Obi-Wan, typically more reserved and traditional Jedi, was contemplating the conversations he had with Yoda - and further wondered what it should mean that Anakin actually attempt what the serene master and he had come up with. It was truly their only hope if they wanted to save Anakin's Togrutan apprentice.

A headache probed at his temples, a constant reminder of past ventures. Sardonically and ruefully, he thought that at least the misadventures had some good, that he hadn't died yet...

He jerked his focus back to where it needed it to be, and glanced at his apprentice across the room. Anakin seemed subdued, which was overall just as well considering his actions the night before. Since when, Obi-Wan wondered, did Anakin react quite so violently? But Obi-Wan remained silent, watching his younger friend mess with some wires, trying to fix something that at least could be fixed.

Obi-Wan often saw Anakin as subdued, yet the emotion upheaval overthrew him, he supposed. But the flicker in his eyes cried out in anger, in fear...Obi-Wan tensed as he stared at his younger friend.

Something wasn't right...he should say something, do something.

Yet the younger man finally threw the wire down, "I'm going to bed." He muttered, sweeping a hand through his messy brown hair.

Obi-Wan said nothing for a moment, watching Anakin with worry etched across his features. He had a feeling that Anakin would not sleep anyway.

His comm beeped softly, distracting him from the departing Jedi, and without removing his gray eyes from the younger man, spoke crisply into the link, "Kenobi."

"Bring young Tano home, you will." The voice was garbled and grave, but somewhat of a comfort nonetheless, "Want to see her, the healers do. An idea, we have."

Obi-Wan hesitated ever-so-slightly, wishing to know what, exactly, was their idea - for at the moment, if Ahsoka was removed from life-support, she would clearly submit to her own fate. And whatever the life support was providing, Obi-Wan could not help but wonder if her organs would slowly begin to fail her with the passing time.

"We'll be back soon." He promised - they had left the planet a few days ago and were awaiting command; Ahsoka's treatment was debatable, and places such as Kamino did have excellent facilities. Perhaps not so much for the mental aspect, nevertheless. "Kenobi out."

Perhaps tonight, sleep would come, the tired man thought as he regarded the gray walls.

Anakin Skywalker, as tired and exhausted as Obi-Wan, perhaps more so, roamed the halls of the small shuttle distantly. Distractedly. The dead of night was looming; hours were passing slowly, and Anakin glanced at his chrono impatiently from time to time, racking his brain in restless abandon.

There was always an answer, he reassured himself.

The blow from his own mother's death was sharp in his hand, and arm swept his unkempt hair slowly as the Tusken Raider's dying cries screamed in his mind. And her own tears, on his hands - both of them his own, real, flesh and blood - he recalled slowly shutting her eyes. She had lived, he knew, only to see him...

And now Ahsoka lay in the other room, her life connected to this realm only by a machine. Her death would be one of pure hopelessness.

"Ahsoka." Anakin whimpered softly, in his mind, "I love you." Surely not as he loved Padme, his wife, but perhaps as a sibling or a child of his own - for how could he not? He had seen her happy, in despair...in all forms of emotional states. He had seen her grow from a naive, unsure child who made up for her fears with reckless actions, and a snippy coverup. And while she was as strong and sure-minded as she'd ever been, she was growing up, calmer, less afraid...

He had thought that she was coping well under the circumstances, was and would be fine. Anakin moaned slightly. He didn't see this...and it was his fault.

That day Ahsoka's shields fell apart when her emotions scattered, he should have done something, anything. Maybe he wouldn't always be there for her, but he had to show her that there was light. Somewhere. She needed the light...she needed hope.

Anakin couldn't deny that he had known that...he had sort of forgotten in the frantics of the war, that she wasn't an adult yet, that she was still a child, and maybe, possibly, she actually needed him...or someone, whether Ahsoka (or Anakin himsellf) wanted to admit it.

And now it was over...Anakin felt hopeless, helpless, and he kept thinking, "There has to be an answer," but, when he came to the end of it, the only conclusion he could draw from the muddle of thoughts in his mind was that it was his own fault, and they could try, but she was still dying.

There wasn't an answer.

There had to be an answer. He couldn't just give up on her...

but it was so simple, so horrible...

there just wasn't an answer.

Ahsoka Tano, Anakin thought, might've well as been dead.

He gasped out loud in horror at his own thoughts, and knew that nothing he'd been trying to fix here could be fixed; that he had failed, and she was alive, but dying...alive, but only by a machine.

Her breathing was steady, mechanical, when Anakin finally had the nerve to walk in; he couldn't explain what he felt, because it was just so hard to feel anything at all now - he kept seeing her walk off the ship on Christophis, kept seeing her lightsabers swing on the battlefield...he trembled as he recalled Mortis, saw her Bane's grasp, saw her on Ryloth...he remembered her returning to him after the Trandoshians attack and then, finally, broke down.

Anakin's tears were hot and silent as he regarded his apprentice, and thought that she might be asleep, ready to wake up come morning - but he knew Ahsoka better than that; she curled up, catlike, as she slept. She didn't sleep straight as a board.

Anakin no longer felt so odd touching her skin, though it was cool as ever, and slowly ran a finger down her headdress. "Padawan." He said softly, though the title was somewhat foreign to the man who addressed his apprentice by a nickname. So he whispered that, too, "Snips."

She didn't stir; not that he thought she would. "I love you." He said for the second time that night, and heard his voice resonate through their broken bond, and, without fear and without thinking, plunged into her mind.

It wasn't like he could see much; her mind was no desolate landscape, but nothing at all, and so very dark. Suddenly aware of what he was doing, Anakin wondered if he should pull out; but then, her voice, meek though Ahsoka was not timid whispered, "Do you?" The voice was weak and strained and came from so very far away.

"What?" Anakin looked around frantically, seeing nothing.

"Do you love me?"

Even though there was no hope, Anakin closed his eyes; his voice came on its own accord. "Of course."

There was no response. Anakin started to back away in disappointment (perhaps he had truly thought there was some hope, after all) and began to berate himself for imagining her voice.

"Are you real?" The voice came again, skeptical somehow.

"Yes." Anakin replied in surprise; he could ask the same of her, and asides from that, of course he was real. If real meant living.

"I don't believe you." The voice surmised, a bit more forcefully. "I saw you that day."

"But you knew there was hope!" Anakin cried out, feeling somewhat like a hypocrite, for he felt none of the hope that he assumed she should feel.

"Sure." Ahsoka agreed, almost with a nasty bite, "But everybody dies. I can't save you - or me - forever. Besides - I can't prove you're here and I'm not dying or going insane."

Anakin had no response, but stared, wishing he could see her figure. "Did you feel anything at all before - before I came here?"

He could feel her slight frown, and then; "A little bit...but I didn't want this..." Her voice broke off momentarily and then she resumed, "But nothing for...and then you said..."

"Ahsoka." Anakin stated firmly, thinking that should she die, she had to know the truth, "I'm real, because that was my voice...it wasn't 'nothing'...and believe me...I do care for you."

"I've always known that." Her voice resounded after a moment's pause, "I always knew that, Master, after all of our missions...sometimes I was so afraid that after I'd made a mistake, you'd hate me...but I always knew that, Master. Somewhere. Somehow."

"Then come back." He pleaded, feeling helpless once more, "Ahsoka, we all want to come back."

She sounded so wary and so sad, "Master, it's too hard now. I c-can't keep seeing this people die. It wasn't even carrying you back and seeing you like that...it wasn't that. It's watching so many people die, Master, and knowing that you or me could be next, that I could wake up one morning and have nobody."

One step closer to wherever she might be. "I promise I can try..."

"That means nothing!" Ahsoka retaliated, "You aren't immortal! You may be the Chosen One, but you're still human! Look at your arm, Master, or what's left of it!"

Anakin stared into the hazy mist, thinking that it had indeed cleared some...while also feeling shock at his apprentice's words. Ahsoka had never spoke so sharply and, even when she had spoken cuttingly, had at least offered an apology. Clearly, this was not the case.

"Ahsoka, I can try." He spoke hesitantly, "We all can try. I can't promise you my life...or your life...or anybody's." Ouch - that hurt to even think; fervently, to himself, he thought that at least he'd always try to make sure she - and Obi-Wan and Padme - were always there.

Anakin a ball of fire curl into his stomach as his old fears threatened, fears, he knew, that always lived within him; Even stars burn out...someday, they will not have me...or I will not have them. How could he pull her out when he had no idea how to help her? These fears were the same, though Anakin did not realize that. Their responses were completely different.

"Then why try?"

"To fight for someone else's lives." He answered firmly, "Padawan. So that can find an answer, to have a chance. Maybe someday -" or maybe not, "it'll all come together."

She was walking towards him now; he could see her baby blue eyes in the mist, squinting and staring at him, "What hope is there?" She muttered, darkly.

"The future." Anakin almost choked; he was so afraid now, "Please, Ahsoka, come with me." He held out one hand (the flesh-and blood one) in pleading.

"But everyone is dying, Master. Everyone! We...we aren't helping -"

"Ahsoka, we're fighting for an end! Nobody wants this! Please, Ahsoka...there is hope, there has to be...or else there wouldn't be a light side...there's always hope, Snips, there will be even in the darkest of times...there has to be. We will do what it takes, whatever it takes. You've seen happiness."

"Anakin," Ahsoka said, calling him by his first name for the first time. "You don't believe that. That there's hope." She lifted her eyes and gazed at him, "You fear the same things as me. You're so afraid of losing everybody...of the future..."

"But I'll fight for this, for you...there is hope, as long as we try." His shoulders slackened, and he stared at his apprentice. "And there isn't only death in this galaxy, you know that."

"You had given up on me."

"Yes." He admitted, "yes, but I can help you...if you let me."

He held out his hand, and Ahsoka contemplated it; for the bond was completely open and Anakin could see what she saw and saw that she was fearing the galaxy plunging into darkness forever, he saw the gore she saw, and saw the pain she felt.

And then he held her in his arms and whispered softly, "There is always pain, Ahsoka, but," He closed his eyes and sent a warm tidal wave of images, images of a baby and her mother, a child riding his father's shoulders, laughing children in fruit trees, a kiss of a married couple. It was a reminder of why he had married; because he could not live with just the pain, but his marriage offered joy.

Anakin wondered how the Jedi always coped, but she, Ahsoka, had experienced joy; so Anakin sent her reminders of a training trip they had taken, a game of tag under the setting sun, a food fight with the clones, a happy child in his apprentice's arms after a successful mission.

She opened her clear blue eyes, her hand sliding into his, and promised, "I'll come with...so we can fight for this."

I'm sorry this is late...as usual...but a lot of things have been going on in my life right now, and I apologize. (I felt as though before Anakin saw Ahsoka was particularly easy to write, because it's kind of how I'm feeling.) I'll have an epilogue out eventually that takes place a couple of months after this scene.

Thank you, everybody.

~HorseStar