"Don't go in there, Leia.", Vader sighed, as his daughter tried to climb into his meditation chamber. "What is that thing, anyway?", Obi Wan asked, trying hard to sound disinterested.
"It's where I used to take off my mask.", Vader explained, without turning to him. "I guess you needed that thing for breathing right after mustafar?", Obi Wan asked. Vader nodded.
"And the two years after that too. My lungs were completely burned from the inside, because I inhaled to many flames." Obi Wan remained silent. Vader had hoped to get some sort of explanation, not an apology.
He wanted to know why Obi Wan didn't kill him. He looked down at Leia who was still fascinated by the chamber. "Where is your brother?", he asked her softly. She only pointed to the door. "Sleeping.", she added.
"Why don't you sleep too?", Vader asked her. But she shook her head. "Not tired!", she complained and continued waddling around the room. Vader turned around to Obi Wan, for this was the first time they were alone. Leia was distracted.
"Why didn't you kill me?", Vader asked quietly. Obi Wan looked at him in disgust. "Everyone makes mistakes. If I had killed you, many would be still alive now." Vader frowned. "That wasn't the question. Why didn't you just do it?"
Obi Wan opened his mouth, but then closed it again. Vader didn't say anything. "Because you have the face of Anakin Skywalker, Darth Vader.", Obi Wan finally said. "And I could never kill Anakin Skywalker.", he added. Vader gulped.
"Why don't you just kill me now, since you obviously know that I am not him?" Obi Wan's expression darkened. "Because you would kill me in a heartbeat if I tried. I haven't yet figured out why you haven't done it already." Vader frowned.
"You think I want to kill you. If that was true, why would you be alive?" "I have just said, that I haven't yet figured that out." Obi Wan sighed. "Why don't you just tell me?", he then added. Vader shrugged. "I honestly don't know.", he admitted.
Obi Wan just stared at him in disbelief. "I don't get your strategy, Vader." "Me neither.", Vader just said. Obi Wan looked at him, puzzled. "I've been meaning to ask you, how did you get onto the executor without being detected?"
Obi Wan smirked with a touch of sarcasm. "Do you want to copy the technique to infiltrate an enemy fleet?" Vader frowned. "There are no enemy fleets.", he replied. Obi Wan sighed. "I docked onto the bottom of another ship that was entering."
Vader chuckled. "Sneaky. But that means your fighter is gone now? And they will find it on the bottom of their ship." Obi Wan nodded. "But that's not a problem, right? You've told your master that you have killed me after I entered your ship."
Vader nodded. "It's fine. Is there anything on it that the Emperor shouldn't see though? Like secret plans or maps, you know something like that."
Obi Wan thought for a second, before shaking his head. "No, nothing." Vader noticed that Obi Wan tried to find disappointment in Vader's face. "Good.", he only said.
Ahsoka landed on Thyferra. She would get the bacta on her way back, so that they wouldn't start the autopilot without her, once they had loaded the bacta onboard. She looked around. She was very close to the coordinates, Obi Wan had given her.
Apparently it was only a few clicks west. Ahsoka turned her head to see, a seemingly impenetrable wall of jungle. This was where Padmé lived? Ahsoka shrugged before she began to work her way through the forest.
It didn't take long until she reached the little cabin the coordinates had led her to. Nothing was around it, there was only the cabin. Ahsoka knocked on the door, but there was no reaction. She knocked again.
When nothing happened, Ahsoka opened the door on her own. She jumped as she saw a few men lying around on the floor snoring. Only one of them was sleeping on an actual bed. Ahsoka noticed the crib that was standing in a corner.
Padmé was nowhere to be seen. Ahsoka threw a glance at the countless bottles that spread over the floor, many of them broken. That explained the scent. She picked up one of the intact bottles and threw it at the men's head that slept in bed.
He grumbled a little before slowly regaining conscious. "What? Who?", he began as Ahsoka appeared in front of him. "This isn't your cabin, is it?", she asked. He shook his head with a stupid smile. "Who's cabin is it then?"
He only grinned tiredly. "A woman was here." Ahsoka nodded. "And where is that woman now?", she asked. He shrugged. "We came back here to take a nap." Ahsoka rolled her eyes, he was obviously still drunk.
"Where is the woman?", she repeated. "Don't worry we sold her already. Now lemme sleep.", he mumbled. Ahsoka froze. "You sold her? Where? When?" He grinned even wider.
"Like a week ago. She was good money, a lot of drinks." Ahsoka felt sick. "You sold her into slavery?", she asked while panic raised her voice. He only nodded.
She took a deep breath, trying to stay calm. "Where?", she asked. He smiled. "Do you want to buy?" Ahsoka was disgusted. "Yes...", she said numbly. He probably wouldn't tell her otherwise. "I can show you on a map, if you let me sleep after."
Ahsoka nodded. "He pulled a little and old data pad out of his pocket. It projected a map of the landscape into midair. He pointed to a marked spot not to far away.
Ahsoka impregnated the map into her mind. She figured she would be able to find the place now. She raised her hand and concentrated. "You will forget I was here." "I will forget you were here.", he repeated, before falling asleep once again.
As soon as she exited the cabin of sleeping men she took her communicator. She was glad Vader hadn't come with her. He would have killed all of the men brutally in rage. She dialed, and Vader's face appeared.
"How is it?", he asked. She gave him a look filled with pity. "She is gone, master.", Ahsoka admitted. "What?", he asked with a raised voice. "Where is she?" "She was kidnapped a week ago, but I know where she was taken."
She saw how anger and hate formed in Vader's face. "Kidnapped?", he asked quietly, trying to keep himself under control. "Sold.", Ahsoka said, a little concerned to see Vader's reaction. He exhaled in shock.
"Please go and find her, Ahsoka. Don't let her endure this.", he whispered. "I will go to the merchant right now, master. And I will contact you again when I am there." He nodded. "Thank you, Ahsoka." His holo disappeared.
Ahsoka sighed. Maybe this was harder than she thought it was going to be. How was she supposed to get the senator out of the facility without anyone seeing her. She just left the transport ship where it was.
She couldn't land it in the jungle anyway. So she began walking towards the setting sun, remembering the map the kidnapper had showed her.
They had been in the ship for what felt like eternity, Padmé knew that it couldn't possibly be more than a day. They had departed in the early morning, and she wasn't tired yet. Nuha was sleeping never the less.
She had sunken onto Padmé's lap about an hour ago, without even noticing. Padmé didn't dare to move, scared that she might wake up her friend.
The children that were onboard were mostly sleeping too, but Padmé couldn't get rest now. Her thoughts were moving around in her head like a storm. She wanted to know what was happening to her children.
And she wanted to know how things would have been if she hadn't followed Anakin to mustafar. It was that mistake of her, that caused his death. She sighed quietly. Was she pathetic?
She was a widow that didn't manage to let the past be past, and still dwelled after her dead loved one. Padmé hid her face behind her hands. She didn't want to cry again, for she had been crying to long already.
When she was younger her father had always said, she was the toughest little girl of all. She had fought against designated battle droids before, and on her back were three deep scars from her fight with a nexu.
And yet here she was, crying like an infant. Nuha moved a little, she was obviously having an intense dream. Padmé wiped away her own tears, staying as silent as possible. In every children's face around her, she saw Luke or Leia's.
It was almost frightening. Padmé's mind was filled with her twins calling for her help or crying in fear. She bit around on her lip nervously. If she ever got out of slavery, she would do anything in her power to free her children.
She would rather die than standing for her children becoming sith lords like Vader and Sidious. Padmé wanted to do something, do anything. She was just a single person, there was no way she stood a chance against the empire.
But she still had to do something. She had to find a way to get out of the collar, and then she would find a way to get back her children before it was too late for them. She couldn't even imagine what they were going through.
Leia poked into Lukes eye. "Ow!" He started crying and Vader picked up Leia. "Stop poking your brother, young lady. He stopped poking you too." Leia sulked.
Vader crouched down to look at his son's eye. "It's going to be fine, Luke. Don't worry." He stroked over the boy's hair gently until the tears became less. Obi Wan watched everything, puzzled like he always was when Vader was with the twins.
How was he so good at this charade? Obi Wan knew that Vader was only like this to earn their trust, so that he could manipulate them easily later, and maybe to fool Ahsoka and Obi Wan too.
But what was surprising Obi Wan was how good an actor Vader was. It was surreal to see a sith lord act this way, even if it was just for show. It seemed so natural, and the kids didn't notice anything.
They were incredibly force sensitive, so they should feel that they didn't receive the same love from him than from their mother.
Even if he was veiling the trace of his lies and pretends so well not even Obi Wan could sense them, he couldn't just make false love appear, no matter how much power the dark side granted him. Obi Wan frowned.
He wasn't used to being unable to grasp a situation. The sith's manipulation techniques obviously worked wonders on Obi Wan. He already noticed how he lost track of what was the truth. He understood Ahsoka even better now.
Maybe she wasn't incredibly naive, but even more effected by Vader's trickery than Obi Wan was. "How did you even find the twins?", Obi Wan asked. "I have no idea where they were. It was the Emperor who took them."
Obi Wan raised his brows. "The Emperor knows, but you don't? Aren't you two friends?" He savored the bitter look on Vader's face. "The word master has a very different meaning among the jedi compared to the sith.", he only said.
Obi Wan could imagine that. "Do you even have a free will?", he asked. Vader snorted. "In fact, I do. That is why you are alive, Obi Wan." Obi Wan pulled a grimace. "Were you ever loyal to anyone?" Anger sparkled in Vader's eyes.
"I was loyal to the jedi a very long time ago." Obi Wan chuckled sarcastically. "That's what you call loyalty? You can't just claim that the time you spent among us before your betrayal was spend in devotion. That's not how it works."
"I meant a very long time ago. When you picked me up on Tatooine, I adored everything about the order. That didn't change over night, it took some time. Thirteen years to be exact."
"Oh, I understand. So you were slowly betraying us since the very beginning. What happened two years ago was all just the bad jedi's fault? I get it now. We basically killed all our members ourselves."
Vader wasn't amused. "You're making it too easy for yourself. Not much is completely evil and nothing is completely good. There are a lot of grey zones you refuse to consider."
Obi Wan looked at him full of disgust. "If it wasn't our horrible teachings, why did you do it? Why did you kill all the jedi and the younglings?" "As funny as it sounds, I did everything only to save a life."
A panel on the holoterminal beeped. Vader grabbed his mask and headed for the door. "Where do you think you're going?", Obi Wan stepped forward. "I am needed on the bridge. Could you look after the twins for a while?"
Vader turned around one last time. "And please, just don't do anything exceptionally stupid." With these words Vader shoved his head into the mask and exited the quarters.