Broken

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It was 2 AM and Ahsoka still wasn't home. Anakin was sitting on her bed, head in his hands. This was all his fault. Had he treated Ahsoka so badly that she had run away? Had all the glares and dirty looks driven her away? Maybe ignoring her had made her think that he didn't want her anymore…

Where was she? How long had she been gone?

All these unanswered questions were swimming around in his head.

He'd decided hours ago that he'd start looking for her when it was day time. He'd have a better chance finding her when it was lighter. Who knew, perhaps she would return soon.

He glanced around Ahsoka's room; it was an absolute mess. What had she done to it? Her room had never really been tidy – a teenager's room is never clean, anyway – but it looked like an earthquake had occurred, or a hurricane.

Maybe – hopefully – Ahsoka would return soon, and they could talk. Anakin would apologise and everything would be back to normal again.

He was still angry; angry that'd she'd run away. However, his anger was not as strong as it was before. He felt guilty; guilty that he had driven Ahsoka away. He didn't even know where she was; he was her guardian, the person who was supposed to look after her; he'd done the complete opposite. He'd abandoned her.

Though, he knew that it mustn't have just been him. It took a lot of things for Ahsoka Tano to break. Ahsoka was a strong girl; just one person alone could not make her run away.

Then suddenly, his comlink beeped. Who'd be calling him at two in the morning? It had to be an emergency… He answered it straight away. "General Skywalker, here."

"Ani?" An anxious voice sounded through the comlink.

"Padmé? Padmé, what's wrong?" Why did she sound so worried? What was she even doing up at this time?

"Anakin… I need to talk to you. It's about Ahsoka. Could you come round please?"

"I'll be there right away. I love you." Now Anakin was worried. Perhaps Ahsoka was with Padmé? He hoped so.

… … … … … …

Anakin was not home, which didn't surprise Ahsoka. He was always out now, probably wanting to stay far away from his Padawan as possible. Ahsoka knew he had been back – he left his bedroom door open, and it hadn't been open earlier that day. She just hoped he hadn't seen her room.

Arms dripping with blood, Ahsoka sighed, a very slight smile on her face. However, the smile faded when she looked up and saw her reflection in the mirror. What she saw wasn't Ahsoka Tano; it was a fragile, broken girl who didn't know what to do anymore. A girl with a fake smile and eyes that had seen too much. A girl who wanted nothing more than to go back in time and change everything.

Though, Ahsoka saw past the image the mirror showed. She was not broken, she told herself. She didn't deserve any help whatsoever; no matter how much she craved it.

Ahsoka was not Ahsoka anymore; she was a monster. A murderer, a killer.

Ahsoka gripped the edges of the sink with her hands tightly. The blood rolled down her arm, streaming down her hands and in between fingers, dripping onto the floor. She didn't care; she was too focused on the monster staring back at her in the mirror.

She swallowed, eyes still fixed on her reflection.

It was then that she realised she looked terrible. Dark circles around her dull, lifeless eyes, the paleness of her skin... Her headtails were even dull. She'd noticed she'd lost weight too, as Padmé had pointed out. Her clothes hung off her body slightly – they definitely weren't as tight as they used to be. She could even see the thinness of her body; her collar bones were a lot more prominent, as were her ribs and hip bones and she noticed that even her shoulders looked thinner.

She started to feel slightly dizzy, which told her that she needed to stop the bleeding. Perhaps the dizziness was also from the small amount of food she ate. The floor had quite a few small pools of blood, and the sink had small streams of blood in it too. The knife rested next to the tap, coated in blood.

Padmé was right; she didn't have everything under control. In fact, just about everything in her life had gone spiralling out of control. She didn't even have a grip on her own life anymore.

After cleaning up her cuts and the bathroom, Ahsoka made a start on clearing up her room. Just cleaning took a lot of energy out of her; not that she'd had much anyway. From all the lack of food and sleep, she looked and felt like a zombie. She was always tired, but she could never sleep.

Even driving had worn her out. She'd taken a long drive out in Coruscant. After a while, she decided to park up and take a walk. The air was fresh, and it actually felt good to be out of the Temple. She missed being outside. She used to love going outside and being around people. Now she hated it. She hated being around others, and even if it did hurt, she preferred to be alone. That's what she was used to now.

Though, it was not in her nature to like being by herself. When everyone first started to leave her – abandon her – she had tried to spend time with them and get everyone to forgive her. But when she saw that no one would forgive her, she started to give up. What was the point of trying if it wasn't going to work? She'd accepted that she alone now. It may have been hard and hurtful, but she knew that she had to. She'd decided that it was worse and that it hurt more to try hard and then get knocked down constantly than just not trying and avoiding getting knocked down at all.

She'd decided that she'd never get close to people again. She wouldn't let people in, never let them know anything more than they needed to know about her.

It seemed that everyone she was close to either got killed or she'd do something stupid and they'd hate her. She disappointed them so they decided that she wasn't worth all the trouble anymore. Who'd want to be around a bratty, untrustworthy Togruta who managed to destroy everything she touched?

She'd just close herself off; only speak when spoken to, push everyone away. She refused to let people get close. That way she wouldn't get hurt anymore. If she wasn't close to anyone, when they leave, it wouldn't hurt as much. Letting people in meant that they'd eventually leave. They always did. She'd been close to a lot of people; Rex, Obi-Wan, Plo, Anakin… And now they all hated her, wanted nothing to do with her.

Though…all she wanted was someone who cared – really, truly cared – someone she could always talk to when she was upset, when she was troubled and things on her mind. In a way, she wanted someone to find out she was depressed and that she cut. Then she'd get the help she wanted; the help she wanted, not deserved.

Even if a small part of her wanted someone else to find out and not be mad at her for it, the larger, stronger part of her wanted to keep it all a secret forever and ever. If people knew, they'd think she was weak and couldn't handle pain. They'd think she was a freak.

If she did push everyone away, she knew that she wouldn't have the luxury of having someone who cared. But what was better? More pain by having everyone leave and then eventually being alone, or just the loneliness of having no one. She'd get used to the loneliness; it was something that she was already so familiar with. And people wouldn't get hurt when she did something stupid. Maybe she really was better off alone…

Everything was just so confusing.

When her room was finally clean, an exhausted Ahsoka dragged herself over to the window in her room. She leant on the windowsill and stared. It was a thing she did a lot, lately; staring out of a window, getting lost in her thoughts.

She watched the speeders that zoomed by; all those happy people with good life's. They had nothing to worry about, no weight on their shoulders. Obviously everyone had their own problems, but not many sixteen-year-olds were fighting in a war, with the weight of Universe on their shoulders. She was just jealous of all those happy people… They didn't know what it was like to feel that they weren't good enough for anyone; they didn't know how the pure guilt and self-hatred felt when someone close to them dies or gets hurt.

If Master Plo had never found her, she could be one of those happy people. With no threats in her life, no pain or death caused because of her. She could even have a family – something she'd never really had. Sure, she had her parents and maybe even some siblings when she was younger, but all that was taken away from her when she was just three-years-old. She didn't even know her parents' names. Who were they? Were they still alive? She didn't know. She never would either.

Though, she guessed she had her own little family. She classed the Jedi and the Clones as family. Used to class them as family, she corrected herself. They used to think of her as family, too.

A small yawn escaped her mouth. She was tired – she was always tired – but she was just so exhausted. After checking the 'fresher one last time for any droplets of blood, the Padawan slipped off her boots and slowly climbed into her bed, resting her head on the pillows. Sleep seemed to evade her, just like it did every night.

So she lay there, staring up at the ceiling, hands crossed lazily across her stomach with her elbows resting on the mattress. She'd stared at that ceiling so much she was sure she remembered every little detail about it.

For the first time in a few days she actually felt calm, like everything that had been bothering her had somehow disappeared, thanks to the cutting. Her arms still throbbed and stung, but she didn't care. The small pain was soothing. She knew all her burdens would come back of course; they always did, but for now she tried to enjoy the feeling of relaxation and calmness.

Soon, her eyes began to close slowly, exhaustion finally taking over body. As she started to drift off into her fitful, nightmare-plagued sleep, she wished the same thing she'd wished every night since it happened.

She wished she wouldn't ever wake up.

… … … … … … … … …

Padmé opened the door before he even had a chance to knock. She gripped his hand and led him inside quickly before wrapping her arms around him and leaning her head on his shoulder.

Wrapping his stronger arms around his wife, he said, "Where's Ahsoka, is she here?"

Padmé pulled out of Anakin's embrace, "No. Is she not in your apartment?"

"No…" Anakin replied, eyes drifting down towards the floor. She wasn't here; she'd run away for sure. He didn't know whether to be angry or worried, but he felt both of those emotions anyway so it didn't really matter. "Her room is trashed, though. Everything's broken and smashed. Clothes are everywhere and just about everything is on the floor."

Padmé gasped and put a hand over her mouth, "You mean someone has kidnapped her?!" This was all her fault. If she hadn't of gotten so angry with Ahsoka she wouldn't have stormed out, and she'd still be here. They could have talked everything out with Anakin, and everything would have been okay again.

"No," Anakin said, looking up again, "I'm sure she hasn't been kidnapped. The Temple is far too complex to miss something like that. It's almost impossible for intruders to get in. Anyway, if someone has snatched Ahsoka, she would have put up a fight. She would have gone down kicking and screaming… I think she's run away. But I have no idea where she would have gone… The Temple is her home; she doesn't have anywhere else to go. She doesn't know her family and the only friends she's got are either Jedi or Clones."

"I know but… I think she thinks that anywhere is better than the Temple at the moment." Padmé said sadly, looking down to the floor, arguing with herself about whether to tell Anakin everything she had found out about her husband's Padawan.

Anakin looked confused. He stepped closer to his wife, "What do you mean by that?"

The Senator bit her lip anxiously. She wanted to tell him everything. She needed to, for Ahsoka's benefit. She was just so lost and confused at the moment; she needed all the support she could get. It was time for everyone to forgive her and help her through everything she was going through.

However, she couldn't just betray Ahsoka like that. Ahsoka was so ashamed and angry at herself, she didn't want anyone at all to know about all her problems and struggles. She didn't want Anakin to know because of her fear of what he'd – or anyone, for that matter – would think of her if they knew.

Ahsoka was like a daughter to Padmé – and it felt so wrong to betray her. Ahsoka was so fragile and broken at the moment, and she feared that something – anything – could just push her over the edge and she'd lose her mind. Ahsoka would never trust her again if she told Anakin. She'd hate her.

She was arguing with herself, she had no idea what to do. Betraying Ahsoka's trust in her could just be the thing that pushes her off the edge.

Anakin, becoming more and more worried by his wife's silence, said her name gently to bring her back to reality. When she finally looked at him with her troubled brown eyes, he repeated her name again, rubbing her upper arms with his hands. Something was wrong.

Padmé sighed; she'd made her decision. It seemed like this was the only way Ahsoka would get what she wanted and what she needed at the same time. "Earlier today, I invited Ahsoka out to dinner with me. I hadn't seen her in a while and I wanted to see her. We went out and after dinner we came back here. I noticed she looked…unlike herself: she's lost weight, she's pale…frankly, she looks terrible. She was acting a lot unlike herself as well. She was quiet, and we both know Ahsoka's never quiet. So, I asked her about what was bothering her and at first she insisted that it was nothing, but I knew she was lying. So...she told me about what happened, Anakin. About that mission." Padmé finished, even though she felt incredibly guilty for telling Anakin a small part of Ahsoka's problems. She may not have told him the worst of it, but it was part of it and she still felt like she'd betrayed the Togruta.

"So, the mission is what's making her upset?" Anakin crossed his arms over his chest; he didn't, for whatever reason, look impressed.

"I don't know, Ani… She only told me that she was upset about everything that had happened." Padmé felt bad for lying to her husband, but this was the only way Ahsoka would be able to get help. This would be the only way that the Master and the Apprentice would sort out everything that was going on between them. Though, she had a horrible, sinking feeling that maybe it wouldn't help, it would perhaps tear them apart even more. "I think you should talk to her. She didn't say this but…she misses you. She told me that you both haven't spoken in weeks."

It was obvious that the both of them didn't trust eachother anymore… Anakin – from Ahsoka's point of view – was angry and disappointed in her, and Ahsoka was drowning in a sea of self-hatred, thinking that everyone – as well as herself – hated her and didn't want her around.

"Padmé, you don't understand. You weren't there when she disobeyed direct orders. If only she had followed those orders. If she had, everything would be fine. I wouldn't be angry with her if she had just listened to me. This has happened before and it's obvious that Ahsoka isn't learning her lesson."

Padmé couldn't help but wince at her husband's harsh words. He didn't even know what was really going on in that girl's head. He didn't know that Ahsoka had learnt her lesson, and that she was destroying herself over it. Though, she didn't want to argue with him, it was obvious that he was also stressed. She could tell by the way he was constantly running his hands through his hair, the bags under his eyes and paleness of his skin. "Anakin, please…" She stepped closer, wrapping her arms around his neck, his forehead resting on hers, "just talk to her. You two can't keep avoiding eachother forever. For goodness sakes, you live together, you train together and you're going to have to spend time with her when you're sent off on missions and battles. You both need to talk and sort things out." Padmé paused slightly, that feeling of guilt creeping up again, "Ahsoka needs you, Anakin; probably now more than ever. It's time for you to forgive her and help her, because she's hurting, and one of the things she wants most is for things to return to normal. She need you."

… … … … … … … … …

Well, here we are… Chapter 4. So, they'll be at least one more chapter after this one.

Sorry this one is up late – My other Granddad died on the 7th of February, and I had his funeral the other day. And I know I have a lot of stories I need to update and all that, but this story is getting me back into writing.

Also, my updates have been delayed because all my documents got deleted when I was sorting out my laptop.

And wow. The Season 5 finale so far? BRILLAINT. I'm so excited for the next two episodes, but I'm also scared… WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN TO OUT LITTLE SOKA?! But yeah, The Jedi Who Knew Too Much was AMAZING. Truly amazing.

Please review?