Ahsoka hated the red glow that surrounded her. She hated how dark this place was, both visually, and in the Force. She looked up, and in the Throne of the Sith sat Sideous, the hole in his chest still burning. He was dead.

"I'll bet you're pretty proud of that," a voice said behind him, a voice Ahsoka recognized. She turned, and Anakin was standing behind her. Something was wrong though. Something was different about him.

"How are you here?" She asked him. "How did you know it was Dromund Kaas?"

"The Legacy of the Inquisitor," Anakin went on, ignoring what she had said. "The martyr who gave her life to end his."

Ahsoka dropped her chin. "It's better that way."

"Oh, I know, Ahsoka," Anakin spat, turning to face her, and that's when Ahsoka figured out what was wrong. His eyes, they were golden. "It's better that the Inquisitor died. At least she did something right!"

Her breath caught in her throat, and she froze on the spot. No, she thought frantically. Not again!

"You singlehandedly killed the Lord of the Sith, but what does that make you? Anakin asked threateningly, and Ahsoka wanted to cower, to back away, but she didn't.

"Anakin, please," she begged, but his face was devoid of mercy.

"I tried to help you!" he shouted, advancing on her. "I asked you to tell me, and we could have beaten him together, but you just HAD to do it yourself and look at what you became!" He shoved her to the ground, and her jaw made contact with the stone floor.

When her head rose, she was staring at a mirror, but what she saw made her shake. Her skin was turning red, and her montrals were losing their color. She was becoming Dark again.

"No, NO! PLEASE!" she cried out, and she shut her eyes, trying to fight the change. "I don't want this!"

Anakin came up next to her and kicked her in the side. She curled up and whimpered, but he didn't pay any attention to Ahsoka.

"Look what you did! Do you know how many people died because of you? How many clones, how many civilians you hurt? What did you think was going to happen?"

"I thought...I thought..."

"There wasn't any other way to do it? No other way?"

"I'm sorry!" She pleaded, but she knew that she had no way to justify her actions. There was no reason that was good enough.

"You CHOSE to go to the Dark Side! You CHOSE to risk thousands of lives, just so you could do it yourself!"

"I didn't want to hurt them! I was trying to protect them so they wouldn't know!"

Anakin's voice dropped to a broken whisper. "After everything I've done for you, after everything I did to protect you, and you still don't trust me?"

The tears started to spill. Ahsoka couldn't see anymore, nothing past her own failure.

"I thought that maybe, after all I did for your trial, I thought maybe you would trust me. Do you know how much I risked to save you?"

Ahsoka shook her head. It was true, it was all true. How could she have betrayed the little trust she had left? She didn't defend herself, she couldn't.

"I should have let you die. I should have killed you for good," he hissed, and he kneeled down in front of the Togruta on her hands and knees.

Ashamed and afraid, she dared to raise her head and open her eyes. "Master, pleas-"

He hit her face with the back of his hand. "DON'T CALL ME THAT! You don't deserve to call me that, you NEVER deserved to call me that!"

The tears spilled freely now. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."

"Take her away," Anakin said, but not to her. Two sets of hands held her upright and pulled her to her feet. When she managed to blink away the tears, she realized that Rex was one of them.

"Rex!" She whispered. "Rex, please, I-I need help, please!"

"Into the cells, General?" Rex asked, ignoring her.

"No," another voice ordered, female this time. Padmé! "By order of the Galactic Republic, Ahsoka Tano is hereby sentenced to death!"

"SOMEBODY!" Ahsoka screamed, desperate. "PLEASE!"

"Save your breath, Sister," Anakin rebuked her. "No one is going to save you."

"I'm sorry, Anakin," she cried, no longer trying to save herself. "I swear, I didn't try to do this."

"I know you didn't," Anakin said, glaring coldly at her, "And you know why."

She heard the executioner walk up behind her, but when she turned to watch her killer, all she could see was the unfeeling, unforgiving face of Tyrannus. His arm was pulled up by the strings attached to his limbs, and up above, Sideous was cackling, controlling him like a puppet. Her face froze in fear, and she couldn't turn away. All that she knew was the ghostly face that determined her destiny, and the voice that she had betrayed.

"YOU FAILED ME!"

Ahsoka woke up, her heart racing and tears streaming down her face. She pointed her blaster from under her pillow up at where Sideous' face had been, but when she pulled the trigger, the shot just singed her ceiling.

She lowered her shaking hand, fighting down gasps as she tried to get breath back under control. It was no use, though. Instead, she threw the gun at the wall and curled up on her bed.

She thought she would finally be done with these nightmares. Every day, for a year, she had seen nothing but the same dreams over and over again, and every night, she would hear the same three words: 'You failed me.' She thought that, now, away from Dromund Kaas, away from the Sith, they would finally stop. She hadn't had one since Anakin had healed her, but not even that had been able to completely banish the dreams.

It hurt, it hurt so much and she just wanted it to stop. She wanted to believe that she had done the right thing, but she had refused to trust even Anakin both of the times she needed it the most. If she had confided in him then he could have helped her, the whole Council might have. Sideous wouldn't have been able to get so close to him, and she wouldn't have failed him. If only she had trusted him.

Her plan had worked, to a certain extent. Sideous was dead, and the whole galaxy knew he had lied to them. That was the most important thing, but the guilt of all that she had done would not be lifted from her shoulders. It didn't matter that no one else knew because she knew. She knew all of the people she had killed, all the lives she had traded in for the galaxy. Was it worth it? Was the whole galaxy worth the few lives that she had chosen to let go of?

Ahsoka had hoped that getting rid of the Sith Lord would relieve her from her guilt. She had hoped that once he was gone that everything would be worth it, but if she focused long enough, she could still hear the screams of the people she killed in order to kill Palpatine. She tried to avoid it, and some of them had been avoidable. It had been a choice between sparing the victim or sparing herself. She had chosen herself every time, hoping that they would understand and hoping that afterward, she would be able to justify it, but she couldn't. The ends did not justify the means, not to her.

She wouldn't go back and undo it, if she had a choice, not unless there was another way. Ahsoka prayed that there hadn't been and that this was the best possible outcome, but she feared that someone else would have been able to find a way to do it. Anakin could have, she knew. He could have fought them, and he could beat them. He would have been strong enough.

It didn't matter, though. She had chosen to trade innocent lives in exchange for the death of Sideous, and she was going to have to live with that forever, Ahsoka realized that now. There was no forgetting what she had done. No matter where she went, or what she did to redeem herself, she would carry it with her. Ahsoka's choices would haunt her all her life, or at least what was left of it. Maybe Tyrannus would find her and kill her soon. Maybe then, she would forget.

Ahsoka wiped the tears off her face and tried again to calm down. She focused internally and found a little Light inside her. Anakin.

She froze in fear. Their connection, she had forgotten about their connection. If she had been able to feel his stress during the bomb, then he doubtlessly felt her panic and fear. He was trying to reach out to her, she could feel it.

Should she respond? She could try to reform the connection that had brought her face to face with them a few days ago. It would probably work but she couldn't look at Anakin, not right now.

Her shame washed over her again. She couldn't face him, not when she remembered all that she had done. Ahsoka didn't want Anakin to see her like this, to see her so broken, so helpless, so guilty. Then he would really think of her as a failure, and she couldn't face hearing the words for real.

Anakin wouldn't stop trying to reach out to her until he knew she was okay, though. The only thing that would convince him she was all right was if she calmed down. Ahsoka breathed and concentrated, and pushed the thoughts out of her head. She ignored Anakin, as much as he probably would have helped, and rested her hand back down.

She reached out and pulled the blaster back to her. Tucking it under the pillow again, she shut her eyes and tried to remember something good, something Light. It was hopeless, though, because every good thing she could remember was long gone, tainted by her nightmares. She had betrayed all of them, in one way or another, when she became the Inquisitor. She didn't deserve to know any of them, much less be considered a friend.

Eventually, Anakin's presence in Ahsoka's mind faded, and she breathed easy. She still couldn't fall asleep though, try as she might. In the end, she decided to get out of bed and get ready for the day. It was still hours before she had to be up, but there was no use trying to sleep now.

Anakin hadn't been convinced that Ahsoka was okay, but she didn't respond to his attempt to talk so there was nothing he could do. He had no idea what had scared her so bad, all he knew was that he had woken up in the middle of the night and all he could feel was fear. Ahsoka's fear.

Understandably, he started running the worst-case scenarios through his head. Maybe her house got attacked, or something was wrong in the Lower Levels. Maybe Dooku had found her. Maybe she had seen some sort of vision.

He really hoped that she hadn't remembered his...outburst on the night of the gala, and that had been what scared her. He tried to forget about it but it kept creeping up in the back of his mind, reminding him of what he had done. He was glad that he hadn't killed her or done something worse, but the things he said...they weren't right. He should never have said that.

Anakin could tell that Ahsoka was trying to get a grip on herself, but hadn't fully calmed down yet. It couldn't have been a physical threat, then, since she would have taken care of it and then moved on. He wanted to ask her, to help her, but he had no other way to contact her other than their mental link, and that wasn't working. He was like a wall: He couldn't actually do anything to help her, especially if something really was wrong, and she was in danger. He was still there, kind of, but he was useless up on the surface.

Maybe she didn't want your help, he realized. She can handle herself, she doesn't need you. Just let her be.

Reluctantly, he receded out of the connection and tried to go back to sleep. Anakin wondered if he should ask about it the next time he saw her, or if she would rather he not bring it up. What could she have seen? Was it a dream? A vision, maybe?

He rolled over and stared at the wall. If it had been his dream and she had felt his emotions, he wouldn't really want her to know either. Especially if it was the nightmare where he killed her. Anakin decided he wouldn't say anything, but he didn't forget it. Instead, he imagined himself, screaming over and over, repeating the insults he had hurled at her that night he almost killed her.