Anakin had smelled something when he walked into her house but hadn't noticed it until now. "Are you cooking something?" He asked, craning his neck to try and see into the other room.

"Just some soup," she answered, looking in the same direction. "I was just letting it heat up for a few more minutes. It's probably done." She held out a hand and closed her eyes. It took a lot more concentration to use the Force in her weakened state, but she managed to stir and pour the soup into two bowls with her mind.

"Are you using the Force to..." Anakin looked at her, almost laughing. It was a silly thing to use the Force for, but at the same time, he was glad she had not tried to make it while standing.

She smirked. "Well, I could barely even sit up without support, so I had to do something." She levitated the bowls and a couple of spoons from the kitchen in the next room over and onto the low table in front of the couch. "Hungry?"

"Actually, yeah," he answered, taking one of the bowls and handing the other to Ahsoka. "I've been looking for you since early this morning."

She squinted at him. "It took you that long?"

"I was stalling, all right?" He countered defensively. "I thought you were dead."

She laughed, and Anakin smiled at her light-hearted joy.

"Does the public know about the ex-Chancellor yet?" She asked him.

"Not yet," Anakin answered. "The Council is just now telling the rest of the Order, although chances are the rumors have already spread." He took his first spoonful of her soup. "What's in this?"

Ahsoka grinned sheepishly. "Some kind of vegetables, but the main thing is potatoes." She looked down at her own. "I've never heard of it before, but someone said it tasted okay, so I tried to remake it with what I had."

Anakin tasted it before smiling and turning to her. "Well, it's definitely better than rations."

Ahsoka giggled. "That's not very hard to do," she pointed out.

"Still, it's pretty good!" He praised her. It was odd, giving out compliments for something as simple as soup, but at the same time, both of them had been living off of little more than mush and bread, so neither of them minded.

"Thanks," she said, "but I think I'm actually missing a few things in it." She stared at the broth. "Once I get on my feet, I'll make a run to the market."

She started eating again, and Anakin did the same. It was nice, not having to worry about anyone that might be watching. Anakin hadn't realized how much he had felt like someone was staring over his shoulder until after Sideous was dead.

"How did you do it?" He asked suddenly. "How did he not see it coming?"

Ahsoka wiped her mouth and spoke. "It was all thanks to you, really. He was so focused on you that he didn't realize which way the other blade was pointing."

Anakin shook his head. "All that planning, and at the very last second..."

"It all goes to rancor dung."

Anakin smiled at her and set his empty bowl on the counter. "Thanks again, Snips."

"No problem, Skyguy. Don't worry, I still remember how stale rations are."

She leaned forward to set her bowl down, and she silently rejoiced when her cut didn't cause her to grunt. Anakin's healing was already helping the pain go away. Sure, it was still there, but she could probably stand up and walk if Anakin would let her. She knew better than anyone, though, that it wasn't about to happen.

Anakin watched her set the bowl down, then froze. When she sat back up, she saw his stare, and for a second, she thought that they were in danger. "What is it?" She asked, and she feared that Tyrannus had come back to finish her off.

It wasn't Dooku at all, though. Anakin only stared at Ahsoka's blue eyes and whispered, "Why...why didn't you say something?"

It was then that Ahsoka realized what he had seen.

When Ahsoka had leaned forward, Anakin had seen her back for the first time. He was used to seeing a faded scar from where the Son had stabbed her on Mortis, but that wasn't the only scar that he saw.

She had been whipped.

Anakin knew more than he wanted to about whip scars. There was a reason he never minded Jedi robes, and that was because they were long-sleeved. No one ever saw his back, unless on the rare occasion that his tunic and robes had to come off to stitch up an injury. No one except Obi-Wan and Padme knew, but he still had scars from his whippings as a slave.

He knew there were two types of whips. There were regular rope whips, that cut the skin open and left a bloody mess afterward. These hurt like hell, but slave-owners realized that if they used these too often it made the slaves slower, and they couldn't work as well. They developed a second whip, an electro-whip, that left burn scars which healed much faster and left less physical damage. On occasion, a slave would be shocked to insanity, but their physical health quickly healed. Rope whips were then saved for extremely 'troublesome' slaves.

Ahsoka didn't have electro-whip scars. She had rope scars, crisscrossing every square centimeter of her back.

Ahsoka had hoped that Anakin wouldn't notice, but she had forgotten that when she had leaned forward. She knew, if not the specifics, that Anakin had once been a slave, and she didn't want to bring that up around him. She had learned from Zygerria that slavery was a sensitive topic around her master, and she hadn't wanted to find out what he would have to say when he saw her scars.

At least now she knew why he hated it. She hadn't been a slave, but she had been treated like one, if not worse, by the Sith. She had no intention of telling Anakin but Ahsoka had not only been rope-whipped, but beaten, burned (during 'pain conditioning' training sessions), and electrocuted for misbehavior, or whenever the Sith felt like it, which was plenty often. Her blood had stained nearly every surface of the old Sith Temple on Dromund Kaas, and she normally had to change the sheets on her old bed once a week, if not more often.

She was ashamed of her scars and ashamed of the past she connected them with. She wanted to forget it, to forget that she had ever taken the risk of becoming the Inquisitor, but she knew her scars were permanent. For a few minutes, it had been like she and Anakin had never been apart, but those scars would always remind her of her weakness, her betrayal, her doubt, and her fear. Everything she hated about herself was now etched into her back, probably forever.

Ahsoka looked down and avoided Anakin's gaze. "It wasn't important," she answered finally. "It's over now."

Anakin knew she was lying. Slavery was never over, not in the mind of a slave. The Inquisitor had been nothing but a slave of the Sith, and she had been treated like one. Those memories weren't going away any time soon. Anakin knew.

So instead of trying to fix it, which he knew he couldn't do, and telling her to move on and forget it, which had been done to him, he just pulled her close and leaned back on the couch. He didn't speak, he didn't suggest different ways to move on, he just sat there, and tried not to remember how many times his mother had taken beatings for him when he was too young to understand.

Ahsoka leaned her head on his shoulder, thinking back to the nights that she had been forced to treat her own wounds from various 'lessons' and the likes of such. Sideous had told her it would make her stronger if she learned how to fight through the pain so it didn't affect her. Maybe it did, maybe now she could handle more pain under torture, but it wasn't worth it. She was not stronger, if anything, she was more broken than she had been when she decided to leave the Order.

Only the Father knew how much it had killed her to look at her master in the eye and tell him that she wasn't staying. She couldn't trust the Council, and she couldn't trust the Order, not after everything Barriss had done. She could handle walking away from that, she knew that was the right decision. She didn't regret walking away from the Jedi, no.

She regretted walking away from Anakin. The one Jedi who had stood up for her when no one else did. The one of two people who defended her in court. The one person who ever believed her when she pleaded innocent. The one person who never gave up on her. She had walked away from him when he didn't deserve to be betrayed. She had failed her master that day because she had chosen to follow her instincts instead of her heart.

In truth, she did exactly what a Jedi would have done. She chose to do what she thought was right instead of what she wanted. The whole irony of the situation was that leaving the Jedi was right, and rejoining the Jedi was what she wanted. Oh, that cruel, brilliant irony.

And now she was going to have to leave again. She knew if she didn't say it now, she wouldn't be able to force it out later.

"You know he'll come looking for me," she said almost inaudibly. "Tyrannus. Once he hears I'm alive, he'll know where to find me."

Anakin had been ignoring the tugging thought in his mind, but he couldn't avoid it now.

"Maybe he won't hear."

Ahsoka shook her head, slowly. "The press already knows I killed Sideous. Once they hear I'm alive and that it really was me, the whole galaxy will know. He won't be able to miss it."

Anakin sighed. It was his job to report on the Inquisitor, that was why he had come down here to the Lower Levels. Technically, he was also supposed to invite Ahsoka up to the Temple, too, but he hadn't said so yet.

"Maybe the Council can work something out," he mused, trying to find some way that was safe enough for her to stay. "If we can find him, it won't be a problem."

"I'm still putting so many people at risk. Enough people have died because of me. I can't stay while I'm a danger to them."

"You're not dangerous, Ahsoka."

She closed her eyes, unable to meet Anakin's. "Do you know that? Do you really know that, anymore?"

You're not the monster, I am, he wanted to tell her, but he didn't. Hearing her so broken-hearted, so afraid, so much...like himself, it broke him. How can I say that to her when I know it's not true for me?

In the end, all he could say was, "At least here, there's two of us instead of one."

Ahsoka looked up at her master, and saw the brokenness in his own eyes, reflecting her own. He pulled her tighter to him and they didn't move or speak for the rest of the night. Just two monsters, two broken, hurting monsters, huddled together in the deep of Coruscant. No thought was given to the Jedi Code or the future in front of them. None at all.

It wasn't long before Ahsoka fell asleep. Anakin wasn't surprised or annoyed at all. The Father knew how much she needed it. He had been in her spot, without rest for rotations at a time, and with her injuries, she needed all the rest she could get.

Anakin picked her up, doing his best not to disturb her, and carried her until he found a room with a bed in it. He laid her on her stomach, knowing that she probably never slept on her back anymore. He hadn't for years after he had left Tatooine, and Ahsoka would need time to heal. He closed the door behind him before finding a small holo-projector. He left a quick message, explaining that he had gone, and left it on the table in the front room.

He also grabbed their bowls and spoons from earlier. There was no point in leaving a mess for her to clean up. He made sure that everything was in order before leaving the house, making sure he locked her door as well.

As he walked back towards the shaft, he mulled over the day. He hated that Ahsoka had to leave, but Anakin knew she was right. If Dooku was coming for her then she was going to have to go on the run to stay safe, not to mention she wouldn't want to put anyone around her in danger. Anakin just hoped that she would rest long enough to heal before she left. At least here, she could hide for a little while. Dooku wouldn't try to kill her without making sure he was firing on all cylinders and without his wretched master, he definitely was going to wait to try to attack her. After all, Ahsoka had killed Sideous. Anakin was actually really proud of her for it too. He wished he had said so.

Anakin passed the spot where she had faked her death, and he jumped back up to the roof, revisiting the dried pool of blood. He needed to pick up the scanner, anyways, but as he put it back in his pack, his eyes brushed over the headdress, the lightsaber, and the bloodied sash. An idea crossed his mind, and he grabbed these too, trying not to imagine Ahsoka in them. He ran back to his speeder, aware that he had been away from the Temple for an awfully long time.

Maybe there was something more he could do for Ahsoka. Maybe there was a chance she could stay. It was risky, and it might not work, but it was worth a shot.