Mara had spent the last few years tracking the Emperor's enemies down to every corner of the galaxy. There were times when she had a full dossier of information on them, and others when she knew relatively little. While one was often easier - unless the intel was incorrect like it had been with Visra - she had picked up enough useful tricks that finding a single teenager when she knew what planet and what city to look into should have been a simple task. Add to that that she knew her mark as well as she did, and the fact that she kept turning up empty was not a good sign.
Her first stop was the base. She checked in with Lieutenant List - the incompetently ambitious officer that Agent Kallus had made Mara's laissant and that Luke clearly had access to - to verify his or his men's last known sighting of the infamous Lord Natus. The lieutenant had partial and outdated intel that he stumbled through, clearly without an understanding of how a Force-sensitive individual might use meditation to find someone they were looking for. Patience had never been Luke's strong suit, though, so the fact that both his quarters and the space he and his father had been provided for their investigation were empty meant that he'd given up on that particular angle.
Next she found a guard on the base that had confirmed that he'd seen Luke leave and Mara wasted the next hour looking for him in town, the knot in her gut simultaneously growing and tightening with each passing moment. She was wasting time. If he'd been taken - something that she hadn't really thought was possible, even she had known that there would be less trouble if he knew someone was going to try something stupid - then her loose-lipped source was right. Visra and his little band of would-be rebels had found someone with talent to back financially. Now that someone had Luke.
Might have Luke. Mara stopped in the middle of the darkened street, forcing her raging thoughts into order. She didn't have any hard proof yet. She closed her eyes, did her best to clear her mind and ease her breathing, and reached…. The Emperor was the only person she'd ever been able to hear from anywhere in the galaxy, but if there was ever going to be an exception to that, it was going to be Luke.
She pictured him. From his darkening blond hair to those bright blue eyes to his smile that he'd never known had lifted her spirits as children. She focused on what his voice sounded like, the phrasings he used when he spoke, and she could almost feel his fingers against her wrist. Mara? It was his voice, but with none of the confidence that had underlined it since he'd made his way out into the galaxy.
Her eyes snapped open and she found herself in the street alone. He had been taken, but she didn't have any idea where, and she didn't have time to figure out if her limited skills in that particular arena could find him.
Mara took off in a sprint, barely stopping at the entrance to the base to show credentials and then moving as quickly as she dared to without drawing attention to the same wing that Vader was supposedly meditating in. She made it to the outer security and skipped past it and in, the Force doing the heavy lifting for her. The second set wouldn't have been nearly as easy for anyone else, but the Red Guards that traveled with Vader took orders from the Emperor above Vader - not that anyone had alerted him to that or he probably would have tossed them out the airlock the first chance he had - which meant that they allowed entrance to the Emperor's Hand, supposedly on her Master's orders.
She was escorted into the inner room, the Red Guard moving to the controls of a bacta tank. A man floated inside. Well, half a man. He was missing all four limbs, only stumps remaining in their place. His skin was ashen as if it hadn't seen any sunlight - natural or otherwise- in years, the scars leaving deep grooves in the sickly pale skin. Pieces of equipment were implanted into his chest and his throat, lights flashing, and as the bacta stirred around him, gold eyes flashing open.
Mara hadn't realized she was staring until that moment, nor had her brain really connected this damaged creature to the powerful Darth Vader until she was driven back by the Force, slamming her into the far wall hard enough that she saw dark spots dancing against her vision. She was lifted then - all by a man hanging by a harness in a bacta tank - and she felt an invisible hand close around her throat. She struggled not to fight it, instead focusing everything she had into a single name. "Natus," she choked out and the hold on her throat released, even if the grip holding her suspended in the air did not.
She watched from where she remained suspended as Vader was lifted from the tank by the harness, the breathing mask coming with him. As the liquid pooled on the permasteele below, Mara could see that the small groves in his skin weren't a trick played by air bubbles, but even further scarring. Burns, she thought. It was like he'd been burned alive. No wonder he lived in that suit. It must have been what was keeping him alive.
Green eyes followed as the harness eased him down, a medical droid moving into her line of vision to take hold and guide him to where what looked like only the torso of his suit waited for him. She watched as the droid eased him into it and then back onto a waiting table. With no warning the Force hold on her released with his distraction and she dropped unceremoniously to the floor. She could leave. Any sane person would have, but instead she continued to watch as four other droids joined, each with a mechanical limb in hand and they moved to the stumps all at once. Mara had her footing now, but nearly lost it with the onslaught of anguish that followed the reattachment of those nerves to a fully conscious patient. Finally, the helmet was put into place, shielding those terrifying Sith-gold eyes from her.
Then, all at once, the Red Guard that had escorted her in and had begun the extraction procedure fell dead, his head turned at an awkward angle. Those blacked out lenses of Vader's mask turned towards her. "Jade," he snarled, "what of my son?"
Mara swallowed hard, not used to having to steel her nerve like this. This was about Luke, and Luke was convinced his father loved him. Time to test that theory. "Natus has -" She cleared her throat hard, fingers going to it.
"Out with it," Vader growled.
She turned a hard glare on him, refusing to be intimidated. "Natus has been taken."
She couldn't see his ashy, scarred face, but she could imagine the look as fury leapt through the air like electricity.
—
He hated waking up after getting slammed by stun weapons. It had been a while since the 501st had been able to take him down quite that hard, and with the way his head was aching, they must have had to hit him several times.
Luke groaned as he forced his eyes open, but it wasn't the Executioner that came into slow and painful focus. Instead he was on the floor of what looked like a cleared out storage room. Right. He wasn't on his father's flagship and maybe not even on Lothal. The rebels they'd been chasing hadn't gotten the jump on him in the streets and they must have been the ones that brought him there. Well, he couldn't risk them gaining any more momentum. He rolled to his side, every muscle protesting the movement and made it to his knees. Slowly, intentionally, he got one foot under him and leveraged himself to stand, even if a little unsteadily.
One breath in, another out. He repeated the motion again and again, drawing on the Force until his head cleared and he was left standing in the center of the small room. He let his eyes remain closed even as he felt a presence approach the other side of the door. They must have been watching him. Fine. It wouldn't do them any good.
The door opened and Luke flashed into action. They'd taken his lightsaber, but they couldn't take his ability to use the Force. He lashed out at the Togruta woman who entered, fingers outstretched and the Force wrapping around her. She looked entirely unbothered by it, and it took only a fraction of a moment to see why as she managed to break his hold on her. He'd never seen anyone do that before.
Kanan Jarrus and Ezra Bridger came flying into the room even as Luke was pushed back and the teen felt power build with the anger inside of him. He lifted them both in the air, both squirming and unable to pull the stunt the woman just had. She was the real threat. He turned, ready to use them in his attack against her.
But she stood with her hand outstretched in a calming motion. "We're not here to hurt you, Luke."
It was like someone had dumped a bucket of ice water on his fury, replacing it with fear. "How do you know that name?"
"I knew your mother," she said quietly. "And your father. Anakin Skywalker."
Luke remained frozen where he was, Jedi Master and Apprentice still suspended midair with their boots dangling off the floor. His eyes were fixed on the Togruta woman though, the two Jedi fading back into the corner of his consciousness. "Give me one reason why I shouldn't kill you all."
"My name is Ahsoka Tano. Anakin was my Master during the Clone Wars."
The words slammed into him harder than any attack could have. He stared at her, taking in every physical detail and letting the Force drift out for the ones he couldn't see. Every syllable felt true, which was impossible. Father would have told him. Father wouldn't have….
"He was protecting you," Luke managed, tasting the words as they left his tongue to see if they felt right. He was such a tangled ball of emotions that he couldn't tell.
"Could you put them down?" Tano asked, motioning to Jarrus and Bridger. "They'll leave. This conversation belongs between you and me."
Luke didn't budge and Tano offered him a small smile that looked a little sad. "I promise, no one will hurt you here. We'll talk, then you're free to leave."
Slowly, Luke released the two. They didn't move immediately, but at Tano's look they finally turned. Jarrus paused, every muscle tense as he spoke. "We'll be right outside." Even though it looked like he was directing the words at Tano, Luke knew better. It was a warning for him.
The door slid closed behind them and he found Tano staring at him, her expression strangely shattered as if somewhere in the silence of their leaving she'd received the worst news of her life. Or, perhaps, she'd just let her guards fall. Whatever it was, Luke had to struggle not to squirm under her gaze. "What?"
"You look so much like him," she answered softly. "Younger than I knew him, but it's in the eyes."
Luke bristled a little. "My father has gold eyes."
"He didn't always." She pulled in a deep breath, letting it flow back out through her nose. "You asked if he was protecting me by not telling you about me." She waited until he gave a small nod of confirmation behind the meaning of his half vocalized thought a few moments before. "I'd like to hope so, but your father probably doesn't even know that I'm alive. We were on two separate missions when the…. when it happened. The cruiser I was on crashed with only a couple survivors. I… I knew something terrible had happened to him during that time, but I thought he'd been killed at the temple with the others."
Luke felt a flicker of irritation at the story Palpatine had allowed to surface about the fate of Anakin Skywalker. "He didn't die with those traitors."
Tano blinked at him, surprise melting into something that looked like pity after a moment. He squared his shoulders at the expression and she offered a smile before sinking to the floor, sitting cross legged and looking up at him. "What do you think happened, Luke? What were you told?"
A lifetime of warnings against anyone knowing who they were swirled in his mind. It was dangerous. If the galaxy knew Anakin Skywalker had survived, it would put his father in danger. Not that anyone had explicitly told him why. He had assumed it was because they would think he was a traitor like the rest of the Jedi Council. Better to be Vader than Skywalker after the fall.
But Tano already knew who he was, and despite being a Jedi herself, he couldn't feel any ill will towards him or his father. There was only affection and sadness and guilt.
"There's an old Jedi saying: The choices of one shapes the future of all," she said after a long moment. "I left him. I wanted to help a friend, so I left him when he needed me most. I've turned it over in my head for fifteen years. What if I'd made a different choice? What if I'd chosen to stand by him and fight by him and…" She closed her eyes, the guilt rolling off of her in waves.
Luke took a hesitant seat, mirroring her posture. "The Jedi betrayed the Republic," he said quietly, "and they betrayed him. One of them tried to kill him. He left him for dead and stole me."
"Who?"
"Obi-Wan."
Surprise flickered through her blue gaze. "Obi-Wan loved your father. He was his Master. He would never —"
"But he did," Luke bit out. "I've seen the scars. He left him to burn alive on Mustafar."
She pursed her lips, seeming to take the information in. Her silence felt like an unnatural weight and Luke squirmed a little under it, a question leaving him without permission. "What was he like? Back then?"
Tano's mood lifted a fraction. "Kind. And brave. Determined and absolutely devoted to the people he loved. I saw him risk everything again and again for what he believed was right." A soft smile touched her lips. "He called me Snips and he pushed me to be my absolute best. He's the reason I survived Order 66. I couldn't have done it without his training. Without him." Her gaze met his. "When I found out he was alive and that you had survived, I knew I had to meet you. I knew I couldn't abandon either of you again."
"You didn't know," Luke found himself saying softly.
"But I do now, and I want to help."
The teen's head snapped up at that. "Help? You want to leave the rebellion?"
"I won't join the Empire. Not after what they did. The Emperor is… he was always whispering in Anakin's ear, always influencing where he could. None of us saw it, and that's our fault. He was right in front of us and we missed him."
"If you're not joining us, what then? You can't help us."
"Are you happy, Luke?"
"That's a weird question."
"Is it? Does no one ask you that?"
"No."
"Are you?"
He thought for a long moment. He had his father, he had Mara, and he was on his way to becoming one of the most powerful beings in the galaxy, even if it was at the whim of someone else.
Tano gave a small shiver. "Do you know why the choices of one person can shape others' future? Each choice ripples out into the galaxy. Your father made a choice. I don't know why he chose to follow Palpatine, but he can make a new choice now."
Luke felt irritation bubbling up inside. "Do you think we could just leave, even if we wanted to?"
"Do you want to?"
"No," he answered automatically, but she didn't look convinced. He stood. "You said I could leave once we'd talked. We've talked."
Tano unfolded herself with less haste. "Of course." She rapped the door and it slid open to show what appeared to be an abandoned warehouse, the rebels he'd been hunting standing to the side. He started past her and she touched his arm. "I know you feel trapped. Maybe your father feels the same way. If you believe it's right, tell him… tell him I haven't given up on him. That I won't abandon him again. All he has to do is name the place and I'll be there. I'll get you both out."
Luke swallowed down the response, but if it was a promise or a curse, even he didn't know. All he knew for sure was that he had to get out of there.
—-
He had been dreaming when Jade had arrived, Padme's laugh filling his mind as they stood in the gardens of the Jedi Temple, a much younger Luke giggling and chasing Ahsoka around the Great Tree. She had stopped, spinning around and catching him, only intensifying the laughter. He'd looked so happy, but something dark had welled up in the boy's father's mind as he watched, despite the light that surrounded him, and the overwhelming feeling that his boy was slipping away had taken hold with it.
And now he knew why. He couldn't say why his old Padawan - long since dead from the Order his Master had set forth - was the face of the danger, but the mind often played strange tricks in sleep. What mattered was finding his son.
Jade had sparse useful information. A link to the money funding whoever had taken Luke, and even that she was hesitant to give up lest she reveal her hand and compromise her mark. Clearly she'd hoped that Vader could pick up on Luke's location like a tracker one might latch onto a ship. And perhaps he might have, but something was blocking him. Luke's presence was muddled. Quieted. It was as if something or someone was blocking them from that connection. All he knew for now was that he was alive, but even that could change quickly. That left Jade's local idiot that held vital information as their best resource.
"I'm responsible for the answers here," the teenager told him with more confidence than she'd earned.
"Your assignment matters little against finding my son."
There was a spark in her eyes. "You think I don't want to find him? If our Master finds that we threw away information on the rebellion for Natus, what do you think is going to happen?"
Vader held her gaze from behind the lenses of his mask, her logic infuriating, but also correct. Was he not always warning his son of being conscientious of the precarious place they held within the Empire under Palpatine? Clearly Jade was aware of it to, though anyone working directly under the Emperor was.
Jade pushed a breath out through her nose. "We'll get answers, but I'll bring him to you. If you show up at his door, everyone on the planet will know."
There was a long moment before Vader conceded. "Bring him to me."
The boy - Aurous, she called him - followed Jade to him like a pup on a leash. Jade played her part, all her well honed skills in emotional manipulation put to use. Skills he knew that she had and would continue using on his son. He shook the thought free as best as he could. Everyone had their own agenda, but she had brought this to him and he sensed she was willing to do what she needed to in order to find Luke.
Aurous rounded the corner and came to an immediate stop. Eyes wide and fear flowing off of him in waves that could have rivaled Kanino's, he tried with all of his might to scramble back the way he'd come. Jade blocked his exit. "Cooperate, and we won't hurt you."
"She won't," Vader boomed, his mask amplifying his voice as he took a heavy step forward.
He turned, expecting to blow through the petite woman, but she went low, blocking him with an elbow to the gut and a sweep to the ankles. He went down hard and she had already popped back up, one boot pressed firmly on his chest. "Who did Visra pay to take Natus?" Aurous jolted, trying to knock her off balance, and she shifted her boot to his throat, ready to apply pressure if he so much as twitched the wrong way. "That was a mistake," she told him coldly. "I'll give you one more chance. Tha name, the location. I want it."
"You work with them," the boy managed. "Why would I tell you?"
"Because death comes in many forms," Vader warned, "and I will have you screaming for it if you do not."
Aurous gave a nervous little laugh. "He'll be dead long before you find him. She's a Jedi. Even you can't stop her."
Vader crossed the space between them, his hand outstretched and Jade stepped back as he used the Force to haul him off the ground. "I am death to the Jedi." The boy went rigid as Vader reached deep with the Force, feeling Jade's disapproval on the outskirts of his awareness, but to her credit she kept her mouth shut. He dug and dug, working his way through Aurous' feeble attempts to think of anything else. He saw several young people - likely the ones funding the attack - speaking into a holocomm, but instead of a face visible in the projection there was a symbol. A symbol that looked remarkably like markings on a face he'd tried to push out of his mind for years. The same face that had filled his dreams that very night.
Aurous collapsed and Vader found himself in the back alley, Jade staring at him expectantly, her lips moving in a question he only heard the last of. "….apprentice?"
"What?" His voice modulator hiding the raspiness he felt behind the words.
"You said 'the apprentice lives.' Who is that?"
"No one that concerns you." He started past her. "He is yours to do with what you will. I have what I need."
"Like hells!" she snapped. "I'm coming with you."
"You have served your purpose."
"My purpose is to make sure we find him," she growled. "I'm not leaving him in the hands of whoever this is. You want to keep your secrets, fine. Keep them. They don't matter to me. Luke does."
She seemed to realize the slip in name the moment Vader connected that his son had told her. He felt the rage - the fear - well up inside of him and, even without lifting a finger, the Force closed around her throat with his command. She struggled and choked, but even then her glare was defiant.
And then her gaze shifted behind him and he heard "Father!" from that direction.
Vader turned, Luke's voice causing him to drop Jade. His son stood in the alley, a little disheveled and exhaustion hung off of him like a wet cloak. He gave a weary sigh. "I'd appreciate it if you didn't kill my friend. We have a lot to discuss."
—-
He felt like he was walking through a thick fog, his mind flipping through everything that had happened and everything that might as he walked through the night's events with his father. He listened, the mask hiding any visual emotion and Luke didn't have the energy to push against his father's mental barriers. There were no clarifying questions, and as far as Luke could tell his father recognized the Togruta woman's name.
When he'd finished, they stood in the private room inside the base. The silence was heavy between them. Mara had begrudgingly taken her mark into interrogation to see if she could pick anything useful up off of him after Darth Vader had left him unconscious on the floor of the alley. It was just Luke, his father, and an offer he'd relayed from his father's former Padawan. Finally, the silence became unbearable. "What do you want to do?"
There was a strange flicker in the Force around him, as if he were hardening his resolve. "If Skywalker's apprentice wants to meet, then I will go."
Tired as he was, it would have been impossible to miss the way he distanced himself from the situation. Luke had heard Palpatine refer to his father's true name as if he were an entirely different person, but in the decade he'd spent with his father he had never heard him choose that. Anakin Skywalker was Luke Skywalker's father, even if he were tucked away in a suite and behind a mask. To deny being Anakin Skywalker would be to deny being Luke's father. But this woman was Skywalker's apprentice, not his old Padawan. It was as if he weren't willing to claim her. As if it might be more than he could handle.
"You don't have to," Luke said quietly. "Go, I mean. She just wanted to talk. I didn't feel any ill will towards me or even towards you. She wanted….to give us a choice, I think."
"She is determined, and the choice you speak of is not one we can make."
"But won't we?" His father turned towards him and Luke could feel gold eyes staring at him from behind his mask's lenses. Or maybe they were blue. He wondered if they ever flickered back to their natural colour or if they remained Sith-gold. He shook the useless thought off. "Someday Palpatine will make us choose. We either end his life or he forces one of us to end the other."
"That time is not now. You are not ready."
Luke tried not to feel the pang of disappointment at his father's lack of faith in him. "Okay. If that's true, would it hurt to have allies that hate him? It doesn't have to be now. It could be a year from now. Ten years. But when we're ready, I feel she'd make a powerful ally."
There was a long stretch of silence that was filled only by his father's breathing. "When Jade is finished with her rebel, he will take the message to the Apprentice. I will meet with her." He turned to leave.
"Father." Luke waited until his father had stopped, though his back was still turned to him. "Promise me something if you must go: speak with her. Hear what she has to say. I can't shake the feeling that if you kill her, you'll never forgive yourself." Father had never lied to him. If he said he would, he would.
There was a harsh exhale of breath from the black mask and his father gave a sharp nod of agreement before turning to leave. Luke remained there for a long moment, turning the situation over in his mind and wondering if this might be the path to freedom.
When they had let Luke go, Ahsoka had resigned herself to the possibility of never hearing from him again… or from his father. The fact that Anakin was alive was still almost more than she could wrap her mind around. Even more so that he'd become Vader. She understood why Bail had kept the secret so close to his heart - both that son and father had lived - and she felt the same weight of responsibility pressing down on her. Even after the questions from both the Ghost crew and eventually from Commander Sato when an encrypted message came through that gave her coordinates where to meet. The name had been left off and she'd brushed it off as a vetted source. It wasn't a complete lie. Who else but Anakin would have her meet him on Mustafar where Obi-Wan had supposedly left him to burn to death?
Between the nuggets of information Luke had provided - much of it heavily skewed by the source, she imagined - and Bail's information from Obi-Wan himself, Ahsoka thought she had something of any idea what had happened, just not what had sparked it all off. Anakin had always been hotheaded, often at just the wrong times for the Order's liking, but the idea that he would have betrayed everything and everyone he cared about to follow Palpatine into the darkness didn't make sense. There was still a piece missing, and if nothing else, perhaps he could provide that to her. Though she couldn't help but hope that maybe he'd leave the Empire behind.
She had thought about tracking down Rex in his self-imposed retirement to ask him to act as backup. They had both been successful in talking clones down from the inhibitor chip programming and while the Dark Side was perhaps a bit more complicated, it still felt like brainwashing. A sickness that worked its way into the psyche and ate away at a person's logic and will until they bent the knee to Palpatine's demands. For all the times that they'd saved him, it was the former chancellor-turned-emperor that had caused the death and destruction of so many, many people she'd loved. If she weren't careful, she might find herself in a compromised as well.
In the end Ahsoka had gone alone. If things went poorly, Hera had the coordinates of Rex and the others' last known location and Kanan had been left with the promise of trust me in hopes that it could override the childhood trauma of Order 66 even if she couldn't be there with him to guide him through. She had to trust them - and the Force - that if Anakin was beyond her reach that they would carry on the fight. She couldn't leave him again. Not when he'd reached out. Not when there was hope.
She touched the shuttle down at the planetary coordinates that had been relayed to her and took a breath that didn't work to steady her at all. She felt like a bundle of nerves and guilt. She had to move past her emotions, though. That's what her Master had taught her.
He was waiting for her when the ramp unfolded out of the back of the shuttle. A towering figure in all black, face hidden behind a helmet and a control panel on his chest that indicated that it was the suit that was pushing air in and out of his lungs. The hot wind that blew off of the sea of lava behind him kicked up, whipping his black cape around. She steeled herself as she walked forward. "Anakin."
"Anakin Skywalker is dead," he boomed, his voice sounding nothing like she remembered, and the words sent a chill through her. What if Luke were wrong? What if Vader had lied to him his whole life, kept him near to corrupt him by telling him he was his father?
Fewer bonds were as strong as one formed between Master and Padawan. If this was Anakin, she should be able to tell. With another breath, Ahsoka reached out with the Force. For a moment, she felt a flicker of familiarity, even if it was beaten down by and buried under fear and anger and self-loathing. As her blue eyes slid open again, she knew. Not only who he was, but why he denied it. "I'm not a threat to you. Whatever happened, whatever… went down between you and Obi-Wan—" she felt the simmering rage spike at the name — "I'm not here to hurt you. I want to help you. You and Luke."
Power slammed into her, forcing her back. "You will not speak his name."
Ahsoka widened her stance, bracing herself. "I can't imagine what you must feel like you have to do to protect him in all of this, but Anakin…. Palpatine isn't the answer. You have to know that. We thought the Clone War destroyed lives, but Palpatine's empire has spread more destruction, more destitution than the war ever did. He's using you both for that, and that's not you."
"You should have remained dead," Anakin said, his voice sharp and cold, though she could feel the raging emotions.
"How could I with him using you like he is? I don't know what drove you to him, but it's not too late to make a different choice. For you and Luke." She took a careful step forward. "Think about what Padme would have wanted for your child."
Any crack in his emotional guards was instantly sealed at her name and it was all the warning Ahsoka had before his lightsaber flashed to life in his hand, a red blade rather than blue crashing down against her own white blades that reflexively crossed in front of her in a defensive position. She shoved him back hard, using the Force to send him skidding a few more feet. "I didn't come here to fight you!"
"Then you will die," he answered and lunged again.
Where Anakin's style had been quick and light, Vader's was heavy and powerful. Ahsoka felt her muscles strain as she parried, weaving and bobbing and eventually putting distance as she leapt into the air, barely clearing his swiping blade as she sumersalted over him. "At least tell me what happened!" she snapped as she landed, turning to face him with all the determination that he'd encouraged in her growing up. "If you're going to try to kill me, at least explain how it came this."
She caught his blade with hers and pivoted around, ducking another swipe, and she heard him push a harsh breath out through his mask. "You see destruction where I see order."
"With no free will. That's not order, Anakin. Palpatine has made slaves of an entire galaxy. You have to see that!"
He gave a sharp cry, the next blow powerful enough to send her stumbling. Her back hit the jagged rocks and everything in her screamed not to flip backwards out of his way as she might have done any other time. She listened to the instinct, rolling instead and getting a foot under her. Somewhere in their battle they'd inched closer to the edge of one of the cliffs, and if she'd rolled back instead of to the side, it could have easily put her over the edge.
The red blade swung out and Ahsoka leaned back heavily, her wide stance keeping her stable even as she bent backwards at a ninety degree angle. The hum of the blade buzzed in her ears and she popped back up only to duck low and catch him hard in the right shoulder with the hilt of one of her own weapons. Well, despite the rumours, he wasn't entirely machine. It was good to know that, even if only physically, there was a little left of her old Master.
Anakin snarled at the bluntforce blow and as he swung around to deal her one of the same - his with an arm she knew was made of heavy metal under the glove - and she jumped up, flicking her lightsabers off so that she could use his arm as a brace to gain the leverage she need to vault up, gaining higher ground. She stood on the jagged edge of the cliff and looked down on him, her own lightsabers still quiet at her side and her mind spinning until it came into sharp focus on a memory. "You saved my life, you know. All those years of training with Rex and the 501st. When Order 66 was enacted, it was your training that saved me because you demanded the most out of the people you cared about. Because my life was in your hands. No one else knows about Luke." A small lie, but one that needed to be told to save Bail. "I'm not going to hurt him. Or you. I am not your enemy."
Instead of lunging at her with all the rage he'd been fighting with, Anakin stopped. She did everything she could to quiet her own mind so that she could catch glimpses of the raw, pained emotions that were seeping through the cracks of his mental barriers. He turned and the light caught his mask's lenses at just the right angle so that she could see through them. He watched her, and while there was no physical change in his stance, she could have sworn his eyes had shifted to the old, familiar blue. "No," he breathed out the acknowledgement.
Ahsoka loosed a breath of her own, hope creeping back in.
"The Hand knows," he said, "and as long as I let you live, that puts my son at risk."
And with a flicker of his hand, hope flashed out of existence. Her mentor, her friend, her brother reached out with the Force and flung her from her perch, sending her over the edge of the cliff and towards the lava below.
Mara found him on the roof of the base, and for just a moment it felt like they were ten years old again, hiding out on the Palace's landing pad, Coruscant stretching out below them. But this wasn't Coruscant and there was no hiding from what had happened. By using her contact as she had, she had burned the bridge to Visra without gathering the information she had needed and it was only a matter of time before that became abundantly clear. And if he didn't know already, it wouldn't be long until the Emperor discovered that it had been to save Luke. She had tried to walk that line between the assignment and protecting her friend and by failing one, there was a chance she'd failed both. Only time would tell how the Emperor reacted.
There was an air of sadness that hung on him since his father left, something like guilt following at his heels as he moved. If it was because his capture had disrupted so much or something else entirely, Mara had no way to know. Since Vader had left the planet, Luke had tucked himself away with little interest in anything else.
Until now.
The moons were rising over the horizon and he must have felt her approach, even if he didn't move. Mara eased herself over the lip of the wall surrounding the roof and took a seat with him, both gazing out into the distance. In the silence, it was harder to clamp down on all the questions she had.
"I can't promise you an answer, but I can promise not to lie," he offered without breaking his focus.
Mara swallowed hard, sorting through the long list. "Why did they let you go?"
"To deliver a message."
"Which was?"
Luke's chin dropped against his chest. "I can't tell you that. All I can say is that Father is…. dealing with it."
"He knows the person who took you." That gained her a sideways glance. "He called them the Apprentice."
"That's not a question."
Something in her screamed not to ask, but the investigator in her needed the answer. "Who is it?"
Blue eyes turned back to the horizon. For a moment she thought he was thinking it through and searching for the right words, but as seconds turned to minutes, it became clearer and clearer he simply wasn't going to answer.
"Okay. Do you know?" she ventured.
There was another long moment before he loosed a breath. "I know what I was told, but…. We're never told everything, are we?"
"What do you mean?"
"Sometimes I feel like there are these huge gaps… Like I'm still that sheltered kid that only knows what he's told about the outside world. They're stories that could be true or not, but even after leaving the Palace, I don't know if I know what's true."
His shoulders slumped a bit more and Mara frowned. Despite everything - his training and the life he lived - there was still a light to him. Not everyone was allowed to see it, but it was there. He couldn't and didn't hide it from her. To hear him sound so lost in that moment, so uncertain, hurt. "I don't know who I am," she confessed softly, her own carefully guarded truth the only comfort she had to offer. "I can't remember my parents' faces anymore or much about my childhood. I couldn't tell you when I came to live at the Palace, but…" She reached out slowly, her palm covering his hand that was braced against the permacrete of the roof wall. He turned to look at her again. "But I do remember meeting you."
He stared at her for a moment, a sense of awe battling for a prominent position in the raging emotions he was projecting out without care. Then, without warning, he leaned in, his lips pressed against hers. The kiss was quick, but it sent a warmth flushing through her system. As he started to pull back, Mara reached up with her free hand, fingers curled around the back of his neck and she pulled him in again. He melted into her and she could have sworn time stood still.
A sharp coldness cut through the air and they flew apart to see that they were no longer alone on the rooftop. How Darth Vader of all people had managed to quietly sneak up on them was anybody's best guess, but there he was, and if an emotionless mask could look unhappy, his did.
"Father," Luke managed, swinging his legs around to stand. Mara followed suit, not wanting to give Vader the chance to accidentally toss her off the roof to her death below.
Vader's attention turned to Mara. "Your assignment is complete. Visra funded a rebel named Ahsoka Tano and now she is dead."
A strange twinge of sadness flickered from Luke before he caught it, but his father turned to him. "She lied to you, my son. Like her Master's Master before her, she attempted to kill me. In the same way, she met her end."
The Apprentice. A Jedi's Padawan. Perhaps someone that Vader had killed. That made more sense. Not why he was holding it all so close, but another dead Jedi in his wake was nothing unusual.
Vader turned, growling out a harsh "Come," to his son with the expectation the order would be obeyed even before he started walking.
Mara turned back to Luke, his expression strained. "What?"
"Like I said: sometimes it's hard to know what is true." He tried for a smile. "But you are."
He turned before she could answer, following after Vader. Things were set right and for the moment they were safe from her Master's wrath, but that didn't help ease the pain of him leaving again.
"And you," Mara answered softly to the empty rooftop, but it was Luke. He had a way of knowing.
TBC
Notes: Look at awkward teen Luke finally making a move! Why not add a romantic entanglement on top of all of the other chaos in their lives now?
Originally the last chapter and this one were supposed to be one, but I'm glad I decided to split them because this one turned out to be over 7K long. Go figure. Hopefully there are no complaints. Writing the Vader vs Ahsoka scene from Ahsoka's POV was also not something I'd planned on and I'll just be over here crying in the corner for a while now.
I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas this coming weekend and a fantastic New Years the next if I don't chat with you before then!
Next Time: Luke and Vader's assignment takes them to Alderaan.