Chapter 23 – Ahsoka

Author's Note: I honestly think the only warning I can put on here to cover everything in it is a This Is Mostly Anakin's POV, and FYI he's a seriously screwed up child who's seen people blown up since he was a baby. ;~~; And no one thought anything was traumatic about that.

~ Rivana Rita

It's been a few weeks since the Council heard what happened, since everything, since Echo, Fives, and Hevy joined the 501st. It's been close to three months since Christophsis, and maybe it's just Anakin, but he could swear events are proceeding faster than he remembers from before.

Ahsoka was supposed to be with Obi-Wan right now – that is, until his master called him over because something about an emergency with Ahsoka that he was dumping on Anakin to deal with because he didn't know how to deal with it himself.

Anakin knew right from the start something was majorly wrong when Obi-Wan called him, but this is like nothing he's seen before. She's obviously very upset about something, but it's not seeing the extreme violence on the battlefield, at least not entirely. She throws herself into his arms the moment she realizes he's there, shaking uncontrollably.

"What happened?" he asks.

"The mission – we were supposed to arrest someone," she says, voice muffled, "It went bad. It went very bad. There was too many – and I... I lashed out and then, they were just dead, and I know I did that. And Master Kenobi – it – I don't know, there was so much blood and –"

His heart clenches painfully as he remembers. Ahsoka had always had a hard time with this. Anakin did himself, but he was so accustomed to death, it never phased him the same way it did her. "Breathe, Ahsoka," he instructs, holding her tightly. "Just breathe, okay?"

She nods against him, shuddering, and he just holds her, desperately wishing he knew what to do. He has no idea. It's not something Jedi are trained in. They become accustomed to it as they grow up, and it has never phased Anakin. Nothing could be worse than what he's seen on Tatooine. Rarely has he seen anything he could even compare with it.

"I did my duty, so why does it hurt?" Ahsoka asks shakily, sniffing.

"It's a Jedi's duty to put aside their own feelings for the benefit of others," Anakin tries explaining, "In the future, I had to let go of everything, even you, to... do what I had to."

"How would that have been a problem with you?"

She has no idea. "I have always struggled with letting go, Ahsoka. You may not have seen it yet, but I... have. Every time I think of you, I remember her, and I know I will never see her again."

"Sorry," she mumbles.

"It's nothing you can help," he reassures her instantly. Being around her makes him feel better and worse at once. He's not what she needs, but he's here, so he has to do his best. As if that's ever been enough? "Was that everything?"

She's pulled back from him enough that he can see her face, and she shudders slightly, expression scrunching. "He cut someone's arm off," she says flatly. "It was... horrible."

Anakin catches the how did that upset you before it comes out, though he is genuinely confused. Obi-Wan does that literally all the time. It's how he fights, and yes, it is horrible, but Anakin has seen people blown up in front of him since he was three – at least he thinks that was the first time, but he could be wrong, so it's really nothing. Not in the scheme of things.

He broke both his legs in his second last podrace when he was nine. He still remembers his mother's horrified look, and he had almost wanted to cry but he smiled instead, because it wasn't that bad, and it could've been worse, and it always felt so thrilling. That was what mattered most back then, as a child, before he could fully understand – feeling free and in control of something, if only for a few moments. Sidious reminded him of that. It's true even now.

And it was just... that. It's how he grew up. He doesn't understand.

He can never understand Ahsoka for that reason, and it drives him crazy sometimes, but he can't change it.

"Death is a part of war," he says finally, trying to find a way of calming her, "As Jedi, we must learn to accept it." The look on her face cuts him to the core, but he has no idea what else to tell her. Obi-Wan hadn't known what to say, either, when Anakin first killed someone. It was instinctive, to protect his master, but he hadn't been able to forget it. He never has.

They were alive, then they were just dead, and sometimes, he wonders how much blood is on his hands, and if anything he does will ever be enough to wash it off. He wonders the same every time he remembers his mother's death.

Will anything ever be enough?

"Everything in our lives is about helping others," he continues, desperately hoping that this isn't the wrong thing to say. It probably is, though he doesn't know what else to do. He wishes Obi-Wan didn't always drag him into this when he could do so much better himself. "Even at the cost of our consciences, our lives, and everything we care about."

"It just feels like we should be helping people, not killing them."

"We are," he replies soothingly, "Sometimes, we must do things we do not want to. It's about putting ourselves aside to do what's expected of us. Even if we question our orders."

Anakin has always been one to listen to orders without questions. Ahsoka was never like that. If she was told to do something she didn't like or didn't want to, she'd protest first, then yell and scream and put her foot down with an absolute 'no'. It had driven Anakin crazy, because it was something the Council told him to get out of her, but how could he do that? How could he be expected to rip out one of the things that make his child herself? Like she's no more than a droid, to be ripped apart and put back together?

He doesn't want to do this to her, but what other choice does he have?

"If we don't defend ourselves, we will not be here to continue helping."

"I just can't get it out of my head," she says almost helplessly.

Anakin squeezes her shoulder. "I know." He nearly winces when it reminds him of when she left him. "Sometimes all we can do is our best."

He doesn't know what more to say. Ahsoka doesn't, either. He can almost hear the unspoken question – is there something wrong with me, I'm a Jedi, why am I so upset – but she doesn't voice it. They all know better, because that would mean accepting they're not the Jedi that the Council requires them to be, which is a shortcoming, and...

And yes. Anakin is quite accustomed to that fear.

**w**

Violence is one thing Ahsoka has not been able to fully accept, no matter how long she's been out here on the battlefield. She still can't shake the images of what happened from her mind, though she's seen many of her friends die before. It's...

It's just difficult. It's always easier when Anakin is here. He's not right now, though. She's working with Master Kenobi much of the time, and she doesn't like it nearly as much. The 212th seems far more reserved and distant than the 501st is, and that makes her lonely. More than that, her and Master Kenobi just don't see eye-to-eye in many things, and he doesn't listen to her. It's maddening.

He has this way of making her feel like she can't breathe or move or anything, because he's so close, and he'll always get angry if she's... anything, really. It makes her feel stupid and useless.

Sometimes, she wants to talk to Anakin about it, because this is...

It's exhausting, and she has no idea how he put up with it.

"How do you deal with him?" she finally demands after a particularly nasty argument with her master about paperwork of all things in the galaxy. She hadn't had time to deal with that since she was too busy with classes, and admittedly, she stopped to have a brief conversation with Barriss because sometimes, she just feels so... isolated and lonely.

"What did he do?" Anakin asks quietly.

"Everything," she grumbles. "He's always yelling at me."

"He's trying to help," Anakin answers.

"I don't see how."

"Truthfully, I don't either. But don't forget he's mortal too, Ahsoka. He's on the Council, and he is stressed all the time. I know it is not easy to remember, but he means well."

Ahsoka really can't say she agrees with that. "It feels like he's just trying to argue with me."

"He does that," Anakin replies, "I don't understand it either."

"But how do you handle it?" she repeats. He's not answering the question. He is cryptic like that sometimes. It's annoying.

"I am not the best role-model in dealing with that, Ahsoka."

"What, you yell at him?" Ahsoka inquires dryly. She would like to herself. Corrections: she does do it herself. She just wants to know if there's a more Jedi-like way to do it.

"If I don't get upset, I ignore him," Anakin answers, "It's the most I can do. Remember what I told you before, after you... after Amorrut? When you fought with that youngling?"

She frowns. "About not having friends or anything?"

"I don't want you to have to do that," he confesses, "I didn't myself either, but it just... happened."

Her curiosity is instantly perked again. It's rare that he starts letting on about his past, and she always wants to know more about where he came from. "How? Why? Why would someone not want to be friends with you?"

He looks away with a humorless smile. "Why would they?" he asks instead. "I was old when I came here. I needed... I had no time, and I was so far behind. They were jealous of me, of my connection to the Force, and... I was as well." He shakes his head, standing up, a clear indication that the conversation is over. "We should proceed to the training salles unless you have class work to attend to."

Ahsoka could swear she's being taught more rigorously than all the other Jedi. Considering she's the padawan of a Sithkiller and the Chosen One, it makes sense, but still.

She decides to file away the note about how her master, apparently, struggled after coming to the Temple for a different day. She doesn't really know how to deal with it. It's so... strange. Anakin is so Light, and Ahsoka can't imagine him being any other way.

**w**

Anakin is glad to be back on the fronts with Ahsoka, though it's also hard to see her like this. He wants to end the war, and every moment, he can only think of how he should've told the Council about Sidious, should've already taken out the Sith so the war can end, and they can be free.

Ahsoka is different than he remembers, though he's not sure if it's because she's younger. He wanted to try to keep her from being forced to mature too fast, even if he logically knows that's beyond his control because of the war.

She's getting more skilled as fast as he remembers her as, but it's not enough – it will never be enough, because there are so many things out there that she is unprepared for, but he can see the progress, unlike Obi-Wan, who seems to only notice it on occasion. Then again, he's not putting the same effort into her training as Anakin is. He doesn't have time.

Ahsoka is different, though. Anakin didn't realize how much until they were sent to a planet somewhere to negotiate a deal with the leaders to try convincing them to joining the Republic. It would've worked, except they get ambushed instead, which Anakin isn't surprised about. It's a bit chaotic, and he had to send Ahsoka off with a small group of the 501st to cut around while Anakin drew the fire. It worked in reverse in the end, because most of Ahsoka's men were downed, either injured or dead, when Anakin finally finds her.

She's still fighting, boots coated with splashes of mud that look like they come a good way up to her knees, and her gloves have a few disturbingly dark blaster-streaks on them, but she's alright.

She just about wouldn't have been.

Nothing, Anakin thinks, nothing would've been enough to calm him when he sees her stumble, going down on one knee, lightsaber still clenched in her hand, but the droids are moving fast, too fast, taking aim. If Anakin hadn't jumped in front of her the moment he did and slashed through the trio of super battle droids in front of her, he doesn't think she would've made it. They were about to fire at her.

And she would've been bleeding out in his arms like his mother and like Obi-Wan and –

He lashes out, fueled by sheer panic that blinds him more than it has in a long time, flinging the remaining droids into the nearby trees, crushing them into scrap metal.

He turns back to Ahsoka, expecting her to either throw herself into his arms, panicking – it wasn't easy for her to be there, to nearly lose her life so many times over when she was little – or make some sort of stupid, snippy joke that he should've responded in kind with, though he doubts he could manage anything at all right now.

He nearly lost Ahsoka. She nearly died.

Instead, she stands up, glaring at him. "I had it perfectly under control!"

For a moment, Anakin just gapes at her. "Did you miss the part where three droids were about to take off your head?"

"I didn't need your help!"

Force. This is such an Obi-Wan-like attitude, Anakin has to do a double-check to make sure he's not impersonating her or anything – after Hardeen, he's questioned his own sanity for so long, he has to keep checking sometimes, and it's relieving he can always feel people as acutely in the Force as he did. That was probably what made him truly begin appreciating his abilities. But he's not. Instead, yes, this is Ahsoka, his padawan, his Snips, standing here in front of him, but something about the rose petal softness of her is curling, going hard around the edges as if it's slowly withering and dying.

What. The.

"Are you alright?" is all he can manage, voice strained. What is wrong with him? How did he not notice this darkness before? What has he done to her?

She's still glaring at him. "Yes."

What have I done to you, he wants to say, and his hands are shaking, though he can't even say why. Something about this, it's all too much. He has no idea what's happening to his padawan. What did he do to her? What happened? What changed? It could've have been drastic, or he would've noticed, but now that he thinks about it, he can see all the signs.

She's growing more arrogant, darker, angrier. She had wanted to come here, insisting she knew what she was doing, and Anakin – stupidly – had ignored the danger whispering in the Force in favor of taking what appeared to be the more dangerous part of the mission for himself. He shouldn't have done that. They're always in danger in wartime, but... this is different. And Ahsoka always struggled with telling her limits, but he's been making an effort to teach her them so she can push forwards, but this is something else.

It's familiar, and that's what cuts the worst. It borrows deep into his heart and tears and burns because he has seen this before.

That anger? That fierce desperation to prove himself? To be enough? That desire to not need someone else to be there, no matter how empty it makes him feel, because that's what he thought he had to do?

Ahsoka was never like that before.

Anakin struggled with it as a slave, but it was never like that with his mother. Never. Not once.

It... all of that came from Obi-Wan.

And Anakin gave Ahsoka to him, because he trusted his master, and he thought Obi-Wan, of all people, was far more capable of caring for her than Anakin himself. Every time he tries to help, he just makes it worse, doesn't he? Why? He can only keep fighting, keep trying, but...

But in this case, the guilt is strangling him, somehow worse than all of what he carries. He misses his mother more than he has in a long, long time. She would know what to do. He would've, once, gone to Palpatine. That's impossible now.

He hates himself for being tempted to try.

Then again, when doesn't he hate himself?

But this doesn't make sense, because Obi-Wan would never do something to hurt them, so why is it so apparent that he has? Nothing in Anakin's life is as he thought it was. Nothing makes sense anymore, and that alone is enough to make him want to cry.

He was able to save Ahsoka because, and only because, of the Force. It brought him here when he needed it to, and he's grateful for that, but he can't stop wondering what would've happened if he was a second too late. He's imagined Ahsoka being shot fatally more times than he can count, and he...

Protecting her is so hard, especially when she was too young to understand how to do it herself, and he could only keep her away from danger for so long.

He doesn't even know what he could say to her. Not now. "Ahsoka," he murmurs, as if that would be enough. As if it would fix something. But helplessly calling his padawan's name will not change anything, won't change how he failed or that he's doing it again, or that...

He doesn't want to accept this is Obi-Wan's fault. He can't. His master would never hurt him, but how could he have missed something this drastic either?

That, at least, is enough to make her stop. "What's... wrong?" she inquires cautiously.

He doubts anything would be enough to relieve what's tearing him apart now, not that it ever is, but this is worse, the worst – this is Ahsoka, his padawan, his child, and she's been hurting so long he didn't notice. He didn't even know he had to look. What is wrong with him? "I'm so sorry, Ahsoka."

An I'm sorry is nothing for what he's caused, nothing for the knowledge that he failed his padawan, and it always feels like he's drowning in shame. It's always him, that he's not good enough to do anything useful, and that he can't...

He could barely read until he was nine years old, and it took him a year to move past the children who had learned the basics of everything when they were three. It took him years to not panic because someone looked at him wrong. He still can't believe, sometimes, that Obi-Wan isn't going to hurt him when he has that... dark storm cloud expression on his face, the one of a burning, rolling fury. The one when the Force rolls around him in icy cold waves, when...

And all that, Anakin had thought meant something was wrong with him. He never thought that maybe it was something Obi-Wan was doing wrong, and Padme reassured him of that – that nothing his master did was wrong, even if Palpatine often made him question that, because the Chancellor was always so kind and made him feel worth something when his own master never did –

"You have an immense heart. Don't let the Jedi take it from you."

"This is about Obi-Wan, isn't it? You're afraid that I'll criticize you?"

"I'm not afraid. Jedi don't fear."

Except just like him, Anakin can sense her anger overwriting her fear. "Then why are you lying?"

"I'm not!"

He has no idea what to do. He's dealt with Ahsoka's occasional temper tantrums before, but this time, he simply doesn't have the energy to. He has hardly had the energy to keep fighting as it is. Something is wrong with him, and he loathes how he can't even make it to helping his own padawan. "We all struggle with fear, Ahsoka. It's natural. The trick is moving past it."

All he can do is leave it at that, leave the conversation there and go back, even as his mind can still see Ahsoka struggling to counter the droids, can see her falling and dying like so many people he's cared for.

"He was like that to me, too," Anakin confesses quietly, and he hates how it feels like he's betraying his master by admitting it. "He always made me feel unworthy. He's not doing it intentionally. It's just..." Why did he do this? "I thought by letting him train you, it could help you. I was wrong."

"What's the problem?" she demands, aggravated, "I don't even know what you're upset about!"

"You nearly died, Ahsoka!" he bursts out. "You could have, if – if I hadn't come." And I would've held you like I did my mother, knowing I failed you, that I will always fail, that I – with a start, he remembers what Sidious promised him, that the Dark brings the power to save life, and the realization that he would do that for Ahsoka without a second thought if he had to chills him to the core. This is what he was afraid of before, and he pushed her on to learn faster, but he doesn't have the same control now that he did then, and he's... afraid to, but there's no other choice. Not anymore. Why did it take her nearly dying for him to realize that?

"No, I wouldn't have," she insists, glumly, "I would have been fine."

Ahsoka used to hate it when he hovered over her, too. He always tried not to. He hates upsetting her. Somehow, he does it more often than not. Is that how Obi-Wan feels?

"This is about life and death, Ahsoka," he says, turning away. Wishing... something. He just wants to sleep. "It is about your life, and I do not wish to risk it."

"Alright," she answers, a bit dejectedly, and Anakin loathes himself even more for seeing how upset she is.

"It's alright," he tries reassuring, "You did well. It was a trap, but we made it out." Why does it feel like that's all he can say?

And mostly, now that this is over, he can only think back to what he's afraid of. He thought by giving her to Obi-Wan, it would help her, but why does it seem like it's only hurt her? Obi-Wan is good. Light. So why...?

Something isn't adding up, because Obi-Wan would never do something willingly to hurt them, so he can't understand.

But he's hurting Ahsoka, and Anakin cannot ignore that. Anakin always thought that everything Obi-Wan did to him, no matter how much it hurt, only hurt because... because there was something wrong with Anakin himself, which everyone already knows. Now that he sees the same problems on Ahsoka, the same things that happened to him, he's confused. Very confused.

Ahsoka is pure and light and good, and she's not... a failure like he is, so why is she having the exact same problem?

He should address it with Obi-Wan. He just... has no idea how.

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