we're basing this on real life, it doesn't really work this way. Barriss' confession only discounted the theory or the charge they brought Ahsoka up on. There were other theories (unfair as it would have been) that she could have been tried under (like accessory). And given all the bad press the Republic had with the war, they absolutely would have been loathe to admit they almost sentenced the wrong person, a seventeen-year-old girl. And they absolutely would have tried to try her all over again under a different theory without some pushback. At some point, I am going to write the story of the immediate fallout of Ahsoka staying with the Order. As a one-shot. And no time soon. But Obi-wan pretty much explains the gist of it.

3) So the slow burn is burning a little quicker. I know most of you like that.

4) It is not a spoiler to say that Obi-wan meets the twins next chapter.

Anywho, hope you enjoyed. Review, please! I appreciate it.