She didn't send the children to school the next day.
She woke up with them both tucked into her side, still fast asleep and oblivious. It took a few careful moments to fully extricate herself but they didn't stir as she left the bed and found her comm-link. It felt like giving in to weakness when she commed Reta to tell her that she wouldn't be dropping them off that morning, and she was tempted to discard it so she couldn't see the return message. It pinged within a matter of seconds. Reta's message was perfectly normal in return, the storm had swept over a few of the local farms and it wasn't like she was keeping a register. Nothing out of the ordinary.
Ahsoka blew out a steady breath and went through the routine motions of making her morning caf. Of course, Reta would see nothing out of the normal in her keeping the children by her side for the day. Only Ahsoka knew why it was making her so uneasy. She couldn't bear to be parted from them. Not after what she had seen in the grainy footage of yesterday. It was her own fear that was making her hesitant.
She poured her caf and gave in to what she knew she was going to do anyway. She stood in the doorway and watched the children as they slept. It astounded her sometimes to see each minute twitch of their fingers, the rise and fall of their little chests. It was easy to forget when Leia was loudly demanding her attention or Luke was popping out from under speeders covered in oil, but they were so fantastically delicate. Just little saplings, with her as the only thing in the galaxy to stop them from being crushed underfoot.
The worry of it all felt closer than it had done since those early days and, for the first time in years, Ahsoka wondered if she should try and meditate. She took such care to keep them hidden in the Force that it had become second nature over the years, something she no longer even had to consciously think about. No one would be able to sense her this far out, even if there was someone in Mos Eisley who was trained enough in the ways of the Force to know what to look for.
But she didn't. She listened to the sound of the children's soft breaths and let that calm her instead.
She couldn't remember the last time that she had meditated, it was simply another one of those skills which she had fallen out of practice with. The idea of educating the children in the way of the Jedi had always seemed a nebulous task for some long distant future but they grew so quickly, every time she looked away it seemed like. There were so many things that she never had the chance to learn. After all she was only ever a padawan herself. How could she pass down what it meant to be a Jedi when she had forgotten, if she ever even known at all?
It was useless to ruminate on, but sometimes she wondered at what their lives could have looked like if she had made a different choice. Not just what would have happened if she had left Leia on Alderaan and only stayed on Tatooine long enough to hand Luke over to the Larses, but Padmé had had family, she recalled. She tried to imagine Luke with pale skin, or Leia with soft hands, but she couldn't see it even in her own head. Was it such a bad life she had given them, had she robbed them of a better one?
She could have taken them there and they would never once in their whole lives have had to worry about water rations and sumptuary taxes. Perhaps she should have.
But as it always did these days, reality descended and she was grateful for it. She had long accepted her decisions that had led them here. The twins shone and burnt so brightly in the Force there was no way they could have passed unnoticed on Naboo. Perhaps it would have been different if she had allowed them to be separated, but that was one decision she had never questioned. No, this was better. They were together and she was strong enough to protect them, that meant they were hers. An un-Jedi like sentiment but there it was.
She tried not to think about the other life they could never have had, both of them dressed in plain tunics, sequestered in the Temple as she had been at their age. She had only seen the devastation played out on the holo-net security footage that Master Obi-Wan had played in front of her, and yet sometimes the horror of it felt nearer now than it had even then. Then, it had been a tragedy, but now the thought of her own children strewn dead across the council room floor was enough to steal her breath. Anakin had done that, she reminded herself. Even after the broadcast from the Core and seeing what he had become she could hardly reconcile it, four years on. He had killed the children he had sworn to protect and he would do it again if she gave him half a chance.
She used to think she was safe with him, so very safe.
Her holo-projector was still laid where she left it yesterday, but even without it she was beginning to make more sense of the news that she had heard. News took a while to reach them all the way out on the Outer Rim, but it made it eventually. News of taxes, imperial outposts cropping up further and further from the Core, none of it mattered as much as what she knew it meant: Palpatine was reaching out, grasping with clawed hands and tightening his grip. He was consolidating his new Empire.
Of course, there were also the gaps in the news if you knew where to look. Ahsoka imagined that that was where the rebellion she had been invited to join lived; in the cracks between legislature, the shadows cast by new laws and treaties. She didn't think of the offer she received very often, but it was hard not to with the name Vader still ringing in her head. Had it been selfish to turn her back? Undoubtedly yes, but what else was there to be done? At that moment, with the Empire stretching its long and burrowing sinews across the galaxy, was she doing enough? She had been a battlefield commander, experienced to boot, there were people out there risking their lives to bring down the Empire and she had given them absolutely nothing. And what was worse was that she had no intention to either. Let it damn her, she thought, so long as it does not damn them.
There was a decision to be made and soon, about the children, she knew.
She downed the dregs of her caf and set about keeping her hands busy. It wasn't long until she heard the children wake up, one obviously waking the other by the sounds of the grumbling, which continued until they wandered out to find her.
"You guys want some breakfast?" She asked, setting it down in front of them.
She watched them eat, bulging cheeks and open mouths even when she gave them a look. She knew, in her heart, that her decision was already made, but it was pleasant to pretend for a few minutes more that it was simply another day just like any other.
"Alright." She said eventually, "Get dressed, let's see if we can't dig ourselves out again."
Much like their routine getting ready for the storms to pass overhead, the children knew the routine of checking for and fixing any damage the next morning. Like she had yesterday, Ahsoka gave them a task to work on, subtly checking and stepping in where she had to. Luke went from door to door pulling out the rags from underneath each, while Leia checked all of the window shutters to make sure none had given way in the night.
"It's wet!" She cried and Ahsoka turned to see her holding up her palm where, sure enough, the rain from the night before had seeped through the sill.
"Just rain." She assured Leia, who was looking at her palm like it contained the answers to the universe.
They'd been relatively fortunate it seemed; the storm had been brutal but rain meant the sand hadn't been whipped up nearly as much as it could have been. It was barely half-way up to the windows on the east side of the house.
She'd brought in the vaporators the night before and, though it was still somewhat patchy, they still had access to the holo-net. The antenna had survived, it seemed. From their lack of response to her message she was guessing that Owen and Beru could not say the same.
"Are Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru alright?" Asked Luke from beside her elbow. She hadn't heard him sneak up on her but he was peering at her with wide eyes. Leia was looking at her from the other side of the room, still drawing her hand though the condensation on the windowsill.
"I'm sure they're fine." She told him, "They know what to do when a storm comes in."
"But this one had rain." Said Luke, stressing the last word the same way others might have said 'krayt dragon'. Leia held up her hand as though to prove his point.
She doubted that they knew their routine well enough to know which days they should be in school or not, but either way it was a departure from what they knew. With the emotions of the day before still running high, she struggled to come up with a solution.
"Tell you what," she said, crouching down to his level, "when we get the house sorted why don't we head over ourselves to see if they need any help?"
She could see him working through the scenario in his head before he eventually agreed. It didn't take too much longer for her to finish checking for any more weather alerts and to send Ennen a quick message before they were ready to depart.
"Ready?" She asked the children, hand on the door. At their nods she went to push it open and…nothing. She sighed. It had happened before, sand would sometimes build up on the other side of the door, making it a chore to open. Wet sand would undoubtedly be worse. Normally, it could be solved with a few shoves or, if all else failed, climbing through the window and shovelling it away from the other side.
But today she had made a decision.
She rarely used the Force for anything physical these days. A little extra height for a jump as she raced across the rooves of the Slave Quarters, perhaps. Unbarring the overhead light well, on occasion. She had more use for feeling for the intentions people left behind as they moved throughout the world, trying to sense danger and deception before it ever touched them.
She deliberately didn't look at the children as she centred herself, reached out with the Force and pushed.
She felt the door give as the sand was blown backwards. It took more from her than it should have done, all things considered, and she wondered if it used to feel this difficult or if this was simply another skill she had been neglecting in favour of immediate survival.
The children were looking at her in wide-eyed amazement as she swung the door fully open and ushered them through it. They had seen very little but they were astonishingly perceptive and she knew that, being so close, they had felt what she had done. Good. If she was fully committed to teaching, and she was, even if it was only enough to survive, then she would do well to start small; to normalise what they were and what she was. Just another part of their lives to be integrated into their worldview before they became old enough to realise it was out of the ordinary.
They clambered into the 'speeder and Ahsoka waited patiently for them to figure out their seatbelts before taking off. Already the desert looked little changed from the storm, but she could still feel the phantom sensation of water on her skin.
The ride passed swiftly, the children entertaining themselves in whispers, while Ahsoka's mind wandered. She was trying to remember her own early schooling but it seemed she had to recall further and further each time she tried.
"It's Uncle Owen!" Luke shouted over the engine as he pointed out of the window.
Ahsoka was startled out of her reverie and looked out of the window. Sure enough, Luke was right. Owen was leant upon one of his outer vaporators, watching them as they passed. He raised a hand in greeting.
Ahsoka had barely stopped the 'speeder before Luke was trying to untangle himself from his seatbelt and throw himself out of the 'speeder. Leia followed at a more sedate pace.
Ahsoka watched him curiously as he greeted the children. It was the outermost edge of the property, maybe half a mile from the homestead, but his 'speeder was idling behind him, engine still running.
"Hey, Owen." She said as he stood straight again, "Thought we'd come and check the rain hadn't washed you all away."
He looked at her. "Didn't think to call ahead?"
Ahsoka was taken aback. "I tried. Your array's been knocked out again."
He looked back at the homestead where, sure enough, even from a distance, the communication array was visibly askew. "Ah, shit." He said and grimaced when she glanced meaningfully at the children. "Sorry. I was checking storm damage to the vaporators. Didn't get round to the comms yet."
"Do they need fixing?" Luke asked excitedly, "Can I help?"
Owen looked sideways at her before looking back down at Luke. "We need to check if they need fixing before I let you loose with a hydrospanner, but sure you can help."
Something was going on, she could feel it. Not with the Force, but with the eyes in her head. Owen wasn't an expressive man which, it turned out, translated poorly into subterfuge.
"You want me to go see what I can do about you comms?" She asked, hand already on the door of the 'speeder.
"Could use another set of eyes checking all the vaporators." He said without looking at her. Luke ran off with a woop, tearing between the machines. Leia's hand slipped into hers.
"Sure." She said, looking at the back of his head. He walked off after Luke.
Unlike her own, the Lars homestead was centred around moisture farming. Ahsoka made enough to keep her and the children well watered, but Owen and Beru had industrialised the process, enough so that they turned a neat profit on each quart of water they produced. As such, they had near enough sixty vaporators working at any given time, spaced at intervals from the farm. Even Ahsoka knew to plug all the ports when a storm approached and she'd worked on a few older models in the shop, certainly enough to know that this wasn't a job that required half the attention Owen was paying to it. He and Luke went on ahead and she watched curiously as Owen crouched and showed Luke how to check the readouts as the machines were once again made ready. Luke's face was serious as he absorbed every word before he ran off to the next one and waited for his uncle to catch up.
Ahsoka took a different direction and began to unplug all of the ports that she could find. Leia watched her silently.
"Do you want to go with your brother and uncle?" Ahsoka asked.
Leia silently shook her head.
"Alright."
Eventually, there were no more machines to check. She met Owen back at the 'speeders.
"Not too far to walk." He said, slamming his own door shut. "Come on."
He was right, it wasn't too far, but between Luke trying to tear away in every direction and Leia sticking so close to her side that she gave up and swung her up into her arms, Ahsoka was glad to cross the threshold into the coolness of the house.
Owen banged the door shut behind them and called out him wife's name. The noise echoed through the hall.
"In the kitchen!" Came the reply after a lengthy pause.
She followed the sound of Beru's voice and deposited Leia on a chair. Beru was smiling at her but her expression was tight. Ahsoka felt wary of approaching her.
"I couldn't raise you on comms. I wanted to come by and check you were alright." She said. It felt uncomfortably close to explaining herself, though she wasn't sure what she had done to merit it. Leia was looking at her uneasily and Ahsoka was uncomfortably reminded of her the night before, the two of them, upset and blotchy because they had sensed her distress. She tried to project calm. Leia was a ball of vague anxiety and even Luke was beginning to pick up on the tension in the room.
Ahsoka was usually circumspect when using the Force around Owen and Beru. They knew of her history in the vaguest of terms and she doubted they knew any specifics of how she perceived the world around her. It had often seemed intrusive to come into their home and try and see more than they wanted to show. But like this, it was hard not to sense them. A thrum of unease, a ripple of disquiet in Beru's mind and pervasive consternation in Owen's.
"We're fine." Beru was saying, bustling around the kitchen, setting out mugs, pouring the water, "We weren't expecting the rains to be quite so heavy but-"
Somewhere in the bowels of the house the sound of a door clicking closed echoed through the halls. A flicker of movement from Beru showed that she had heard it too.
"Luke?" Ahsoka heard herself say, "Come here, please."
For once, Luke showed no resistance in returning to her side. He clutched at her hand and she held it tightly.
Beru hadn't moved. Owen was stood off to her side, his body deceptively lax. Neither of them made any move to investigate the noise. If it had been the noise alone Ahsoka could have rationalised it as a thousand things, but she knew there was something else going on here. She knew from bitter experience when to trust her gut and right now it was telling her something was wrong.
With a hand on both of her children and the door at her back, she kept herself steady. "Are you alright?" She asked calmly. "Do you need my help with anything?"
People in town talked. Owen and Beru had seen the aftermath of when people had tried to attack her home and she had been forced to defend it. She knew they would know what she was offering. She tried to keep her mind from reeling into a thousand different impossible scenarios.
A look that she couldn't decipher passed between them. She would have called it wary but they had nothing to fear from her and she hoped that after all of this time they knew it. She owed them everything and even if they told her there were no debts between them, Ahsoka knew better. As long as the children were safe she would give them anything she could.
"They have a name for her, you know." Beru said, at length. It made no sense to Ahsoka, but Owen looked at his wife before sighing. He nodded.
"Not now, though." He said eventually. She wanted to protest but she saw his eyes flick downwards, "Not with the children here."
Beru nodded again and once more Ahsoka was left with the feeling of being distinctly wrong-footed. The Larses had taken great care to include her ever since she turned up on their doorstep and she found herself not caring for being left ignorant between them. She kept her grip on Luke's hand.
Beru turned to her and smiled tightly. It wasn't the sort of expression she was used to seeing on Beru's face, at least not directed at her. It was the expression she wore at the market place, or when dealing with the traders on the street corners.
"Thank you for coming to check on us, Ashla." She said, her voice light, "But we don't want to take up any more of your time."
Ahsoka opened her mouth to protest but Beru looked at her, eyes hard, and then to the children.
"I…of course. We'll always come and lend a hand, you know that."
She hoped that they did know that, even as Ahsoka allowed herself to be bustled to the door, children in tow. There was something tense underneath their bizarre behaviour that she didn't know what to make of.
The 'speeder was still a little ways off but before she could leave entirely Owen pushed past her.
"I'll get the kids strapped in." He said roughly before chivvying them towards the vehicle. Ahsoka went to follow but Beru took her arm before she could.
"Come back, tonight." She said lowly, "If you want answers, we'll give them to you. Don't bring the children."
Before Ahsoka could answer Beru had ducked back behind the door, closing it firmly. Ahsoka was left to catch up to Owen and the children, her mind abuzz with questions.
Owen strapped Leia into her seat while Ahsoka attended to Luke but didn't stay any longer. His back was turned before she could thank him.
Tonight, she told herself, still somewhat bewildered, there'll be answers tonight.
The day seemed to pass slowly to spite her after that, her thoughts never wandering any further than the evening. She ended up quizzing the children over their lunches, what they were learning in school, if they were remembering their letters and numbers. They both seemed eager to show off to her what they had learned; Luke was all but tumbling out of his chair in his eagerness while Leia was still tracing the alphabet in her mashed tubers.
It seemed paradoxical that the sight of them babbling and tripping over themselves should centre her more effectively than mediation ever had when she had been considering it only that morning. It was one of the very first things they were ever taught in the crèche. Not true meditation, but the first steps towards it.
Her earlier decision came echoing back to her and before she could think better of it she had cleared their dishes away and sat down across from them both.
"I was thinking," she began, both of their faces turned towards her, "seeing as you couldn't go to school today, how about I teach you something instead?
"Can you teach us how to do a cartwheel?" Luke asked eagerly.
Ahsoka laughed. "No. Well, perhaps if you're good, then yes. But I was thinking about something that I learned when I was your age."
It was humbling to see the matching scepticism written across both faces as they looked at her. To them she was as old as Owen and Beru, perhaps as old as the desert itself. She simply was and would continue to be. She had never thought that she would be grateful to be taken for granted and yet there she was.
It took a little convincing to get them settled and sat cross-legged in front of her. She folded herself beside them and tried to think of how to begin.
"Close your eyes." She said, and immediately faltered. Initiates were always told to imagine the ocean when it came to settling their minds for meditation, but Luke and Leia had no more concept of bodies of water beyond a quart than she had of the desert at their age.
She could not remember her own first guided meditation but it was the block on which she had based a thousand similar practices and variations over her life. It felt important to get it right.
"Imagine the sky." She settled on eventually, "Imagine it stretching out in front of you so far you can't see the end of it. Imagine what it would feel like to touch it, to feel it in your hand."
Luke was calm though she had no idea of how much of it he was absorbing, while Leia was already scowling in concentration.
She carried on for as long as she thought she could get away with before both of them started to fidget. At their age it was less about the philosophy behind mediation and more about the establishing of habits and familiarity. She would need to make this a regular occurrence now she had committed to teaching them.
But there was one more important lesson to impart before she let them off.
"This is our secret." She told them, and looked between them. "Do you understand? Don't tell people at school what I'm teaching you."
Perhaps it was a little early to warn them, but better to impress it upon them now than have them remember too late. There was nothing explicitly dangerous about the rudiments of meditation but she was taking no chances; the lessons learned early stuck fast. Her mind was wild with everything they would need to be taught, but foundations needed to be sturdy to be built upon.
Leia nodded but Luke looked upset. "Even from Biggs?" He asked.
Ahsoka nodded. "Sorry, kiddo. We can talk about it with each other but no one else, okay?
Eventually Luke nodded. She cast her mind desperately for something to cheer him up.
"Right." She said and clapped her hands together, "Who wants to learn how to do a cartwheel?"
She spent the rest of the day distracting both of them. The day took on a decidedly less educational bent after she had demonstrated a cartwheel to general amazement and then spent the next hour or so praising their earnest attempts at imitation. Neither had come anywhere close but her heart had been in her mouth as she watched them throw themselves into it.
Soon came lunch, then dinner, then evening. She had achieved very little that day but her panic had receded from the day before, overtaken by dread curiosity over what the night would hold. The children were tired though, and that was a blessing.
"Auntie Ash?" Came Luke's tired voice as she finished up Leia's braid before bed.
"Hm?"
"Will you tell us about our parents again?"
And there was the echo of the night before. Already they were old enough to question why she was different to them, why she had montrals and they didn't, why she had markings and they didn't. But the day would come around quickly when she had to tell them more. She tried to imagine explaining to them that both of their parents, and even now she did mean both, would have given up anything in the galaxy to be with them, that their father would string her up to get at them.
She forced a smile. "Of course, Luke. How about a story about your mom?"
As she told them a watered down story of Padmé tracking down the Elosian ambassador in the Senate who was desperately trying to avoid her, she wondered if there would come a time when she ran out of stories. She had only known Anakin and Padmé for a few years, surely there would come a time when she would have to resort to repetition or imagination?
She mentioned Padmé's dress, a monstrosity of a thing which she had left behind in her attempt to run down the ambassador before the session started, and Luke made her circle back twice to describe it. They listened in fascination as Ahsoka tried to remember it. Already it seemed foreign to her, her world had been reduced to tans and greys, to heavy overalls and sturdy leather. It was one of the few things she did not mourn.
"She was very beautiful." She said, heading off Luke in case he wanted a third description.
"Like you." Said Leia, sleepily, but still unable to be dissuaded.
"Sure." Said Ahsoka, at length.
She carried on a little while longer but the children faded fast. For a moment she sat in their room, watching them. She tried to remember the opulence of the Core, how very important the Senate sessions had seemed at the time, and perhaps they truly had been, but it didn't feel like real life. Not like how this felt real.
Eventually, she stood and found the droid. EMK14-71, or Em-Kay, as Luke called it, had so far resisted any attempts from Ahsoka to transform it into a more communicative being, but it didn't bother her. Em-Kay would refuse to talk to her but she had caught it whistling to Luke in binary once or twice. It followed her instructions and that was good enough for her.
"Watch over the children." She said.
Em-Kay had no reaction but it took her place where she had been sitting between their beds. She watched its unblinking backlit eyes for a moment before closing the door. She had trusted it before in worse circumstances. There was no one else to ask.
She gathered her things in silence and then she was speeding across the desert before the stars had fully emerged. She kept her mind blank as best she could, lest the anxiety rise up within her and stop her dead.
As she had before, she stopped the 'speeder a ways off from the homestead. She had no doubt that they would know she was there from her security systems, but the walk towards them calmed her. It felt like she was inexorably drawn forward, their home a little bubble of light, unburst, against the ink of the night. It had always been a place of safety for her as much as the children, the first place she had believed that she could truly make it on this planet and that had never changed. The knot of worry at the sight of it felt foreign and unwelcome.
She knocked on the door. It was opened instantly, Beru's pale face greeting her. Ahsoka had long ago dispensed with bringing a guest present to the Larses but she wished now that she had brought something with her, some kind of ritual to dispel whatever uncertainty lay between them right now.
Beru led her to the kitchen as though she had not been there a thousand times before. She busied herself with the water, pouring it precisely, arranging it just so on the table. Owen was sat watching them both and, if she hadn't known any better, Ahsoka would have thought him apprehensive.
She took a seat opposite him and waited. She didn't know how to begin, nor even if it was her place. She had been to negotiations before and it felt as if she were at one now.
Eventually, Beru ran out of ways to occupy her hands and sat beside her husband. She sighed.
"It's no mark against you that we didn't tell you, Ashla. Your priority is the children, as it should be," she added hastily, "and we didn't want to burden you with this as well."
Her mind spun but she still did not understand."If you're in trouble or need some kind of help then it's not a burden to me. I'd help any way I could." She said slowly.
Beru smiled, pained, and Owen grunted. "It's not us that needs the help." He said roughly. He turned to his wife, "You're sure?" He asked.
Beru nodded. Ahsoka wondered if he was finally going to explain to her what was going on but she should have known that he was better suited to action than talk. He stood abruptly and pushed his chair back. Without looking at her, he crossed the room and knocked on the wall, three long beats, two short raps.
She waited for a moment for something to happen, for someone to walk through the door or for Beru to tell her what it meant. Nothing and then-
The kitchen cupboard door opened. It was close to the floor, something she'd seen before but never noticed as anything beyond the ordinary. She noticed it now. From behind it a figure emerged, first one, then two, until three people had crawled out of the walls of the Lars homestead. Beyond them she could see that it wasn't a cupboard at all, but a crawl space that vanished off into the rest of the home. She wondered how far it extended. She looked at Beru in amazement only to see she was being scrutinised.
She looked back at the people who had emerged. Two human women and one Twi'lek man, all of them in rough spun tunics and rail thin. They looked back at her warily, as though she would lunge at any moment.
"I know you." Ahsoka said suddenly. The woman she had spoken to said nothing, but Ahsoka was sure. She racked her brain, she had met this woman before she was sure of it. "The cantina." She said eventually, "When I first arrived, you were one of the waitresses…Elemar! You told me about-"
She broke off, shooting a look at Owen and Beru. She rarely thought back to those days but she remembered how unwilling everyone had been to part with information. She had no desire to cause any more trouble.
"I told you about Ekkreth's brother who lived out in the desert." Elemar finished, looking at her. "I told you to leave and never come back. I did not think you would remember, Fulcrum."
There was that name again, the one she heard in whispers around the Quarters but never directly. She wanted to ask what it meant but it hardly seemed the time.
"Thank you." She said instead.
She went to turn back to Owen and Beru but Elemar spoke again, quickly. "You had two children. Are they…?"
Ahsoka couldn't stop herself from smiling at the mention of them. "Four years old." She said. "Terrors, the both of them."
Hesitantly, Elemar smiled back at her.
"Now you know." Said Beru quietly. She nodded at the two women and the man and they left the same way they had come without a backwards glance. Owen closed the door behind them and sat back down facing them. They were still tense, she realised, still watching her as a womp-rat watches a rancor. "We're a safe house."
She had so many questions, she didn't know where to begin.
"You're freeing slaves." She said. "How do you do it, where do they go?"
Beru went to answer but Owen beat her to it.
"It's illegal." He said, staring at her. "If we're caught it's public execution. You understand?"
"I understand."
His face was impassive as he stared. They knew where she had come from, the broad strokes of her life, though it had never been discussed past that first awful evening. Perhaps they had tried to imagine what the war would have been like for a child thrust into the front lines, but she doubted they had been able to manage it. It was a terrible thought, but these stakes were not foreign to her; she understood what it was to risk her life for a cause that was bigger than her alone. She knew what it was to have to break the law to do what was right. She knew what it was to be hunted for a crime that was not hers.
Whatever he was looking for he must have found it. He leaned back in his chair and sighed.
"We're not the only ones." He told her. "Just a part of a bigger network. We don't know how big. No one safe house knows any more than two others. We couldn't give up the whole operation even if we tried."
Beru took over. "We get a message saying how many to expect and when. Often the ones that come to us have been stolen right from under their masters' noses. Sometimes they fake their own deaths, sometimes they just try to get to us before the masters' realise they're gone."
"What about their chips?" Ahsoka asked.
"That's why they have to get here before anyone realises." Said Beru with a grim smile. "I can get them out of they get to me in time. It's not pleasant but it can be done."
"They don't stay long." Owen said. "They get to us, we get the trackers out and give 'em new names and pass 'em to the next in the chain."
Ahsoka thought of her own identichip with amazement. She had hardly questioned it since Owen had first given it to her but perhaps she should have.
"You get them off planet." She said in wonderment.
"We do." Beru said, hands clasped tightly in front of her. "We weren't expecting anyone before the storm but one of the safe houses went down in the night. Our own communications weren't working and we didn't know they were coming until they were on our doorstep." She looked at Ahsoka with something close to wry amusement. "You and the children arrived half an hour later."
There was a moment of silence as she digested the new information. It clicked into place; the tension of the day as they turned up unannounced, the forged documents and the fact they always accepted more food from her hunts than two people could ever eat and yet never accepted anything else.
Beru took a deep breath. Ahsoka recognised the nerves. "But now we come to the real question," she said and pinned Ahsoka with such a look she felt frozen in her chair, "now we've told you this, what are you going to do?"
This was the cause of the tension, she realised. Public execution, lives on the line, not just their own but the people who were helping, as well. It was a big ask; even if she did nothing she would be complicit and she doubted that if they were found out the Tatooinian law system would see the nuance of her uninvolvement. It could put the children in danger and keeping the children from danger was the very reason for her existence on this dust bowl of a planet.
It wasn't even a question.
"I'm going to help." She said and looked between them. "Any way I can."
Only that morning the thought of the rebellion she had abandoned before it was even born had plagued her but now there were people in front of her, needing her, needing her help. There was no use in the nebulous questions of matters of state and resistance. She thought of Elemar, of the two people whose names she still did not know hiding in the walls while she was asked for her silence and there was no alternative. They were not hypothetical, they were real and they were in front of her. There was a whole galaxy of struggle out there, but something was telling her to stay right where she was. Call it the Force, instinct or something else entirely, but she couldn't bring herself to either leave or look away. If she was to teach the children the ways in which she had been taught, if she was to teach them right from wrong and pass on the learnings from the Jedi, then she could not walk away. She must be herself, she must help those in front of her and be an example that they could use. She wanted them to be able to look at her as they grew and see that she did not simply run forever. She wanted them to be able to look back on her with pride.
Owen and Beru exchanged a look and for a moment she wondered if she was still yet to convince them, but Beru smiled at her husband.
"There's a reason they call her Fulcrum."
Owen snorted and then sighed as he looked at her.
"What does it mean?" She asked him. "I've heard that name before."
"They call you that because of the meat." He said, "They know who you are, but it's safer if they don't mention you by name."
"It means important." Beru put in, "Something essential. I don't know if you know how much that food helps them."
Ahsoka frowned contemplatively. "Do they know who you are?" She asked.
Beru nodded. "Many of them do. Word gets around of who can be trusted. And I suppose," she sighed and rubbed a weary hand over her face, "if you're set on helping then there's a lot you're going to need to know about who to trust."
The night wore on at that little kitchen table and it was like her first nights on the planet all over again. There were codes to learn, routes and passwords, and more than could be learned in the course of a single night. Still she listened to it all, absorbed everything she could and knew beyond doubt that she would be back for the rest.
Ahsoka continued to return to the Larses homestead every night. She found her routine easy to follow. As the sky darkened and evening rolled around she would coral the children into their nightclothes, braid hair and tell stories until they drooped into their beds and finally fell asleep. Then she would watch over them for a little while longer. The more she learned from Owen and Beru, the more she saw in the world around her. She understood the significant looks between the enslaved people she saw in the market, she learned to listen as she ran across the rooftops in the Slave Quarters and more than anything else, she saw what was to be free.
Luke and Leia slept in their own beds, cared for, fed and watered, never having known a day of servitude. Ahsoka had known it herself, albeit briefly, and even that could not have conveyed to her what it was to be free, to take that freedom for the gift that it was. Although she never liked walking away from them as they slept with only Em-Kay to look over them she never doubted that she was right to do so.
She could do more for the people that, even now, even as she was, still needed her.
But still, it was a strange sensation to walk through her life and now know what was going on just below the surface. It was like seeing with new eyes and more than once she caught herself staring at people as she walked through the market, wondering what they knew, or wondering if they could tell what she knew.
She didn't have to wonder for very long at work.
On the third day after she returned from the Larses Ennen watched her all day. Ahsoka said nothing but her mind turned incessantly, does she know what I know, does she know that I know what she knows. It was a ceaseless thrum under every interaction and it set her one edge.
By the time lunch rolled around she could stand it no longer. Varn was nowhere to be seen and so Ahsoka felt no compunction about walking into Ennen's office.
"I'm going to try and hunt down that bantha meat vendor for lunch. Do you want anything?"
Ennen looked up from her accounts. Her voice was cheerful but her face was intent. "No thank you, but may the desert winds bring you good fortune."
Ahsoka froze with her hand still on the door. Ennen had used that phrase with her before but she had heard it more recently.
"I'm sure the sand will rest lightly on my skin." She said slowly.
Ennen stared at her. Ahsoka stared back.
Ahsoka stepped into the office and closed the door behind her.
"I heard you'd been talking more to the Larses." Said Ennen at great length, "And that they had told you some things you might have found interesting."
Ahsoka nodded. "I wasn't sure you'd know about them."
"Quite a few people know about them, if you know who to ask. They're good people."
"They are."
Ennen looked at her then and Ahsoka thought she looked a little sly. "And quite a few people know about you too, Fulcrum."
She still wasn't sure how to feel about her new name that she had earned for what seemed like so little. "Do they?" She asked.
Ennen smiled. She marked her page and closed her tome. "Oh yes. I get quite a few questions about you whenever I make my rounds."
Ahsoka paused. She was still wary about asking Ennen too many questions after their rough start, but she hoped that now things would be different. "Your rounds?" She asked eventually.
"I suppose it's safe to tell you now." Ennen said at last.
"It is." Ahsoka said intently.
Ennen settled her elbows on the accounts and rested her chin on the back of her hands. She looked graceful even in repose. "I have a good position here, I've told you that before. Master Varn hardly notices the nose on his face and as long as the money keeps coming in he rarely looks any closer." She paused and peered at Ahsoka with a queer half smile, "And it does make money, especially now that you're here."
"What do you do with it?" Ahsoka asked, drawing up a chair on the other side of the desk.
"I take however much I think he won't notice. I have better access to trade here, to all of the vendors and the wares. I get medicine, mostly. I'm not much of a healer but I get whatever supplies I can and take them to where they need to go in the Quarter. I help where I can."
Ahsoka leaned back, her mind working furiously. "So that night when I caught you outside the shop…?"
Ennen nodded. "Tenegian fever burns through the Quarters about once a season. It's easier for me to find medicine and bring it to them than it is for them to try and find it themselves.
"What can I do?" Ahsoka asked, "What can I do to help?"
"You're already helping." Said Ennen and then cut across her protests, "The shop is making decent money for the first time in years and that's because of you. You bring food. You do more than enough. More than most."
"It doesn't feel like enough." She said, desperately.
"I'm sure you'll be asked for more when the Larses catch you up to speed, but for now let it be."
"If you ever need help, Ennen, and I mean you personally…"
Ennen smiled at her again and this time there was no mistaking the sorrow in it. "Oh, I've been offered. I'm more help where I am but…it's nice to have someone to talk to."
Ahsoka shook her head. "It's nice to have a friend." She corrected.
"I suppose it is." Ennen said before laughing a little to herself. "Now go, I've had enough of watching you starve yourself to death for a lifetime."
Ahsoka allowed herself to be banished from the office with good grace, feeling more cheerful than she had since before the storm had blown through her life, upending it as it went.
She made it through the day with her mind abuzz. She picked up the children from Reta and listened as they regaled her with stories from their day. It seemed Yun and Lilat had had a falling out and Leia was used as the arbitrator.
"But Lilat shouldn't have hit her even if Yun did say that her drawing looked like a womp rat with one eye. Because hitting isn't nice." She recited before looking to Ahsoka for approval.
Ahsoka smiled. "You're quite right, Leia. They should listen to you." Privately, Ahsoka wondered if this lesson would stick when it was Luke who had insulted her and was being chased across the farm.
Leia looked smug as she sat back in her seat but Luke just looked confused. "I don't get it." He said plainly, "I liked it because it looked like a womp rat with one eye."
The evening passed quickly. She planned once again to leave the children sleeping with Em-Kay watching over them, but the excitement of the day meant that the two of them had barely finished their evening meal before Ahsoka was helping Luke brush his teeth and tucking Leia into bed.
The sky was still golden on the horizon with the last light of the setting suns, and she found herself with time before she had to set off.
Ahsoka hesitated. There were so many things she could do, even more now that she had codes and ciphers chasing each other around her mind, but that wasn't what stopped her. There were plans to make, contingencies to consider and a thousand other things besides, but instead of any of that she found herself kneeling at her bedside and fishing around with one hand for a box that she slept over every night.
She opened it and beheld the lightsabers of her master and grand-master. She hadn't wielded them since they came into her possession and for a moment she was sorely tempted. She could barely remember what it felt like to use her own anymore.
Instead, she took a deep breath and started to dismantle the both of them. She started with Master Obi-Wan's and pulled it apart, component by component, until it was nothing but spare parts in front of her. She set the crystal apart and moved on to Anakin's. His was more familiar to her but she didn't slow as she did exactly the same to his as she had done to his master's. Soon, she was left with a jumble of parts in front of her, barely recognisable from the weapons that they had formed. She scooped up the mess she had made and put it back into the box.
She eyed the crystals and sighed. They would have to go in with the rest but just for a moment she allowed herself a second of weakness. She held them both in her open palm and closed her eyes.
They were in pain, as strange as that sounded. She remembered her own classes when she had been instructed on the art of choosing a lightsaber crystal and most of it had focused on attuning oneself to the crystal until it could be felt within the mind's eye. She did not need to be able to see them to know which had belonged to who, but as macabre as it was they brought her comfort nonetheless. Beneath the sharp pain of a break and the festering feeling of corruption she could sense something which triggered in her memories of happier times. The fleeting sensations of laughter, a clasp to the shoulder and the broad accent of the Outer Rim.
She opened her eyes and put them back in the box with the rest of the parts. She resisted the urge to give the whole thing a shake as though she could mix them together until it was impossible to tell them apart.
Although they didn't yet know it, she had set the twins down a path which would one day lead them to their own reckoning with what the Jedi had become. She would teach them how to meditate, how to fight and, more importantly, how to show the compassion necessitated by being a part of an imperfect galaxy. There would come a time when she would need to arm them with the only two lightsabers that she had left to give them.
It did not seem fair to burden only one of them with the weapon of their father.
Let them use the two of them to build a better weapon. It seemed only right that Anakin and Master Obi-Wan's lightsabers should get the chance to remain together, inseparable, despite the deeds of their master's.
It would not be for many years yet, she hoped, but when the time did come to pass they would be prepared.
The empire would draw closer and closer, but her children would be ready.