Ahsoka takes one careful step forward, then she's crashing into Anakin's chest, her arms wrapping around him. He lets out a groan of pain and she lets go immediately. "I'm sorry!" Ahsoka gasps, her eyes now wide with worry. He can feel it so strongly in the force.

"It's...fine." He says after a moment. It still hurts, but when does it not? What little skin he has left can barely feel, and yet, it sends sharp flairs of pain at every graze. His prosthetics pulled from where she hugged him, making him now paranoid that he may be bleeding.

It's better than the suit, he tells himself. Better than the prison Sidious designed to keep him insane.

"I thought you were dead!" Ahsoka says at last, a bright yet sad smile on her face. Her eyes trail over his form, taking in every detail. He feels very aware of his scarred face, as little of it as she can see. And the dead weight of his prosthetics. "I couldn't feel you anymore. I assumed..." She goes quiet. He knows what she assumed. "You're both so different."

Anakin tries to shift the conversation before Kenobi can destroy this small happiness. "Ahsoka-" He stops. "Or do you prefer Fulcrum?"

She doesn't answer at first, as if she's deciding that for herself. If she does decide to go by another name, he won't blame her. "Ahsoka's fine. Fulcrum is more of a code name than anything." A simple enough answer.

"Ahsoka," Anakin starts again. His mouth hangs open, ready to carry on with the important things -catching up is just a waste of time- but what comes out instead is, "I'm so glad you're okay." He's the one to hug her this time, not caring if it hurts. She returns it, but gentler. It's appreciated. "I found your lightsaber. And the helmets."

She stiffens. Kenobi chooses then to interrupt. "Helmets? What are you talking about?"

Pulling away, Ahsoka regards her grandmaster, deep sorrow in her eyes. Anakin can't help but feel he's the one that caused it -because he did. "When we were returning to Coruscant with Maul in custody, I felt...something. A disturbance. Then, everyone on the ship started shooting at me and...it was a chip. In their heads. Someone ordered them to kill the Jedi."

He knew it already, could easily guess what happened from the wreckage, but hearing it himself? Knowing Jesse -he used to stage all kinds of competitions, just to get Hardcase upset-, tried to kill Ashoka? It's too much.

"I managed to remove Rex's, but he's the only one." Kenobi reaches up to cover his mouth with one hand, his eyes haunted. Ahsoka continues. "I'm not sure where he is now. We split ways."

Rex is out there. Somewhere, hiding away. Anakin could use someone like him: strong, loyal, and punctual. He could use a friend by his side. It's another thing he'll add to his list, if he finds the time for it.

Right. He has to liberate Tatooine. There are a million and one things left to do before that, people to catch up with. And if he doesn't get Fiolla to Bail for whatever political training she'll get, they'll run out of time.

"I came to ask for the rebel's aid." Anakin says suddenly, startling the other two. "Soldiers and a safe place for Luke to stay. Can you provide it?" And Kenobi, but he won't add that part aloud. Although he does trust Kenobi to ensure Luke doesn't get himself into danger, there's still a burning part of him that doesn't want to trust his former master.

As Ahsoka straightens, seeming to understand that they aren't just here to chat. It reminds him of when she came back to him after leaving the Jedi. She looked at him with nothing but indifference and it hurt, a lot. Every time he tried to overstep the business line into personal conversation, she shut him down.

It's not her fault, though. She didn't owe him a conversation or even a friendly smile. At that point, he was just another Jedi.

"Mas- Anakin." Ahsoka's voice is soft when she speaks and he snaps back to attention. "I'm sorry we never got to talk."

Kriff! Anakin slams his mental shields into place immediately, ignoring the wince on Ahsoka's face as he does. He's not used to having an open bond anymore. Not used to sharing so much of himself. "It's in the past." He tries for a passive tone that only really works thanks to his vocoder. Move on. Forget. "I plan to free Tatooine of all Hutt control very soon and Bail promised me aid in exchange for Tatooine's alliance."

Ahsoka crosses her arms. Not in defense, but in that way she does when she's negotiating. It's a habit she picked up from Kenobi. "Anakin, we don't have soliders. We're currently training a group of farmer refugees how to hold a blaster straight and there are only so many Alderaanian guards. I don't know what Bail promised, but I can't deploy anyone."

A minor setback, but he was prepared for it. Perhaps he really will need Rex's help. "Fine. A place for Luke, then?"

This time, she just looks confused. "Who's Luke?" Anakin's answer is a glance toward his son, who's playing with R2's dome head. It's a beautiful sight. He always wanted Luke to meet R2, even if the boy doesn't understand binary just yet. Though, C5 is a better caretaker.

They still have to touch up C5's paint job.

"Who's kid is that?" Ahsoka asks, looking between them. Anakin can't tell what kind of connection she's making, but he saves her the worry and answers with the truth.

"My son."

Ahsoka's eyes go wide, then she turns back to Luke. She watches for a long moment, seeming to work something out. Then, she shakes her head in disbelief. "A whole kid, huh? Can't say I'm surprised." He's not sure what that's supposed to mean. Rex was the only one who knew. He never told Ahsoka about them.

But then again, he didn't tell Kenobi or Palpatine either.

"They are very similar." Kenobi speaks more like he's talking to himself than either of them. Anakin turns to him. "Same hair and clothes. But Luke has her-" He stops talking immediately, eyes flicking Anakin's direction. An ice-cold tension passes between them.

The anger returns.

Anakin turns back to Ahsoka so quickly that she startles. "If you don't have soldiers or anywhere safe for a child to hide, then there's no point in staying here."

She assesses him carefully. "The other refugees are currently on Alderaan and Bail already has a daughter, so I'm sure he'll be willing to take him in." There's something very right about that idea that Anakin can't quite figure out. Either way, he agrees immediately.

Then, an idea sparks. "What about you?"

She blinks. "What about me?"

"Can you help liberate Tatooine?" The idea of fighting by her side again is tempting. To have some kind of familiarity against so much change. She's valuable, a wonderful fighter. They would be unstoppable.

But Ashoka shakes her head. "I can't. I'm already a target for the empire and if tshieldshey found me mixing up trouble on Tatooine, they'd come for me." It feels like a door slammed in his face and he can't stop the glare he directs at her. At least with his mental shields still in place, she might miss the whispers of darkness in his presence.

"Then you're useless to me." He snaps, marching back to Luke's side. With every step, his anger bleeds into a sick guilt, but he doesn't apologize. They're too different from who they were. He's too different. He can't pretend to be Ashoka's former master, or even her friend. He gave that up as soon as he took Sidious's side.

Besides. She wouldn't want anything to do with him if she knew what he did. Force, he wouldn't blame her for trying to kill him.

"Luke." Anakin kneels beside his son, his eyes going to the still unopened can of paint. "Want to fix C5's colors?" Luke's eyes brighten immediately, a wonderful giggle ringing in the air.

"Paint! Paint!" Luke chants as Anakin sits with some effort, then opens the bucket of paint with one robotic hand. The only use he's found for them so far. "Oooh!" Luke peers inside but Anakin pushes him gently with the force. He doesn't need his toddler sticking hands into the paint.

R2 beeps in jealous disapproval. Anakin looks at him, a fond sort of annoyance coming over him. He always ends up with fussy droids. "Go get some more paint, if you're so jealous. And two brushes, while you're at it." R2 gives him the droid equivalent of a glare, then begins rolling away with a curse or two. That, makes Anakin chuckle under his breath. He really did miss him.

He doesn't have the right, though. Not when he abandoned him on Mustafar.

Five painful minutes later, -mostly because Luke's patience has run very thin- R2 returns with a small bucket of white paint and two brushes. Anakin takes both with a generous "thank you". When Luke grabs for one, he looks at his son pointedly, withholding the paintbrush for another second.

"This goes on the droids and nothing else, okay? I don't need a green son." Luke whines, his fingers grabbings till. "Where does it go?"

"Droids!" Luke huffs, then the smile returns as soon as he's given the brush. Anakin shakes his head, then carefully dips his brush into the white paint. He'll leave Luke to C5, mostly because he knows that droid is less likely to throw a fit over messed-up lines. And he'd like to make things up to his astromech as well.

Anakin paints clean, even lines of white along R2's plating, making absolutely sure not to cross into blue. "I'm sorry." He whispers it at first, then repeats it louder when R2 doesn't respond. "I'm sorry for...everything. Leaving you behind. Being distant." When was the last time he actually talked to R2 instead of just brushing him off.

R2 beeps definitely at first, then he gives a low, sad whistle.

"Bail treats you well, right?" R2 chirps in confirmation. "Good. I'd kick his sorry ass if he didn't." The comment is mostly in jest, which the droid understands.

Then, as if suddenly remembering something, R2 rocks back and forth between his legs, beeping in rapid-fire.

Anakin almost can't believe what he hears. "I thought they'd trash Threepio." With her gone, he would be left without an owner. The only piece left of Anakin's mother -aside from his siblings and her memory- that he still has left. But this news is certainly uplifting. "And he's been well too, right?"

There's a low grumble about not knowing when to shut up and constant worrying that makes Anakin laugh. It catches Luke's attention. "What, Daddy?" The boy asks, his brush dripping paint on the floor and his pants and everywhere Anakin told him not to get paint. He takes the brush and lets C5 hold it for a moment as he tries to wipe Luke clean.

"Nothing, Luke. R2 was just telling me about the droid I made." Threepio, a droid he built to keep his mother company. Given, protocal droids weren't much help to slaves but he hadn't thought much about it as a child. He didn't know about medical droids back then. Didn't know how to make most droids, really. It wasn't like Jawas or Watto got much variety in that field.

"What color?" Luke asks, the painting forgotten. C5 whistles the equivalent of a sigh.

Anakin frowns at the green stains left behind, but guesses they'll do for now. "Threepio is gold." Luke tilts his head, unfamiliar with a color that isn't in the basic seven. "It's like yellow, but shiny."

Luke's eyes widen. "Ooh! Gold!"

"Yes, Gold. Now finish painting C5 before he gets too impatient." Luke turns around again, refocused on the task at hand. It's good timing because as soon as Anakin looks up, he spots Ahsoka walking toward him. The haunted look on her face makes his stomach sink.

She stops a few feet away. It's a safe distance, much more than she was giving him before. "Is it true?" Her voice is desperate, like she's still in denial of what she heard.

He can't lie to her. "It is. All of it." He's not sure what all Kenobi told her, but the details don't matter. The fact is that he murdered the Jedi and only gained some kind of conscious guilt for it after he became a Sith.

Ahsoka breaks down, then. She falls to her knees and sobs into her hands, her whole body shaking with grief. Luke stares, a confused yet sad look on his face. R2 leaves to stand by her side and Anakin decides he needs to leave, for her sake. So, once he's packed away the two brushes and resealed the buckets of paint, Anakin walks away from Ahsoka, pulling Luke along with him gently. Her sobs fill the entire hanger, making it difficult to breathe, but he presses on. He doesn't deserve to be around her anymore.

They wander down a few halls before they manage to find an Alderaanian guard. "Hey!" Anakin calls, making the man stop. "Is there a med center on this ship?"

"Yes, Sir. Right this way." The guard breaks into a fast walk that Luke can barely keep up with. Anakin lifts the boy into his arms, holding his son close. He doesn't deserve Luke either, not after he...She would've been so much better for him.

When they reach the medical center, the guard bows, then hurries off to wherever he was needed. Anakin steps in, relieved to find only a droid inside. He sets Luke down on an empty cot, then pulls up a second right beside it. From there, Anakin sits on the edge of the cot and pulls off his boots, exposing where his prosthetics meet skin.

"Ouch!" Luke gasps and Anakin covers it again quickly. "Does that hurt, Daddy?"

"Lay down," Anakin says instead of answering, gently pushing his son down onto the cot with the force. Luke goes willingly, his eyes fluttering with exhaustion, but they refuse to close fully. "Sleep, Luke. It's been a long day."

"But I'm not tired." The boy whispers, already starting to fall asleep. "Story?"

The request brings a smile to Anakin's face. He remembers asking his mother for stories. Sometimes, they would be made up, something about fantasy and epic battles. Others would be real. The real ones were always sad.

"Once, there was a...a man." Anakin starts. "This man was really cool. He had a blaster and armor. He could hit any target he wanted, no matter the distance. And he had a really, really big family."

"How big?" Luke's voice is softer, but the fact he's talking means he isn't falling asleep. A gentle nudge with the force has him yawning.

Anakin clears his throat. "Millions of brothers." Luke doesn't respond this time, his eyes drooping. "This man was really brave and fought like no one else. He was loyal to the end, even if you didn't deserve it."

There's a pause of silence. "And then?" Luke whispers, already curled up in the scratchy blankets.

Anakin smiles, running a hand through his son's hair. "And then, he...he lived happily. With his brothers. They won the war, then moved far away, where no one could hurt them."

They were stripped of what freedom they had left and forced to kill their generals. They were slaves to a republic that never cared for them.

Luke's presence becomes a soft hum of peace, something so small but pure. Anakin leaves him to sleep, turning back to the inflamed skin on his stump. With a click and a hiss, the metal prosthetic slides off. It's a relief, finally being free of the weight and constant strain. He does the same to the other one, sighing out loud as he puts it aside. He could really use a bacta tank. That's really the only good thing he can recall from his short time as Darth Vader. At least he got full bacta treatment as often as he wanted -when he wasn't out doing Sidious's work.

Soft footfalls make him look up, meeting Kenobi's shocked expression. They stare at each other for what feels like a full minute until Kenobi's eyes fall to his legs. Slowly, he draws closer, painful sorrow echoing in the force before those strong mental shields slam into place.

"...Is it painful?" Kenobi asks, gesturing awkwardly.

Anakin looks away. "Yes." There's no point in lying about it.

Kenobi sits in the chair beside their cots, his fingers pulling at imperfections in his skin. It's a habit he's always had, leaving his hands bloody and scarred. "How much?"

This, Anakin doesn't expect. He looks up, his hands still touching the red part of his limb gently. "Are you sure?" He asks, wanting to make sure Kenobi knows what he's getting himself into. You don't get burned as he did with minimal damage. But once he receives a determined nod, Anakin starts recalling everything that hurts. He pulls his hood down, takes off the outermost layer of his clothes, then starts. "The skin grafts pull a lot. I have a feeling Sidious didn't want them to be a perfect fit, just to keep me in pain." It's not a feeling. He knows that's what Sidious did. "They weren't too gentle while connecting the prosthetics either. They're heavy and it makes everything hurt, like my skin will tear or my bones will snap."

He pauses, waiting to see if Kenobi will start whatever pity party he's holding back. Nothing comes.

"It hurts to breathe." He continues. "My throat scratches when I talk, but the mask helps. There are painkillers laced with the oxygen to keep me from just crumbling." Something he did often when he first got into the suit. "This-" He points to his chest, where blinking lights and switches are now connected to an undervest. It's the only piece of the suit he couldn't take off. "-keeps me alive. It pumps my blood, regulates my temperature, and cycles my digestive system."

Anakin hesitates to show the grosser parts of his lifestyle, but he decides if he's going to be vulnerable, he might as well go all out. Show Kenobi everything.

"These pouches connect to my intestines. They collect waste, since I can't really do that myself anymore." He finishes it off by removing the vocoder, letting Kenobi get a look at his twisted lips and the deep scar that runs all along where the edge of the mask meets his skin. "When I move my mouth, the mask cuts me. If I smile, I'll bleed." He still has dried blood from his squabble with Fiolla. "I don't heal as quickly as I used to." Not without regular bacta treatment.

He thinks of adding the fact Sidious half mutilated him on purpose. Had he been handed over to better medical droids, he would've gotten surgery on his lungs and skin grafts that fit. He would've been given real prosthetics, like the one on his right arm. But he wasn't and he could only do so much to fix himself. It was nothing short of the force's will that he managed to escape the suit at all.

Kenobi swallows, his eyes tearing up as he looks over every part, taking it in. "I-"

"If you're going to apologize, then don't. This was my fault, not yours. You did what you had to." If the roles were switched, if Anakin were faced with a fallen Obi-Wan, would he have the courage to kill him? He doesn't think so.

Obi-Wan has always been a braver man.

Shaking fingers run through a thick, unruly beard. Even with the shields, Anakin can see him repeating "don't apologize" over and over. "I'm...Ahsoka asked and I felt it better to tell her what happened than make you do it." Anakin nods slowly. He appreciates it, honestly. He can't bring himself to thank him, though.

Kenobi turns in his chair. "Anakin, tell me...tell me what's happening. When you came into my cave on Tatooine, you felt dark. I thought you were going to kill me, but then you...stopped. You feel light, but not in the way you did."

A wonderful question. If only he had a good answer. "I don't know." Anakin mutters, his hands absently going to the prosthetics, picking out grains of sand. "I realized how wrong Sidious was but even then, I didn't break away from the Dark until I found out about...Luke. No. When I saw him. That's when I broke out."

"How?" Kenobi leans forward. "How did you find him?"

Now, this is the part he's sure Obi-Wan won't believe. "Qui-Gon told me."

Just as Anakin suspected, Kenobi's eyes widen. "He...talked with you?" Anakin nods. "But how? Why? I've tried..." Obi-Wan goes quiet, his eyes closing. "I've tried to call out to him, but he never responds."

"Chosen One thing, I guess." It's supposed to be a joke, but they both wince at it. "I don't know. I felt his presence and heard his voice. He told me to leave for Tatooine, that my child is there now, with Owen and Beru. When I looked into it for myself, I felt him." And what a day that was. The first day he felt that beautiful force presence, almost reaching out to him just as desperately. Of course, Luke was only a baby then, too young to even know what the force is. And yet, Anakin felt it.

"I tried to kill Sidious after that." Anakin says it more like an afterthought. "It didn't succeed, obviously. If anything, it ruined my chance of killing him later. But I've always been a poor planner."

Kenobi laughs at this. It's a dry, choked sort of laugh, but a laugh all the same. They sit in silence, then. Neither one of them know what to say or if they should at all.

Anakin's comm ends up breaking the moment and he sits up quickly. Fiolla's contact appears. "I should leave." He says quickly, attaching the leg prosthetics a little quicker than he should. It stings, putting them back on, but he doesn't have time to waste.

Kenobi stands as well, his hands going out to help, but stopping just shy of making physical contact. "Must you go so soon? Ahsoka-"

"She'll take Luke to Bail and that doesn't require me. I have slaves to free." It sounds so much more heroic when he says it like that.

Hesitating for just a moment, Anakin leans down to kiss Luke on the head, his love echoing into the force toward his son. He wants to wake him up, to give Luke one last hug before he leaves, but he knows it's better this way. If Luke resisted him leaving, they wouldn't get anywhere.

A second kiss later and Anakin's gathering handfuls of bacta strips from the medical droid -who protests in vain- and shoves them into his pockets. The feeling of getting lightheaded reminds Anakin that he still doesn't have the vocoder on and he slips it back into place, taking a few slow breathes. Good.

"Anakin-" Kenobi's voice stops his frantic departure. Neither speaks for a moment. "I...I know you may not trust me, but I promise Luke will be safe. Bail will take care of him and I'll make sure of it."

There's no hesitation when Anakin nods. "Bail's got a daughter, right?" Kenobi stiffens, then gives a quiet 'yes'. "Good. Last I saw, she's pretty tough. If Bail can raise someone like her, then I trust him." 'And you', goes unsaid. He's not sure when it happened, but he trusts Kenobi.

He waves on his way out, reminding himself of the time and how quickly everything's moving along, with or without him. He taps Fiolla's comm as he climbs into his N-1, mentally noting that Ahsoka is now gone. He'll apologize to her later. If she would be willing to talk to him.

C5 beeps at R2, then settles into the astromech holder, confirming -with some reluctance- that he's ready to go. "Take care of Threepio for me!" Anakin calls to R2, laughing when he receives a particularly crude comment about not having a choice. He really did miss R2.

As the N-1 lifts into the air, Anakin glances back, reaching out to Kenobi one last time. "Good luck, Master." He whispers through the force.

Then, feeling more like Anakin Skywalker than he has in a while, he shoots back out into space.

Man, this chapter was rough to get out. I was going to use Ahsoka's point of view, but decided against it. Also, I'm sorry Threepio didn't get a chance to show up! There were too many characters to work with already.