It had not been a good night. Anakin had known it would not be when he had casually used the Force to lift his cot, intending to move it into the princess's bedroom where he could keep a better eye on things, and had accidentally sent it halfway through the ceiling. He had been so surprised that he had let it go entirely and hadn't been quick enough to catch it again before it hit the floor. He had been left standing there hacking and coughing in a cloud of plaster dust and probably asbestos and who knew what else, as the princess had looked wide-eyed between him and the gaping hole left in the ceiling.
Anakin hadn't had such poor control since he had first begun training at the Jedi Temple.
Back then the problem had been that he hadn't known how to consciencely use the Force, so his attempts to lift various stones and marbles and other small objects had vacillated wildly between being unable to make them so much as twitch and having them fly up uncontrollably.
The problem now was that he knew how to calculate how much power to put behind lifting something based on its mass and the relative gravity of the location—it had always been necessary for him to carefully regulate how much power he used for any particular task—but he couldn't control the amount of power he was applying. He was struggling just to keep the Force contained within his body, to not let it leak out and affect everyone and everything around him at the barest hint of a thought.
And he couldn't turn it off.
Neither Anakin nor Cailee got much in the way of restful sleep. Anakin tried his best to meditate (Force help him) and get himself back under control, for the little good it did. He felt like he'd been caught between two stars colliding. Cailee laid stiffly on the very edge of her mattress, as close as she could get to where Anakin rested on his cot near her bed. She seemed ready to jump out of her skin at the slightest noise.
Still, despite the sleep deprivation and the fact that it meant taking the princess with him, Anakin decided the next morning that he needed to question the soldier who had shot his blaster at Cailee. The guards and other co-conspirators had probably already managed to get their story straight, but he would be able to tell if the man was lying so that was no real obstacle. The real issue would be if they managed to spirit the man away before Anakin could get his hands on him and his knowledge.
Although he had fully intended to try his best not to let Cailee see or hear whatever he had to do to get the answers he needed, those good intentions flew out the window almost immediately.
"He's dead," the medic informed them, his arms crossed over his chest and an angry expression on his face. "He died from his injuries shortly after he was brought in."
Cailee, who was standing a step behind Anakin, made a sound that Anakin was not able to readily identify. Perhaps he may have tried to determine how she was doing at any other time, but in that moment he was too enraged to worry about her.
"No," Anakin flatly denied, "he did not."
The medic scowled back at him, his face turning a splotchy, gross shade of red. Anakin was able to feel the man's emotions and read his surface thoughts, but they were warring so much between anger at being challenged and fear of Anakin that he wasn't able to make sense of them entirely. Not enough to ascertain what had happened or who had been involved.
"The man is dead," the medic cried, throwing his hands up in apparent frustration. "You killed him, whether you choose to believe it or not!"
Anakin took a step into the other man's space and met his eyes. "Oh, I believe he's dead, and if I had killed him I wouldn't lose a second of sleep over it. But we both know that he didn't die from his injuries."
"What! How, how dare—"
"He only had a hand blown up," Anakin spoke over the medic's objections, "and he got immediate medical attention."
"Well, well…" the medic spluttered as he took a step backwards, away from the irate Jedi.
Anakin bared his teeth in an aggressive facsimile of a smile. "How about we recreate the injury and see if you survive?"
At that point, the princess let out another high-pitched sound from behind him, which she had quickly tried to swallow down. Anakin had very nearly forgotten she was there—well, not exactly forgotten, as he could constantly feel her presence in the Force, but she had become something like background noise. Still, the spike of her emotions was enough to remind Anakin that she was delicate, and good, and pure, and something to be protected, not exposed to any more violence or nastiness than she absolutely had to be in order to keep her safe…. And that probably his decision-making was compromised by sleep deprivation and the uncomfortable power crackling underneath his skin urging him to use it.
He stepped back until he could lay a soothing hand on the girl's shoulder, though he let his furious gaze bore into the other man's the entire time.
"I will be back," he promised, "so you'd better think long and hard about whether you're more afraid of them or me."
The next day, Anakin had planned to do a more thorough survey of the palace for the purpose of finding a new, more defensible set of rooms where they could relocate. Instead he found himself arguing with the empress and the princess about Cailee's fulfillment of her duties.
"I am well aware of the dangers," Empress Elissa said in a soft voice that barely carried across her desk to where Cailee and Anakin were sitting. "That is why I have restricted her public appearances and made allowances for you to reject certain applicants. However, the princess must fulfill her obligations. Life—and duty—goes on."
Anakin found that profoundly idiotic, so much so that he could not help but point out, "Life may very well not go on—that is the point. There have been four very credible attempts against her life, and the last two would have succeeded without a Jedi present. The bomb would have succeeded if any Jedi but me had been guarding her."
The empress pinned him with a flinty, unamused stare.
"While we are undoubtedly grateful for your presence, you cannot—"
"I am not being arrogant," Anakin interrupted, having heard her thoughts before she could give voice to them. Etiquette and protocol and even basic politeness be damned. "I was immaculately conceived by the Force. I have the largest well of Force power of anyone alive, probably of anyone who's ever lived. My power is, very literally, off the charts, a fact which you can confirm with Grand Master Yoda. That is the only reason I was able to shield both of us in the explosion. And it took a lot out of even me."
Silence reigned supreme for a few glorious seconds, although Anakin was well aware of the emotions simmering underneath the surface of the empress's impassive expression and the princess's wide-eyed stare. Eventually, the ruler of the Regency Worlds seemed to mentally shake herself.
"Well," she began primly, "then you will be able to keep my granddaughter safe while she performs her duties."
Apparently being a working member of the royal family was more important than being a living member of the royal family, but even Anakin knew not to say that out loud.
Thus, Anakin had spent most of the day scoping out the palace for an acceptable place to move Cailee's office (something little used, unknown to many visitors and personnel in the palace, relatively easy to defend) and illegally slicing into various databases and communication channels to run his own background checks on the people the princess had appointments with during the coming days, rather than looking for new living quarters. The princess was apparently heavily involved with several orphanages and many organizations that dealt with animal welfare in the Regency Worlds, as well as with the Arkanis Flight Academy, which her father had founded before his death.
Anakin found all of that touching—Really, he did!—but not at the cost of her life.
Cailee insisted that the people who looked to her to fund their spay and neuter programs weren't going to blow her up.
Anakin would prefer not to take any chances, but he was overruled.
He spent most of the next day standing behind her like an angel of death during her meetings, just in case anyone might be stupid enough to try anything.
The princess had been growing increasingly worried about him as the days had gone on. He'd have known that from her general demeanor, even if he hadn't been bombarded by her emotions all the time. And by her thoughts whenever he wasn't actively blocking them—it was a toss up, really, whether blocking everything out or just letting it all crash through his mind was more exhausting. He had tried to tamp down on his irritability caused by lack of sleep, the constant battle to keep the Force contained within his own body, and his anger at the delay in his search for the culprits and his efforts to find someplace safer for them to sleep, but he had not been particularly successful in pretending that he was okay.
Then, three nights after the bomb at the dress shop, when they returned to Cailee's suite after a long day of meetings, Anakin immediately located half a dozen new listening devices that had been placed in her rooms during their absence.
Even if Cailee had been worried about her bodyguard's state of mind and general health, she had certainly not been worried about his ability to do his job. If anything, he seemed to grow ever more ruthlessly efficient the sicker and angrier he got.
Snarkier. Snippier. Quicker to anger. Quicker to resort to violence. But undoubtedly more efficient, without all of that pesky thinking before he acted.
And even if she had been slightly worried about whether he could keep her safe (which she'd never admit), her fears were put to bed during their escape from the palace. It turned out that Jedi powers included landing safely after leaping off third-floor balconies with another person on one's back, and then carrying her at breakneck speed across the lawn. (Cailee now knew that Anakin hadn't teleported across the hangar to save her life; he had just moved faster than any of them could see.)
On top of that he, apparently, possessed some sort of mind control ability to get the guards to open the gate for them and then make them promptly forget that anyone had ever been there.
It all would have been genuinely frightening if she hadn't been so sure that he wouldn't turn his super scary powers against her.
She had never walked through the city at night before. She had barely ever walked through the city at all, at any time of day, or at least not outside of planned events where security and spectators lined the streets. It was… unsettling. And wet. And cold.
Cailee readjusted her hood with one hand and used the other to hang on more determinedly to Anakin's arm. He probably thought that she was an annoying, clingy child, but it made her feel safe.
Even though the city was teeming with people rushing this way and that and huddled beneath awnings outside of crowded restaurants and standing in the middle of the sidewalk directly in everyone else's way, there seemed to be something of a force field around her companion that allowed them to pass by unmolested. Not a literal forcefield like the one he had used at the dress shop, at least not as far as Cailee could tell, but rather a pressing sense of danger that seemed to ooze out of his very pores and make all but the biggest, bravest people feel an urgent desire to get out of his way. And the brave ones quickly changed their minds as soon as those cold, piercing eyes turned in their direction.
When they finally turned off the public sidewalk and passed underneath the gate into nearly empty shipyard, Cailee asked, "How can you be sure the guards haven't tampered with your ship?"
The thought had occurred to her at least a mile back, but she had felt much safer staying silent and trying to disappear into Anakin's side while they had still been surrounded by people.
She could feel the sudden tension in his arm just before he let out an obviously frustrated huff.
"Can't you just trust that I know?"
Cailee stopped walking and tightened her grip on his arm. He obviously could have broken her hold if he had wanted to, and there was zero chance she could have held him in place against his will, but he let himself be tugged to a halt. Although he stayed one step ahead of her, presenting her with his back.
"Anakin, I do trust you," she insisted, and that was entirely honest. "I'm not questioning you. I'm just curious."
He let out a deep breath, and his shoulders visibly relaxed as he exhaled. He bowed his head for the space of several heartbeats, and when he finally turned to look at her, she was somewhat taken aback by the somber, repentant look on his handsome face.
"I'm sorry," he apologized earnestly. He reached for her with his free hand, which was so large that his palm spanned from her collarbone to the top of her shoulder and his fingers curled around the back of her arm. "I may be a little, uh… sensitive… about, you know, people second guessing my abilities."
She had figured that out herself, and she had to wonder exactly how poorly people normally treated him for him to be that sensitive about people asking questions. Was it the other Jedi? Or maybe the traditional military officers, or the leaders and politicians and other important people on the planets he protected? What part of his capabilities did they question? Because she hadn't seen anything that would make her think he was anything other than exceptionally good at his job.
Instead of asking, she told him, "It's okay."
He gave her shoulder a squeeze (She sincerely hoped that he did not feel the way it made her shiver, or that he at least put it down to the cold.) before releasing her and turning back around to continue their walk. She had to nearly skip to match his long stride, and her hand slid from his arm. It made her feel alone and exposed, even though he was right there and she knew logically that clinging to him like a barnacle wasn't going to make her any safer.
Just when she thought that she still wasn't going to get an answer to her question, he abruptly said, "Three ways. First, I can feel the ship the same way I was able to feel the bugs in the palace. I spent the entire journey here from Coruscant monitoring the ship, so I'd notice if anything were different about her."
Cailee blinked at the back of his head. "But what about the bomb? You didn't feel that until the last second, did you?"
"Ah, no," he admitted, a hard edge sharpening his tone, "they got me with that one. Used old technology that I wouldn't recognize. Now that I've experienced it, though, I would probably recognize it if they used another one."
"Probably?" she echoed, not even embarrassed at the way her voice cracked.
He shrugged. "Yeah, well, I didn't exactly sense the bomb. I more felt what was going to happen just before it did."
Oh. Okay then. Because that made perfect sense. She took a fortifying breath.
"You're telling me that you can… feel the future?"
"Yes," Anakin affirmed calmly, as if there were nothing at all surprising about such a thing. "Anyway. Second, I removed all the external access controls. Here we are."
He stopped walking, so abruptly that she nearly skipped right into his broad back, and pointed at a pile of scrap metal that Cailee could only describe as a starship if she were being really generous about it. She hadn't exactly imagined that he had arrived in something like the cruiser her grandmother normally traveled on or even something like the pleasure yacht that had belonged to her parents and now to her, but she had pictured something that at least looked airworthy. Her surprise and distaste must have been obvious in her expression when he turned to look at her, because the Jedi laughed.
"That's how I reacted the first time I saw it, too, but it's structurally and mechanically sound. Except that there's no way to open the ramp or any of the access doors from the outside."
Nonetheless, the ramp began coming down, seemingly of its own accord. Cailee tore her eyes away from it to look at her companion, but her question dried up in her throat when she saw that he was flexing the fingers of his right hand as if he were twisting and pressing things, and she realized that he was using the Force to manipulate the internal workings of the door that would normally be operated by conspicuously absent buttons and levers.
He grinned down at her. "See? Unless there's a Force sensitive techno-wizard that I don't know about running around, I'm the only one here who can access the ship without dismantling it."
Cailee was impressed. And, although she really, truly had not been asking because she doubted her protector's abilities, she still felt a bit of the weight of fear lift from her shoulders at this confirmation of exactly how competent he was, even though he was showing clear signs of sleep deprivation.
"What's the third reason?" she asked as they entered the ship and the ramp closed behind them.
"Here he is now," Anakin said as he shot a smile at an older model astromech droid that was rolling rapidly in their direction. "This is R2-D2."
The droid chirped and beeped and rolled gently into Anakin's leg, and the Jedi patted its dome affectionately. It reminded Cailee of a dog greeting its owner. Both Anakin and the droid turned to look at her expectantly (although she was projecting this feeling onto the droid), and it took her a moment to realize what they wanted.
"Oh, um… hi, R2-D2."
Anakin's lips twitched, but he quickly pulled on a serious expression. "Artoo, this is the princess."
The droid made a high-pitched whirring noise that, if it were a person, she imagined would be an "Oooh!", followed by another series of rapid beeps.
"Yeah, I know, Artoo." He paused as the droid produced more sounds. "No! That has nothing to do with anything!"
At that point, Cailee couldn't help but blurt out, "You can speak droid?"
"Binary," he corrected, seemingly automatically, as he started walking down the narrow corridor. "I can understand it. But speak it? No. Luckily most droids understand Basic."
"Oh. Alright."
She supposed that next he'd tell her he could walk on water or resurrect the dead.
"Anyway, Artoo, were there any problems preparing the ship like I asked?" He listened to the droid hiss and screech for a few moments, a frown forming at the corners of his mouth. When the droid fell silent, he reached out to pat its dome again. "It's fine, buddy. You did your best. I'll have a chat with the fuel depot in the morning." He turned to Cailee, who was watching them awkwardly as she walked slightly behind the astromech droid, and explained, "They wouldn't let Artoo buy fuel. Apparently, they only allow organics to do that. We'll be fine for tonight."
She didn't think that a response was required from her, and she was proven correct when they entered the cockpit and both Anakin's and Artoo's attention was firmly diverted away from her as if she weren't even there.
Cailee had never been in the cockpit of a starship in flight before. She had always been safely ensconced in her cabin or in the luxurious lounge area provided on most of the ships she had ever flown on. It was fascinating to watch Anakin fiddle with the various knobs and buttons and levers, and to have a first-row view of the stars out of the front windscreen. On the other hand, she was wracked with anxiety that she would accidentally touch something she wasn't supposed to touch and send them careening back to the ground, so she sat with her hands firmly clasped in her lap for the duration of their takeoff and flight and tried her best not to even rotate her seat.
Anakin seemed more interested in conversing with his droid than in whatever she was doing, but finally, after what seemed like hours, he leaned back and spun his seat around to face her.
"I've set us up to drift behind this moon all night. Based on what I saw in their systems, the royal guard doesn't have the tech to detect us behind the moon, and the navy's patrols don't come close enough to find us here. But Artoo will keep watch, just in case."
Cailee honestly didn't have the energy to ask him when, exactly, he had accessed the palace's or the military's highly secure and top secret systems. She didn't even want to know whether he'd actually been granted permission to do so, because she rather doubted he had and couldn't imagine feigning innocence if anyone asked her about it.
He must have taken her few seconds of silence as hesitation with his plan, because he added, "Don't worry. I trust Artoo more than most organics, and he's a better shot than most of them too."
"Anakin, I trust your judgment," she reiterated through a yawn she couldn't suppress. "Oh! I'm sorry."
"No apologies, princess." He stood and extended a hand to help her up, which she accepted gratefully. "Come on, there's a bunkroom through here. It's tiny, but there are two bunks and a fresher."
He was right: It was tiny. The room was only as long as it needed to be to accommodate the bunk beds along one wall, and Cailee was fairly sure that they weren't even the length of normal beds. She had no idea how Anakin was going to fit in one of them. There was a door opposite the beds with only enough space between the bunks and the wall for one person to walk, and a narrow ledge built into the far wall that was bare except for an ancient-looking alarm clock.
There was barely enough space for both of them to stand in the bunkroom at the same time. Cailee had to suppress another shiver at the feel of him standing directly behind her.
"Why don't you go first?" his voice came from right above her head.
She found that she couldn't speak. She could only make a little hum of inquiry.
"Into the fresher," he clarified.
Cailee very nearly fled there.
It was just as tiny as advertised, but at least it was clean. And gave her a few precious minutes away from Anakin, so she could compose herself and prepare to spend another night in the same room as him. Things were really getting out of hand.
And just when she thought that she had gotten herself under control, at least enough to face him again, the first thing Anakin did was wrap his hands around her waist and bodily lift her onto the top bunk. And just like that she was back at square one, studying the broad, defined expanse of his back as he disappeared into the refresher, wishing that the heat of his touch hadn't disappeared so quickly.
This was, very decidedly, not good.
The problem with traveling on a commercial flight, besides the awful food and long layovers and the presence of other passengers, was that there was no way to avoid Masters Kenobi and Windu. The latter had not tried to speak to her since she had stormed away from them in the terminal on Coruscant, but Ahsoka had been able to feel his furious glare on her. Obi-Wan had tried to approach her during their layover, but Ahsoka had refused to engage. He had ultimately had to leave her alone when the people around them took notice of what looked like an older man harassing a lone young girl.
Unfortunately, she had sat three rows in front of him on the last leg of their flight. She had felt his gaze on the back of her head for nearly the entire journey.
Ahsoka had hoped that she would be able to shake them off once they reached Arkanis, but she had been maddeningly unsuccessful. It wasn't exactly a surprise, since they were all heading to the same place, but it was frustrating. It had been an awkward trek up to the palace with the two Jedi Masters trailing ten paces behind her in oppressive silence the whole time.
It was probably less awkward than if Obi-Wan had kept trying to talk to her, though.
The palace was an impressive square building of brown stone, clearly very old and built in a classical style that Ahsoka had never seen before in all her travels as a Padawan. There was no metal or plastic in sight, and she was almost positive that the windows were made of real glass instead of the much cheaper transparisteel almost universally used by even the wealthiest persons. She had never seen so much glass in one place, probably because of the astronomical expense.
"Hi," she greeted the uniformed human male who was standing next to the gate, but he didn't give her a chance to explain who she was.
"The visitors' entrance is on the other side." His eyes raked slowly over her form from foot to chest, not bothering to proceed to her face. "Or if you're here for business, the servants' entrance is in the rear."
Even if she had missed the double entendre (as she might have when she was not too much younger than she was now), the self-satisfied smirk on his face would have clued her in to his meaning. She had no idea why so many people assumed she was a prostitute or pleasure slave—there weren't that many togruta slaves throughout the galaxy!—but it happened often enough that she didn't even bother to get embarrassed anymore. Just angry.
It was clear that Obi-Wan and even Windu were both outraged at the implication as well, but Ahsoka responded before either of them could jump in to be her savior, as if she needed their help. And as if they really cared about her.
"I'm Ahsoka Tano," she informed the idiot in the most severe tone she could manage. "General Skywalker told me to use this entrance. I'm his apprentice."
The man's tan face immediately lost all color, which Ahsoka took in with interest and not a little pleasure. It was even worth the outrage she could feel from the Jedi Masters at her describing herself as Anakin's apprentice. The part of her that had always strived to be the best Jedi she could be knew that it was wrong, but the part of her that was a togruta huntress was proud that her Master was the strongest, the most vicious, the most feared. She wanted to show the guard her teeth but refrained.
"General Skywalker?" the man repeated, somewhat breathlessly, as his gaze scanned frantically over a clipboard hanging on the wall next to him. "But he didn't put your name on the visitors' list."
"He isn't really one for following protocol," she dismissed with a shrug. She heard Master Kenobi cough behind her and Master Windu snort contemptuously, but she ignored them. Instead, she made a show of producing her comlink from a pouch on her belt. "I'll just call him to come down here."
The guard's eyes widened to a nearly comical degree. "No! I, I mean, that wo-won't be necessary. I can have someone take you directly to him."
Ahsoka smiled and tucked her comlink away. "Perfect. Lead the way."
The guard pointed one gloved finger at the two Jedi looming behind her. "What about them? Did General Skywalker invite them too?"
"No," she was quick to say before either of them could contradict her. "They came on their own."
"We have come to see General Skywalker," Obi-Wan expounded in his most soothing, diplomatic voice. "I am Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi and this is Master Mace Windu."
"You're not on the list." The soldier tapped his clipboard with two hard thunks to emphasize his point.
She couldn't see it, but Ahsoka could hear the scowl in Master Windu's voice when he said, "We are representatives of the Jedi High Council here to see Skywalker. We are his superiors."
That was apparently the wrong thing to say, because the other man frowned and crossed his arms over his chest. "I don't know about any Jedi council," he insisted. "Here the only person superior to General Skywalker is the empress herself—even the princess has to listen to his orders when it comes to security! And neither of them have put you on the list, have they?"
"Tano isn't on the list!" exclaimed Windu.
Ahsoka finally turned to face the two Jedi Masters and smiled again, sickly sweet. "Why don't you just call General Skywalker and have him sort this all out?"
Of course, they couldn't, because, as Obi-Wan had revealed at the airport, they didn't have Skyguy's com frequency. That fact quickly became apparent to the man in charge of guarding the gate, and Ahsoka found herself guided into the palace alone while the three men continued to argue about rules and official channels. It was only a temporary victory, she knew, and she may have only made them angrier than they were before, but she didn't have any obligation to help them anymore.
And at least this way she could warn Skyguy that they were here.
She had expected the interior of the palace to be festooned in gold and jewels and things, but at least the parts she saw were not. The area she was led through just inside the building was nice enough, with little tables with vases and artfully arranged flowers, paintings hanging on the walls, and well-appointed rooms with obviously valuable antique furniture. But she didn't see anything gold-plated or encrusted with diamonds. The further they traveled into the palace, the plainer the furnishings got, and the fewer people there were around, until finally the woman escorting her opened a heavy wooden door to reveal a narrow, unfurnished corridor lined with closed doors.
Ahsoka felt Anakin's presence acutely here, and it took everything she had to follow sedately behind the guard instead of running ahead to throw open the door that she just knew he was behind.
Anakin, apparently, felt the same impulse but felt no need to resist it, because he appeared through the doorway a few seconds later.
"Snips!" he cried, a broad smile stretching across his face.
She couldn't take it anymore. She rushed so quickly past the soldier tasked with guiding her that the poor woman stumbled in her wake, but Ahsoka hardly noticed as she slammed forcefully into Anakin's body and wrapped her arms around him. The turbulent waves of the Force surrounding him were almost too intense, at first, but then he sighed and relaxed into her embrace. The affection and slight amusement she felt from him calmed the storm enough that she could endure his presence.
Anakin managed to wriggle one arm out of the vice grip she had around his body and wrap it around her shoulders.
"What's all this?"
"You almost died," she said, which was the truth but only part of it. "And don't lie. I saw the video."
"I almost die on a pretty regular basis," he pointed out wryly.
Ahsoka squeezed him tighter, only easing up once his next breath came out as a wheeze. "Not like that."
She could feel the brush of his hair and then his nose against her montrals before he pressed a chaste kiss to the top of her head, then his deep voice rumbled in his chest where her face was pressed against it.
"I missed you too, Ahsoka."
More than the hug or the brotherly kiss, that admission felt like something too close, too intimate. They almost never openly expressed what they were feeling, mostly because they were supposed to have more control over themselves than to grow attached to each other. Even if they both knew that they'd crossed that line, it was still safer and more comfortable not to acknowledge it. That had changed for her as soon as the Council had expelled her from the Order so that she could be executed, but it was difficult to break the habits of a lifetime.
She wondered what had changed for Anakin. Did he suspect that he was going to be expelled from the Order? Was that why Kenobi and Windu were here?
Ahsoka released him and pulled back, suddenly acutely embarrassed by her actions. Not least because it had been a very public display of affection, even if the only witness was the gobsmacked guard standing frozen in the hallway behind them. Her (former) Master's Force signature abruptly darkened and seemed to loom over them like a great black dragon. It took barely a glance from him in the woman's direction to send her skittering back the way she had come, squeaking out an apology as she went.
Ahsoka couldn't help her flinch as the waves of cold, menacing power buffeted against her. Of course, Anakin noticed.
"I can't help it," he confessed, notes of despondency and fatigue coloring his tone. "I'm sorry."
"What do you mean you can't help it?" she demanded, more sharply than she intended.
Then she looked up at his face. He looked terrible. His normally bright, sun-kissed skin was dull and pale, except for the circles under his eyes, which were vibrant bruises of mottled purple and blue. His normal halo of golden-brown waves hung limply around his head, with some locks plastered to his forehead by a sheen of sweat. Ahsoka spared a moment to chastise herself for being so excited to see him that she hadn't even looked at him properly until now, then she stretched out her hand towards his brow.
He jerked backwards out of her reach almost as soon as her fingers made contact with his skin, but that brief touch was enough.
"Master, you're burning up!"
"I'm fine. I just"—His eyebrows creased together, as if he were thinking of how to explain things to her.—"It's just that I had to open myself to the Force to save us from the explosion, and I… Well, I haven't been able to close it off again."
Ahsoka blinked. Once. Twice. She tilted her head as if studying his face from a slightly different angle would help her solve this particular puzzle. It didn't help.
"I don't understand. You're always open to the Force. You're the most Force sensitive person I know."
When he was praised for something or had any of his positive traits pointed out, Anakin usually either got slightly uncomfortable, as if he didn't know how to handle being complimented, or got unbearably smug, if it was something he accepted as true. Pointing out his massive, unprecedented, actually really incredibly scary level of Force sensitivity usually fell into the latter category. But now he only gave her a half shrug, as if he were too exhausted to bother with a full one, and sighed.
"I've never fully opened myself before," he admitted quietly. "As a child, it took me forever to figure out how to use the Force without being drowned by it or feeling like I was in a living nightmare."
Ahsoka could not help her gasp at hearing that. They had used sedatives on her when she had been in prison, not enough to knock her out but enough to mess with her ability to use the Force, and she had felt like she was having an out-of-body experience just from that. And Anakin had cut himself off partially from the Force? Anakin, who was practically a living embodiment of the Force? Who seeped more unused excess power out of his pores than many Jedi had access to even when they were trying?
He offered a bitter smile. "I've learned to draw on the Force only as necessary. Until the explosion…."
Ahsoka was stunned. Anakin's training had required her to open herself up as fully as she could to the Force. She had thought his methods brutal and unnecessary at first. She had even thought, on several occasions, that he had deliberately set her up to fail, such as when he had made her stand in a circle of clone troopers, over and over and over and over, and deflect all of their blaster bolts for as long as she could until one finally hit her. But the next time she had found herself on the battlefield surrounded by more enemies than she thought she could handle, she had been able to completely give herself over to the Force and her instincts and to survive without a scratch on her, and she had understood his methods.
It wasn't something she could do passively, without actively opening herself up to being guided by the Force. How was he such a successful warrior if he had never opened himself up in the same way she had? The same way he had taught her to?
"How do you turn it off?" he demanded abruptly, not even bothering to mask his desperation.
"I… I don't know," she searched desperately for a way to explain, her thoughts racing. "It's never been an issue for me. I do what needs to be done, and then I just… let it go."
He let out an agonized, defeated sigh and let his head fall forward, bringing the gloved thumb and forefinger of his prosthetic hand up to dig into the corners of his eyes.
Ahsoka felt terrible. This was beyond her ability. Beyond anything she'd even heard of, really.
"Look, Master, I was going to warn you that Obi-Wan and Windu are here for you—"
"I know," he interjected flatly, almost monotone, not looking up. "I could feel you all before you entered the atmosphere."
"Oh." Because that was normal. She took a steadying breath. "Well, whatever the reason they came, I think maybe you need to let them help you." He scoffed. "Okay, at least let Master Kenobi help you."
Anakin shook his head as if he could dispel unwanted thoughts that way, then settled his face into a grim, hard mask and straightened to his full height.
"I'll think about it," he allowed, which Ahsoka knew meant that he wouldn't. "For now, come and meet the princess. We've got a lot to do. A lot to discuss."
