Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars. Disney does.

A/N: This is the third installment in the Shatterpoint series where events of TCW and/or Prequels shift such that Anakin Skywalker does not fall to the Dark Side. This is also the one-shot prelude to Diverging Fate, which will follow the Skywalkers' adventures to re-shape the galaxy in the wake of leaving the Jedi. Enjoy!

Fracturing Fate

"Ahsoka...I am so sorry. About everything," Anakin is saying softly as they stand in the main council chamber. She gazes up at her master, her lone defender and sole confidant and wonders what he is apologizing for. He had trusted her. He had cleared her name. He has not deserted her.

"You have our most humble apologies, Little 'Soka. The Council was wrong to accuse you." Master Plo's words echo her master's, rolling over her with such sincere contrition and conviction in her innocence that she offers him a pained smile.

"You have shown such great strength and resilience in your struggle to prove your innocence," Saesee Tiin is speaking now, but even though his words are complimentary, his sanctimonious tone makes her teeth grind.

"This is the true sign of a Jedi Knight," Ki Adi Mundi is quick to join his colleague, and Ahsoka locks her jaw rather than scream her fury at them.

"This was actually your Great Trial. Now we see that. We understand that the Force works in mysterious ways, and because of this Trial, you have become a greater Jedi than you would have otherwise."

"The Force works in mysterious ways"? I'm supposed to accept that Bantha poodoo? Where was all your certainty about my being a great Jedi when I stood in my trial? When you were so convinced that I had "committed sedition against the Republic" and you exiled me to face the senate alone? Contempt for the patronizing Korun master flares in her chest, and it takes all her self control not to sneer at the Master of the Order.

"Back into the Order, you may come." Yoda's green eyes are warm, encouraging. The same gaze that had filled her with such pride as a youngling, then a Padawan, such surety that this is her path and she could not imagine another.

Now, the ancient master's warmth fall flat, hypocritical. She can still see his sorrowful but resolute expression as he allowed Mace Windu to announce her expulsion, the being she's practically worshipped since her first steps in the creché permitting her to be sacrificed for the good of the Order.

Master Obi-Wan says nothing. She can feel his shame, his grief. His feelings of failure saturate the fledgling bond she shares with her grandmaster. He makes no attempt to justify their decision or his own part in it or against it, honoring the pain of her betrayal with his refusal to make excuses for himself and the rest of the Council. She loves him fiercely for that.

"They're asking you back, Ahsoka. I'm asking you back," Anakin says softly, drawing her eyes to his open palm where her Padawan beads lay. She stares at them, lifeless and dull against his glove. She can still feel his hands sliding on new additions, hear the echo of his pride as she proved herself in training and then battles, see the grin on his face when she was the one delivering on another truly Skywalker idea. She reaches for them, the bond between them brightening eagerly. She looks up into his hopeful face, feels the pull of come home come home home home on their bond. She wants to say yes. To allow him to re-attach that string and take her with him to the next battlefield where she knows her master, grandmaster and her men. Where she will always be welcome and trusted.

But it will be a lie. The feeling of the tug on her montrals as those beads had been severed, dim next to the sharp, searing shame and injustice roars in her heart. She will never again be at home in the Jedi Order. They have cast her out, rather than believe she spoke the truth. She gently takes his fingers and closes them around the beads before speaking the hardest words she's ever spoken in her war-torn life:

"I'm sorry, Master. But I'm not coming back."

888

"Ahsoka, wait! Ahsoka, I need to talk to you!" She pauses, waits for the pounding footsteps to catch up to her. "Why are you doing this?" She can hear the pain in his voice and the Force, and she has to bite back the instinct to give in, to soothe that hurt.

"The Council didn't trust me. So how can I trust myself?" she asks him.

"What about me? I believed in you, I stood by you!"

"I know you believe in me, Anakin. And I'm grateful for that," she says softly. "But this isn't about you. I can't stay here any longer. Not now."

Desperation roars through their bond, tied to a grasping fear of being abandoned, deeper than their bond, older than Ahsoka. "The Jedi Order is your life. You can't just throw it away like this. Ahsoka, you are making a mistake!"

Closing her eyes against her master's pain, Ahsoka makes herself stand firm. "Maybe, but I have to sort this out on my own. Without the Council," she takes a deep breath, knowing the next part will hurt much more, "and without you."

He stares down at her, their bond fluctuating wildly under the dual stress of raging emotion as he tries to calm himself, to reach a part of her that is open to changing her mind. "I understand. More than you realize, I understand wanting to walk away from the Order."

"I know."

Their bond trembles as she pivots and takes her first step away from him. Her fragility echoes in him, a convor fledgling shoved from her nest, uncertain whether her wings can carry her, determined to try.

"Stop. Please," he whispers, and allows his own grief to travel down their bond. As in everything, her master's power and emotion outstrips anything she's previously experienced, and the raw pain nearly brings her to her knees. He hears her breathing hitch as her footsteps falter.

"I may never again be your Jedi master," he says softly, placing a hand on her shoulder, "but you will always be my little sister."

"Anakin—"

"I know you feel like you need to figure things out without the Jedi, and I respect that. But that doesn't change the fact that we're family. And families can give each other space – but no one gets left behind or forgotten."

Ahsoka swallows hard. She needs to go. She owes it to herself to find out who she is outside of the Temple's confines, away from her master and grandmaster, away from the 501st and Rex and Jesse and Fives…

Water spills down her cheeks. All she wants to do is turn and bury herself in her master's arms, allow him to hold her and tell her it is all going to be all right, as he had after countless battles. To let her big brother be her pillar one more time.

It takes every ounce of her determination to keep her back to him. She knows he can feel it costing her. To her immense surprise, he does not press his case.

"Go to the penthouse at 500 Republica," he instructs her gently instead.

Surprised, she turns around, knocking his hand away as she scrubs her eyes hastily to clear the tears. "Senator Amidala's apartment?"

"Yes. Tell her what happened, and what you've decided. She will help you however she can, in any way you wish."

Ahsoka almost asks him why he is instructing her thus. But she doesn't require confirmation. She knows he is in love with the Senator. Knows the Nubian woman loves him in return. Senator Amidala has always treated Ahsoka as a favorite little sister, a member of the family she longs for with Anakin.

"I understand wanting to walk away from the Order." Her battered heart cries for the comfort she knows the senator can provide. Maybe…maybe she can be true to her path without having to choose to do it alone.

"All right. I'll go talk to the senator," she promises. The pain in her throat eases with the words.

Anakin takes a deep breath and gives her a pained, lopsided smile. "If you're still there, I'll see you later this evening." The smile fades, leaving only sorrow in his blue eyes. "If you don't want to see me for awhile…I'll understand."

He won't. She can feel his desperate hope that she will be there later, every instinct in him warring with his need to keep her at his side, keep her safe. She appreciates that he is trying so hard to let her choose.

She reaches out and squeezes his flesh hand. "Thank you, Anakin."

Then she turns, and strides away down the Temple stairs.

888

Obi-Wan's head jerks up as Anakin re-enters the Council Room. It is full dark, but the members haven't moved, except to collapse into their respective chairs, unable to process their failure.

And it is a failure, the Negotiator thinks bitterly. We failed my grandpadawan. I failed her. He hadn't been able to sway others, convince them of her innocence. Only he and Plo Koon had voted against her expulsion.

And Anakin…their bond is shrouded now, smoke and shadow rippling over pain and betrayal, tightly locked off from him. The immense turmoil Obi-Wan had sensed earlier still seethes below a falsely-tranquil surface.

"Anakin—" he rises, only to arrest his movement as his former apprentice raises a hand. The taller Jedi closes the distance to him rapidly, blue eyes searching Obi-Wan intently. The older man makes himself stand still under the scrutiny.

How did you vote? Anakin asks, the words clipped even mind-to-mind. Did you vote to expel her?

Obi-Wan looses a torrent of revulsion for Tarkin, for the Council's cowardice, flooding their connection, contrasting against the warm joy-pride-trust-love-protection that always accompanied his impression of Ahsoka. Never, he promises. I know her heart…I love her like I love you. I would never vote against her.

Something like relief brushes their link before Anakin shuts himself away again and turns to face the remaining masters. His glance shifts along the circle of them, his mouth thin, eyes icy. Obi-Wan watches his fellow Council members squirm under his unforgiving stare. Only Plo Koon is exempt, a respectful nod granted to the Kel Dor before Anakin pins Yoda with a particularly scornful glare.

Turning back to Obi-Wan, the Chosen One unclips his lightsaber from his belt and extends it to his master. Obi-Wan takes it out of reflex, his fingers close around it by the time his brain catches up to the gesture.

"I hereby resign from the Jedi Order," Anakin tells the silent room.

He makes it nearly back to the doors before any of them are able to think through their shock.

"Knight Skywalker!" Mace's voice cracks like thunder in the chamber. "You are not dismissed."

Anakin does not stop. "I no longer recognize your right to dictate my actions, Master Windu."

"Breathe, Obi-Wan." Plo has made it to his side as Obi-Wan stares down at the lightsaber in his hand, unable to make himself process why he is holding it and what it means.

"Leave you will, out of attachment to your Padawan?" Yoda presses, his disapproval soaking the room.

Anakin's back goes even straighter, and he drops the hand extended to push through the doors to turn and stare down the diminutive master, an eloquence Obi-Wan had wished for on a thousand diplomatic missions coming to his tongue, for all that the words are scathing. "No. I am leaving because this is a council of fools and cowards. I was taught from the day of my arrival that fear leads to the Dark Side." The glare he levels at the Council members tells each and every one that he finds them severely lacking. "I understand that better today than I ever have. I never thought I would agree with Asajj Ventress. But she was right. We abandoned Ahsoka. Worse, we did it because Republic military personnel and politicians made us fearful of standing with one of our own."

The Council is too disciplined to gasp, but outrage saturates the room all the same. Anakin smiles sardonically. It is not a pleasant expression. "I do not believe that this Council rightly guides Jedi in service to the Light, the Force, or the galaxy. I will not serve its selfishness any longer."

This time, the silence lasts long enough to see him out. The instant the great double doors close on him, ten pairs of eyes snap to Obi-Wan.

Perhaps it is the resentment curdling along their bond, despite Anakin's withdrawal. Perhaps it is the rending pain of having lost his Padawan and grandpadawan in the space of an hour. Perhaps it is the fact that part of him is already grieving that the next time he enters the battlefield, he will be missing those he counts as the other half of himself.

Perhaps it is because Satine had been murdered only weeks ago, and the agony of her loss still festers unspoken beneath the Order's demands for detachment. But Obi-Wan Kenobi has run out of patience with the Jedi Council. He is so tired of losing those he loves.

He clips Anakin's lightsaber to his belt in a single, swift motion. When he speaks, his tone is durasteel control over an impulse to violence.

"He is right. I have spent my life in service to this Order. Giving in to Admiral Tarkin was a grave mistake. That man is no friend to the Jedi and we should never have overlooked that fact. I am deeply ashamed of our actions as a Council, and of my own failure to stop them. We were so afraid of the Senate and the perception they might have of us that we expelled one of our most vulnerable, an innocent young woman raised in this Temple and dedicated to its teachings. Anakin has every right to leave this Order. That we would treat one of our own this way…perhaps Padawan Offee was more correct than I wanted to admit. We have fallen from the Light we hold so dear." He sketches a short, perfunctory bow and starts for the door, aware of Plo Koon on his six, silently supporting him until the doors close on a silent Council behind them.

888

"Anakin, what is happening?" Padmé asks as he enters the apartment that evening.

"Is Ahsoka here?"

"No. She left an hour ago."

His expression immediately shutters, and his wife crosses to him, squeezing his flesh arm and reaching up a hand to turn his gaze firmly towards her, forcing the storm-blue eyes to meet hers, the iron hidden under her dark eyes flickering in her gaze.

"What. Is. Happening?" She strives to be patient with her husband. He is a Jedi and a general, a consummate pilot and a natural at juggling the many challenges of continually serving on the front lines of a war she daily wishes she'd been able to prevent. She knows she can not always be the most foremost subject in his mind, as he is often not in hers.

But she loves Ahsoka just as much as he did, treasures her husband's Padawan and has looked forward to the day she can be honest about calling her "little sister" and today—

—today she is holding onto that anticipated day by the edges of her fingernails as constants crumble around her. She can not handle Anakin drifting into one of his responseless moods where she gets monosyllabic answers as he churns over his own failures or plots the destruction of the Separatist army from twenty systems away. She has tried every trick in her arsenal, called in favors she couldn't afford to ask for to clear Ahsoka's name, and the young Togruta's fate matters to her.

Damn the Jedi Order and their determined dedication to secrecy!

"Anakin Skywalker," she snaps, and his blues lock on her, truly seeing her for the first time since he's walked through the door, "I expect an answer."

"Ahsoka did come here?" he asks her instead, and she can hear the planitive note of anxiety underlying the question. Padmé heaves a sigh, but keeps her eyes on his face.

"She did."

"Did she tell you anything? Say anything at all?"

"She said you'd told her to come. That she wasn't returning to the Order to be your Padawan." She'd cried too, messy, ugly sobs that tore from her throat and wracked her whole frame, keening her loss, her shame, her world ripped away from her. Padmé isn't sharing that. Ahsoka would have never broken down so completely in front of Anakin or Obi-Wan and the senator regards it as an honor that the young woman trusts her enough to allow herself to be so vulnerable in her presence.

Anakin closes his eyes, swallows against the pain of reality in his wife's gentle confirmation. If that's what Ahsoka told her…there's truly no going back.

He shakes himself for the irrational thought. There's already no going back. He severed that cord by placing his—

"Where is your lightsaber?" Padmé asks sharply, her eyes on his bare hip.

Anakin sighs, and she can see in the faint contraction of his brows that this afternoon has wrought more upheaval than one extremely upset former Padawan. Cold seizes her heart, and Force-blind though she knows herself to be, she can almost feel the galaxy turning between them.

"I gave it to Obi-Wan," he says, quiet where she expected a storm, defeat in place of the righteous anger he'd brought to the senate with Barriss Offee. She watches, her hand still gently on his jaw, as Anakin draws a deep breath, and then another, and a third.

When he opens his eyes, they are the clear blue of a man who is facing immense pain and knows it is worthwhile. "I've resigned from the Order."

888

Obi-Wan finally settles himself for his morning meditation after three cups of the calming tea he's loved since he was Qui-Gon's Padawan. Even as he folds his legs underneath him, his heart still resists. Where is Anakin, with whom he had still regularly meditated until just a handful of days ago? And Ahsoka, who has been his meditation partner for the entirety of her time as his grandpadawan owing to Anakin's severe dislike of the exercise?

Their absence scores him, a deepening wound in the Force that is physically painful.

Perhaps he should just leave the Order with them. Why torture himself with their absence?

Cody's face flashes before his eyes, followed by Rex's, Admiral Yularen's and others, officers and clones he serves with, those who trust him to lead them into battle and return with most of them and their equipment intact. The 501st will already be suffering with Anakin's withdrawal. Obi-Wan can not, in good conscience, add to that burden.

He takes a deep breath, settling himself, reaching for the Force, hoping to release all of his present concerns. He prepares himself for his daily wade through the sludge of an indistinct fear, the current of the Force unresponsive, dark and swirling, eddies forming traps of snarling anger and foreboding. As the war pushed onwards, the energy binding all living matter had grown sharper, colder, spiky with dread and death.

So as he blows a long, slow exhale, he is startled to find that after the events of the previous day, when he expects the Force to crackle around him as black as his own mood, it instead lightens as he sinks into it. It is not joyful as he recalls distantly from decades ago before the Dark had gathered in the current storm, but lighter like a sun's rays gilding thinning cloud cover, glinting in a gentle offer of a way out, a promise of a dawn after their current conflict.

Taking a deep breath, he reaches eagerly for that distant Light, soaking in the promise of peace it offers.

888

"So…what's the plan now?" Padmé asks the next morning as she quietly sips her Nubian blend and watches Anakin pace in the kitchen. His has been a sleepless night, and so has hers by default.

Her husband has left the only life he's known aside from the brutal slavery of his childhood. Set aside more than a decade's training and commitment…and she understands why, even as she fears the other boot dropping.

"I wanted to be a Jedi to help people," he starts quietly, staring out the sheet glass of her windows towards the Temple. "I never wanted to be a general…I never wanted to be in a war, even if I am good at fighting one." He snorts, almost to himself, and his next words are so quiet she almost misses them: "I wanted to free slaves."

The faint wistfulness at the end of that thought catches at the train of her thoughts, winding through the political dances she is forever orchestrating, and:

"I think I have an idea."

888

Darth Sidious scowls, examining the Force as it twists under his hand.

Something has happened. Something tiny but significant in the Force. A channel of possibility has opened overnight where he's worked so hard to dam them all, to ensure the galaxy falls into the designed shape he'd been crafting for decades.

Light peeks from the edges of the glorious Dark he's spent a lifetime cultivating. Its delicate rising melody is barely detectable against the thunderous discordance he was orchestrating, but yesterday there had been no melody, just a scattering of dying notes amid the dying Jedi, their vaunted Light fleeing them as they served the Sith unknowing.

This…this can ruin his carefully crafted plans. Just as he's succeeded in driving a wedge between Anakin's Padawan and Sidious's own chosen apprentice, too. He has to find and prune this new offshoot swiftly.

He withdraws from his meditation and presses the button for his aide. "How can I serve you, Chancellor?" Sate Pestage's calm voice floats over the com.

"Please contact the Jedi Council and request a meeting with Knight Skywalker."

888

Ahsoka wraps her hands around the mug gratefully, ensuring that her light grey cloak remains snug around her shoulders and montrals. She can't hide from Dex, but she doesn't want anyone else's attention.

The Besalisk considers her carefully, mulling over her query as his four arms keep in constant motion, turning eggs, stirring creamed Corellian spinach, tasting a simmering sauce that - judging by his frown - isn't coming up the way he wants.

"Jedha," he says finally, wiping two of his hands on a grease-laden towel at his waist. "The kind of wisdom you're looking for might be available there."

Jedha. The name rings a vague bell, but only very faintly.

"Might?" she presses, sipping her caf. The diner chef cocks a brow at her.

"It's a special kind of place. You're not the only one to…seek new beginnings," he rumbles kindly. "But the kind of new beginning you can reach for is not like the urchins I usually see down here. There's no giving up on your power, or your training. Jedha," he tells her decisively. "If I were you, that's where I'd go. And…I've got just the duo to take you there."

"I can make my own way, Dex," she warns.

"On what ship, 'Soka?" he snorts. "Let an old man help you out." He sighs heavily and softens his voice. "It's the least I owe Obi-Wan."

Her grandmaster's name tears through her, weaving through the sorrow soaking their dim bond from his side, and she's sending him a mental nudge, an encouragement, an afternote of fine-okay-fine that she isn't quite aware of until he latches on from the other end, a sunburst of hope-agony-sorry that startles her into withdrawing.

Throat closed so that she can't even swallow her mouthful of caf, she gives him a short nod. Jedha it is.

888

Striding from the landing pad to the Senate Dome, Anakin shivers and halts, looking skyward.

"What is it?" Padme asks quietly, hand hovering, not-quite-touching his sleeve.

"She's leaving Coruscant," he whispers, the tightness around his eyes betraying pain. "For the first time—"

His voice fails. He doesn't know where she's going, when or if she'll ever return. "I'm sorry, Master. I'm not coming back."

He closes his eyes as he feels the thread between them, tended since that long-ago day on Christophsis, stretch and stretch…and all-but-vanish as hyperspace claims her, leaving him grasping at his end, an ache in his mind, an emptiness in his heart.

Snips.

"She will be all right," Padmé's quiet voice fills his ears, soothing the fresh wound. "You trained her, my love. She will be back."

There is no room for doubt in his wife's voice or her unique imprint in the Force, and he shakes himself, refocuses on her, on her beautiful eyes, her brilliant plan, her absolute assurance. "She's free," he says firmly, the same mantra he's repeated all night.

He claims his wife's hand and tucks it into the crook of his elbow, a clear and silent proclamation to those they will mingle with inside.

"And so am I," he finishes, stormy eyes lightening to the clear blue of his childhood. He gestures to the majestic Dome with his free hand, suddenly mischievous. "Shall we, milady?"

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A/N: Thank you all for reading. I hope you enjoyed it!