"In Need of Wings"

Chapter the Thirty-Third

"Master…" Vader stepped inside as soon as the Palace guards unlocked the door to the safe bunker. From here, not even the strongest weapons the rebels threw at them could so much as make the walls vibrate. Sidious had kept the bunker filled with only necessary supplies they would need in case they would be there a long while. Off to the side, he also had a meditation room where he could help influence the battle through the Dark Side. Always in the background of the fight, but always present.

Sidious stood up and glared at them. Ahsoka felt a twinge of fear.

"What happened?" he demanded.

"Snips. She is badly hurt." Vader looked down at the floor, ashamed that he had made Master angry with him.

Ahsoka had overheard Vader's punishments when he disobeyed, after dark when they thought she was asleep in her room. If Vader was lucky, he was only subjected to Force lightning for a minute or so. For the more severe punishments, mind probing always did the trick. She had learned to drown out Vader's cries for mercy weeks ago. But now she doubted her new skill.

The guards rushed over and helped Ahsoka to the lower level of the bunker with a secondary hospital facility. She was in a daze as they helped her onto a bed and began bandaging her wounds.

"I don't know how it happened, but I found her bound and barely breathing. I saved her just in time, Master." Vader forced a small smile of pride. At being able to save someone he cared about rather than let them leave him again, he could not help but gloat.

Sidious, meanwhile, shook his head in disappointment. After glancing down the steps where Ahsoka had been taken, he turned to his apprentice and with a look of disdain, asked,

"Why did you ever think I would want you to bring her back here?"

Vader froze at first. Then his yellow eyes brightened with disbelief.

He couldn't have heard what he thought he just heard.

"What…do you mean, Master?"

"Did you not see what just happened?" Sidious folded his hands together and looked his apprentice in the eye. He spoke plainly and clearly, as if to a child. "She failed to follow a direct order and allowed the rebels to mutilate her. If she had done what she was told, the rebels would have been driven back. It seems she isn't as powerful as you had lead me on to believe."

"But she was following orders. I just didn't get there in time to—"

"Vader…" With a small smile, Sidious put his hand on the shoulder of his apprentice. "I don't think you understand. Ahsoka is not…useful anymore."

"Useful?" he echoed. He clenched his fists.

"She's severely handicapped now. There's no way she'll fully recover, if at all," his Master said simply. "So letting her stay here is a waste of time and resources for all of us."

Vader looked down at the floor, his hair hanging over his eyes.

"That's not true…say it's not true. Don't say they took her from me."

Ahsoka…why did he say you are useless? Why is he doing this to you? he whispered to her through the Force.

I'm sorry… Her voice sounded faint from her dizziness and the effects of the pain pills. I don't know what to do.

Ahsoka? He's not going to take you from me, is he? He wouldn't…

"Vader. Surely you can follow orders more effectively than she can. You have always been the strongest in the Force."

He looked up at his Master. It had been so long since he dared let himself feel the hot fuel of aggression towards Sidious surge through him. Ever since he succumbed to the Dark Sid he had pushed it down, cast it aside, pretended he didn't hate this.

But those words…hearing the things he dared say about his Snips…it broke a small place in him he had forgotten.

"What do you want from me?"

A long, agonizing silence. Then,

"Kill her."

Ahsoka sat up and gasped. She felt Vader's ice cold fear. His rage. His panic.

"Kill her, now."

Vader seethed at him. He curled his fingernails deep into his palm until they drew blood.

"What was that, Master…?" he asked, the slightest growl on the tip of his tongue.

"I said, kill her. She's useless. It's pointless to keep her alive now. With injuries like those, there is no chance she'll ever fight again." His expression remained neutral, but Vader could feel him smiling, knowing he had won yet again. "Now be a good boy and do what I told you. You can do that much for me, can't you?" he purred.

Vader's anger grew, but not knowing what to do with it, he trembled. Unable to speak as his throat ached too severely, his head began to scream.

This is why you told me to find my Padawan, isn't it? This is why you wanted me to bring Ahsoka back. Vader's panic grew, his thoughts loud and clear in Ahsoka's mind as his heart beat faster. His tongue bled as he bit down, the hot sting filled his eyes. He remembered way back when Sidious had told him all those things about the Jedi Order pushing Ahsoka away and that every Jedi deserved to die. That he would be happy again if he kept an eye on Ahsoka while she was gone, and eventually brought her back to him. That Ahsoka would come back to him and stay by his side forever, just like the Jedi had failed to do. Now he understood why it had all come to pass. You never wanted me to train her to become my apprentice again. She was never going to become a Sith like us. You just wanted me to kill her, like I killed my former Jedi Master.

You wanted Ahsoka to die all along…

Ahsoka trembled as she, too, realized the truth.

This had been meant to happen ever since Vader began looking for her, destroying anyone and anything who got between him and his Snips. It had all been a trap so she could end up just as Obi-Wan and all the other Jedi had. Just like everyone else Vader had slain for his Master, so she was next in line. And she always had been. Waiting her turn to fall under Vader's blade with the rest.

In the end, it was only supposed to be Vader and Sidious. No one else belonged. Just the two of them.

She had always been meant to die.

Ahsoka closed her eyes and lay back down, already imagining Vader's lightsaber stabbing her through the chest. She had failed him. So what else did she deserve but that? Would he make it hurt? Or would Anakin come back just long enough to make the kill painless?

As long as her last moments were spent with Skyguy, it probably didn't matter how they were spent, anyway. This far gone, death did not seem all that terrible after all.

No.

She heard that voice. There he was again. Anakin.

No…you won't die, Anakin cried silently.

Anakin…you can kill me. It's okay, she said to him through the Force. I was never supposed to be here anyway. I'm useless to you now. I'm just a burden. So just kill me.

No. I can't let you die, Ahsoka, he said quietly, and with dignity.

He looked up at Sidious and realized he was looking into a mirror. At long last, he saw the monster clear as day.

The monster had taken away everything from him. His wife, his children, his Master, his way of life, his future…and now the monster wanted to take his Padawan as well.

And Anakin, crying out against the monster named Vader, said, No more.

Fearing the worst, Ahsoka got up and kicked aside the medical droid before it could touch her wounds. The floor felt as if it was floating away and about to smack her head at the same time. She fell to her hands and knees and tried crawling back up the steps towards Anakin.

Several times she felt herself accidentally cut and bruised by equipment that she had misjudged for being far away. But she kept going. Trembling and crying and struggling.

I can't let you die. No one is going to take you from me, Snips. Not this time! he cried out.

Before she reached the top of the steps, Ahsoka heard Anakin draw his lightsaber and hold it up. His face glowed as he stared down at the blade.

"Do it. Do it now," Sidious hissed. "Get rid of her. She failed both of us."

Anakin looked up at him, eyes still yellow. But Ahsoka could have sworn she saw the slightest flash of blue in them.

"As you wish, my Master…" he said coldly.

Just before he plunged the lightsaber forward.

The blade pierced Sidious' stomach and up through his chest until the tip burned through his back. Impaling the Sith Lord on the very weapon that had been used to slaughter Jedi younglings.

Sidious gasped and didn't move. Ahsoka recognized the horror of betrayal all too well in his eyes. He raised one hand to try and choke Anakin through the Force, but it suddenly dropped, his strength leaving him too quickly.

The two monsters glared each other down, waiting to see who would speak first.

"You…you…" Sidious gnashed his teeth in one last fury.

"I won't let anyone take her from me again," Anakin growled, baring his teeth, as he drove the lightsaber in even deeper. He looked up at the Master who had manipulated him, tortured him, seduced him, dragged him away from everyone he cared about and turned him into a monster just like he was. And Anakin smiled. It was the last time he would ever have to call anyone his Master.

Sidious was dead before the lightsaber retracted and he fell to the floor.

Ahsoka tried to get up and go to him. Anakin would not stop staring at the body. The only sound in the room was the peaceful hum of his lightsaber. For such a victory, things had grown much too quiet. Deadly quiet.

"Skyguy? I can't believe…you did it. It's over." She smiled up at him, forcing herself to be happy through the pain.

The Dark Side's grip began to loosen on the two of them. With Sidious gone, she felt Anakin more clearly than ever. It was like coming home.

She forced herself to sit up so she could look him in the eye. He could not move. The shock of what he had done settled in fast, paralyzing him. Even then, Anakin feared Sidious would jump back from the grave just to punish him for what he had done. Standing up to one's master was unheard of.

Ahsoka struggled to speak, but finally managed to tug on Anakin's cloak to get his attention, if only slightly.

"Let's get out of here. There's still time before the rebels surround the Palace." She forced another small smile, breathing heavily. Even speaking proved too much exertion on her. "We can run away from everything. It'll be just the two of us. We could go anywhere we wanted and no one could stop us."

Wasn't that what all of this was for? Wasn't it what they cast aside all their loved ones aside for and would destroy planets for? Was there anything Ahsoka would not kill in this galaxy if it meant another moment with Skyguy, and was there anything he would not suffer for her?

But when he turned to her, Anakin had already begun fading out again. His presence in the Force, like a vapor, slowly slipped away.

In fear, Ahsoka tried reaching out to him, but he seemed to slip away even faster. She had him back for just a few seconds, and the Dark Side took him away all over again.

The moment had come and gone already.

Anakin's eyes slowly turned yellow again. When he looked at Ahsoka, it was as if he were staring right through her. She felt invisible to him. His voice sounded hollowed out, on repeat, like a machine.

"Master and Apprentice…Master and Apprentice…Master and Apprentice…Master and Apprentice…" He held his head. "Can't have one without the other. Can't have one without the other…"

"Sk-Skyguy…?" Her face fell as she watched him. "What's wrong?"

He studied his lightsaber, as if he did not even notice her there in the room. Then he looked down at Sidious' body and realized the horror of what it was like to be his own person. That freedom could be far worse than captivity.

"Can't live without a Master. Can't die without an Apprentice…"

"That's not true. You don't need him. He's gone. You don't have to…" Her eyes widened.

Anakin turned the lightsaber to point towards his heart, his finger hovering over the ignition button. Tears streamed down his cheeks and his lower lip trembled.

"I need my Master…" he whispered in defeat.

"No! Don't do it!" Ahsoka screamed as she tried to get up. She tried to fight the pain, yanked on his cloak, using the last of her strength to reach up for his hand.

But she was too late.

There is no ignorance, there is knowledge.

There is no passion, there is serenity.

There is no chaos, there is harmony.

There is no death, there is the Force.

Master and Apprentice lying side by side, bound as one even in death. His lightsaber fell to the floor having claimed its final victim. Ahsoka could not even bear to look at him when he lay lifeless.

There is always death, Snips, he had once told her.