Chapter 3 - Realization
Ahsoka hasn't been this bored in a long time. She doesn't have anything to do in here and she doesn't think venturing out is a good idea. And now that Anakin is gone, she has no idea when he's going to be back. She misses having him at her side already.
She just –
Still has no idea how to wrap her mind around the fact that he's dead. Even if he's still here. There has to be some way that they can break what Sidious did to him, right? But she has no idea, and nor does she know if... doing so would mean that he'd really, truly be dead. She can't imagine that. She can't. But – this is no way to live. For Anakin or... anyone in the galaxy.
She has no idea what Sidious is having him do for the Empire. She's not sure she wants the answer.
All she knows is that she just – wants the past back. She hated the war so much but now it's – She misses those days so much, she wishes she appreciated them more before they were lost, along with everyone she once knew.
She spends most of the time alternating between resting and drawing shapes on the ceiling with her eyes to cure her boredom. She has no idea why she's so exhausted, though. She just felt so cold suddenly and she can't stop shivering even though her head is burning and even the blanket isn't helping much. In the past hours it's started to fade out again but... Maybe it's just the electrocution after-effects. That tends to happen.
Temperature fluctuations or something. That happened to Anakin a lot after torture.
It's probably been close to a day when she senses a sudden change in the Force and Anakin floats through the door again.
That icy chilling sensation fills the air again as he enters, the way it always does.
The cold seems to settle deep inside of her again, sending another wave of exhaustion through her, She hates how the Force and he himself are cold now instead of a burning warmth like they used to be. She doesn't want to mention it, though. Doesn't want to – make him feel worse than she already does.
"Are you okay?" Ahsoka asks, eyeing him as she sits up, but keeps the blanket around her shoulders, trying to chase the cold away.
"Yes."
The reply is flat and empty.
He's definitely not alright.
"Do... you know what happened to Plo?" she asks hesitantly.
Anakin stills. "I do not. But... there has never been word of his survival."
Ahsoka swallows hard past the wild rush of grief that floods her. It's expected, of course. She doubts any of the ones she used to know survived. She hasn't run into any survivors yet. But that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt. She never got to see him again, that day she left the Order. Never even said another word to him.
He turned his back on her, yes, but – Now she'll never get a chance to make up with him or for him to say anything more to her.
"Sorry we are, little Soka. The Council was wrong to suspect you."
It's the last thing she'll ever hear him say.
She'd ask about Obi-Wan, but well –
He's the one who killed Anakin. And that's not something she can ever forget or forgive. She doesn't know how it happened or anything but she truthfully doesn't want to. She's so angry even if she expects it was defending the Jedi.
She still can't believe Anakin turned on them, even if... some of his reasoning was understandable. And it wasn't all his choice. Sidious manipulated him. And he still is. And – this isn't something Ahsoka knows how to break. How does anyone break this kind of unnatural force connection that shouldn't even exist?
"Where have you been all this time?" Anakin asks finally.
"After the cruiser crashed, I... didn't want to fight anymore," she responds, thinking back to that moment, as she stood by the grave of one third of the 501st. "Rex didn't want to stop. He left to fight and free his brothers and I went back to Coruscant. I had some friends in the underworld who I had to say goodbye too."
"You were not all alone, then, after you left the Order," he realizes, and he sounds relieved.
She shakes her head. "I can tell you more about them sometime, but... While I was there, I went looking for Senator Amidala in the hopes she knew what happened to you. But all I heard was that she was gone too."
She didn't know it was possible for a spirit to flinch but Anakin does. The room is suddenly flooded with a wild storm of guilt and anger and betrayal, strong enough to take her breath away.
"What... happened?" she asks hesitantly.
"It does not matter." He doesn't want to talk about it and he hasn't sounded this short since they first started talking.
It only makes her want to know even more but she doesn't press. "After that I went into hiding on a farming planet. Worked there with the others and tried to blend in. But... I couldn't do it forever. I used the Force to save someone's life and the wrong person saw. The Empire came in and burned the town to the ground. I killed the inquisitor and helped the survivors off-world." She breathes out heavily the memory of burning village dancing before her eyes, along with the gutting knowledge that this happened because of her, "And I knew I had to fight back against this. I knew there was nowhere else I could hide anyway, that wouldn't endanger those around me." She falls silent, the silence heavy in the room.
The cold is stronger again. She's so tired.
"What about you?" she queries.
"There is little tell that I imagine you want to hear. I have served Sidious all this time."
She bites her lip, frustrating flooding her again. There has to be something they can do. But what?
Another involuntary shiver runs through her and she tugs the blanket closer.
"Are you well?" Anakin inquires, catching the movement.
"I don't know," she grumbles. She hasn't felt this sick in a long time. "I just... It's so cold."
The very air in the room seems to freeze. "Cold?" he repeats, moving closer, "In... the Force too?"
She nods hesitantly. "It's like – I don't know." She doesn't want to say that it's seemed worse since he came back in the room. It's probably just coincidence anyway but she could swear the coldness of the Force is making her feel much worse.
Anakin swears, a string of words in Huttese she heard him use on rare occasion during the war and always told her not to repeat.
"What?"
"It's me. This is because of me. I should have known."
"What's because of you?" Ahsoka demands, confused.
"Your – sickness. It is not because you are ill." He's floating a few feet away from her and he feels panicked and wildly guilty at once. It's overwhelming enough to feel like a storm.
"...What?" She probably sounds about as dumb-founded as she's feeling.
"You must leave. I should have known – You cannot stay with me."
"What are you talking about?!" she half-yells and doesn't even care that she is because what?
"Sidious made it so I survive by sucking out life. I believed I could control it by will but – I was wrong. I cannot. You're sick because I'm killing you, Ahsoka. You need to go. Leave and do not look back, like – like you did before."
What.
He means what he's saying and suddenly she thinks the way he feels like a black hole in the Force makes sense more than she thought. Like it's sucking everything inside and it had seemed even more true in that moment when she'd touched the real him but it had been Anakin, her brother, the first time she touched him in over a year and she hadn't even cared.
She wants to disbelieve what he's saying but she can't.
She feels sick, though.
In more than one way.
He feeds on life.
Sidious forced him to feed on life and he can't make it stop.
No wonder he's so broken.
Kriff.
She will kill Sidious just for this. If this is what Anakin's doomed to live in, then –
She can't let him go. She can't. but doing anything to free him of this is – it's what she ought to do. It's what she's going to do. And she won't accept that it means losing him forever. There has to be – something.
"I'm not leaving you," Ahsoka replies firmly.
"Ahsoka – "
"No!" she yells back, "I lost you once. I'm not leaving again. I can't."
"At least you would be alive." He sounds more lost and broken than anything else now.
"There's another way. There has to be."
"Not one that won't also result in you dead. Padme is gone because of me. I will not have the same be true for you."
What?
Is that – What happened? Definitely a bad time to press.
"If Sidious is doing this to you with holocrons or whatever, then – maybe we destroy them. Or – kill him and take control ourselves. There has to be a way."
"You will die."
"Stop saying that! You don't know – "
"You don't know how powerful he is."
"I'm not going to just not try!" she yells back, "I spent so long without you, Anakin. And thinking you were dead. And it wasn't even worth living." Her voice falls to something as strangled as she feels.
She knows why he wants her to go, though. Forcibly staying, if he's actually draining her life is – It would be the worst thing she could do ever do to him. But she can't accept that there's no other way. She walked away once and the galaxy fell and Anakin died because of it. She won't do that a second time.
She's made enough mistakes she can't undo.
"We can't do this together, Ahsoka," he replies quietly, "Not anymore."
He's too afraid to hope. It rips open the gaping emptiness and helpless desperation in her heart even more. It was never Anakin who was like that once. She can almost see why he says that's not who he is anymore "If – if we can't figure anything out, then I'll go," she forces herself to say, even if feels like it's strangling her, ripping her heart out all over again to say those words and know she needs to carry through with it again if it comes to that, "But only so I can search for a solution elsewhere. But right now, I – I have an idea. Maybe.
"Sidious will sense any attempt to betray him," Anakin warns. "If I think of anything against him, he will know. He may already."
That's – It's unsettling to say the least, but this is the most powerful Sith Lord in Force knows how long. He hidden from all the Jedi, even Master Yoda, for decades.
Still, she has to believe there's at least a chance. Maybe winging her plan itself would be best so he can't sense anything coming. "Could you tell Sidious I want to meet with him?"
She can feel his incredulous stare, even if he doesn't have a face. "Whatever you are planning will not end well, Snips. The worst thing I could do is take you right to him. If you anger him, he will – "
"I'm not planning on it," she promises.
She has no idea what she's thinking. It's a wild, ridiculous plan she thought of almost out of nowhere and it could go terribly, but it's the only thing she can think of. Even if it means the possibility of having to betray everything she believed in. It'll only be for a moment. Not – long. Not permanent. Not...
What is she doing what is she thinking what –
"Please?" she presses, "I don't know what else to do."
Anakin deflates. "Alright."
Now she'll just have to hope this isn't about to backfire terribly on her.
**w**
Ahsoka's beginning to rethink her decision to do this but it's too late to backout. And it's – the only way she knows to possibly get Anakin free. And there's nothing she won't do to succeed at that. Not anymore. She thought he was dead for so long and she won't give up again. This is the last hope for... anything that she has.
She won't think of how this could well end with him dead anyway, if there's no way to reverse whatever Sidious did to him.
The throne room is dark. Darkness never bothers her because she has more night vision than humans do but it's still... unsettling. Maybe it's just the way the Dark Side is suffocating in here. Sidious is sitting on his throne, watching her. His yellow eyes practically glow under his hood and he's surrounded by half a dozen glowing red holocrons – all activated.
This is the man who took Anakin from her. Who ordered her boys against her and it's truly on him that every single one of them died there in that crash. Who destroyed the Jedi, the first real family she ever had, before Anakin and the boys. Who's responsible for Plo's death too.
No, she can't focus on that right now but maybe it would be unrealistic for her not to. He'd definitely know it was forced if he didn't sense her fury right now.
She does a quick threat assessment – there's two guards by the doorway but otherwise she's alone with Anakin and Sidious.
She's almost surprised he agreed to see her but perhaps he was a bit too surprised at the request to refuse. Or he's planning to kill her. Hopefully this isn't the worst mistake she's ever made. She doesn't want to think about what it would do to Anakin, if she died. She's the last person he has. Except maybe Rex but no one has any idea where he is now.
"She is here, Master," Anakin intones, bowing low.
Her anger bristles, sharp and cold at hearing Anakin being forced to address someone like that.
Her own anger seems to make her feel even colder than she already is, though. The cold is eating her inside out.
Anakin's killing her.
If he's right but – he ought to know.
"You asked to speak with me, young Tano?" Sidious inquires, studying her.
The holocrons form a Dark Side barrier around him. She can sense the strength of it. It's – That's why he's safe from getting his energy sucked out.
"Why do you rule the Empire the way you do?" she asks, lifting her gaze to meet his defiantly. Right now, she needs to distract him and stall for time.
"To what do you refer?" he asks and he sound amused.
Anakin twitches. He's scared. She can feel his fear and it makes her sick and angry.
"You have the chance to help the galaxy. To bring justice under a strong Empire and all you do is kill." Obviously she knows he doesn't care about that. He only cares about his own power but she has to start with saying something. Let him think she's a naïve child, the way he always treated her back when he was Chancellor.
"Those who die choose their fate through resistance, as I'm sure you are well aware as a rebel yourself, young Tano."
"The Empire is not what I was raised to believe in but I would still swear loyalty to it as my master has, if it were truly bringing justice," she replies. And she... means that. If it were the only way to have Anakin back. Even if she could never not hate it, for all the blood that it's been built on. But if, to restore the galaxy to Republic, they had to take over and direct the Empire that direction, she'd be willing to help with that, if that's what her master wanted.
"How unfortunate," he murmurs, far too casually, "For your master, that you still refuse to see reason."
"But I'm not," she argues, stubbornly, "I'm just wondering – what are you planning once you dominate the galaxy? What then? When there's no one else you can impose your rule on? What does that even give you?"
His gaze sharpens. "A Sith Empire is the Sith's right which the Jedi long took away."
"Yeah, but what does that give you? More power? Then what?"
"Power is all there is," he replies, something dangerous in his tone as he leans forwards, "I see Lord Vader has not spoken to you of the Sith way. unlike I told him too."
He's trying to turn this around and get Anakin in trouble. It's no wonder her master is so scared of him. It's such a strange thing to see on him, but the more she's around Sidious, the more she's beginning to see why. He treats him like his slave, doesn't he?
"Oh, he did. That's why I have so many questions. Because once you have all the power in the galaxy, then what?"
"There will always be rebellions to put down, those who threaten your power, threaten to take what is rightfully yours."
Honestly, how lame. She wasn't asking any of these questions to be serious but she's beginning to wonder them seriously now.
"And what happens when power is what destroys what was once yours?" That's what the Jedi teach about the Dark Side and she can really see why. It's made Sidious completely lose it.
"Anything else is weakness," Sidious responds curly.
The point was to wing what she does here so she moves without thinking, reaching for the place where she can feel Sidious' lightsaber humming on the arm of his throne next to him. She tightens the Force on the ignition button, in the same move that she spins the blade around, and she hears a snap-hiss as the red lightsaber springs to life.
It's the most un-Jedi like thing she's done in a long time, but she doesn't care. Not if it means putting an end to this and freeing her master.
It's about to impale Sidious. It should have but everything seems to happen in slow motion as the Sith's hand instantly lifts, catching the end of the mid-igniting blade with the Force and shoving it away barely in time.
Barely.
That could have killed him and been over with but she should have known that would be far too easy. She had thought it probably would be but that doesn't stop her heart rate spiking. Because now she's going to have to think very fast.
"It is most unfortunate you are attempting to deceive me," he warns lowly.
"Yes, it is," she agrees and flings out her hands, a Force wave slamming into the holocrons around him and him. There's a barrier of dark energy surrounding it and she didn't expect it would work but – the holcorons don't even move. And neither does he. It's an impenetrable Force shield, meant to keep himself entirely safe from Force attacks. She should have guessed. She thought it would be easier.
But maybe the problem is that she's using the Light and that's never going to work. She expected as much when she thought about it briefly but she was hoping –
That it wouldn't come to what she knows it's about to.
She feels the Force reach outwards, snaking around her neck and lifting her off the ground. "You should have thought of this before coming here," Sidious warns.
Anakin jerks forwards. "Master – "
"Silence," Sidious hisses, "Your betrayal will be dealt with shortly."
Anakin freezes, looking desperately between the two of them.
He's blaming him for this, of course. It was probably stupid to hope that he wouldn't but she'd thought –
This is not how it was supposed to go but this is the last chance she has. Or she's going to die and then Anakin's going to die here.
She hoped it wouldn't come to this but she lets herself feel her wild panic, how the only thing in the world she cares about is that Anakin be alive again, how the grief that's been smothering her is nearly too much to handle, and it's about to violate everything the Jedi were but –
It's the Dark Side. She shouldn't be doing this. She shouldn't be doing this – betraying what Anakin himself taught her, but this is for him and –
The dark energy floods her full force, a power tingling right within reach that she hasn't felt in her life and she lashes out wildly, trying to attack Sidious with the newfound power. It hits him through the holocron barrier but it's not enough to actually break his hold on her.
"Do you still question what good power does?" he asks, voice fading in from far away, as she struggles to breathe.
Focus.
It's time to –
She lashes out again, this time for the holocrons, throwing everything else she has into it, even as her vision is going dark around the edges.
And the holocrons go flying.
Because it was just that easy. That – What –
Likely because Sidious was just that overconfident enough to assume that no one would have the audacity to attack like that in the first place.
There's a blurred movement of Anakin floating forward. She's expecting him to go for a lightsaber – that's what she counted on – but instead Sidious suddenly gasps and the pressure on her neck abruptly lets up. She falls to her knees, gasping for air.
His face is clenched with pain as he tries to fight an unseen force. He lifts a hand, trying to do something to Anakin but it – doesn't seem to have an effect. And then he tries calling one of the holocrons back to him.
Ahsoka ignites her lightsaber swiftly, almost without thinking, flicking it up and slashing through the holcoron.
Let this not be the one that is binding Anakin's soul is all she has the chance to think before she does it because she can't take chances that this'll be enough for Sidious to stop Anakin. She might not be strong enough to do anything against him but her master is.
The holocoron explodes in a shower of flying sparks and a burst of red energy, flinging her back against the floor.
She rolls upright instantly, ignoring the exhaustion nagging at her and the cold, in time to see Sidious falling to the floor. She feels it as his life fades out – it feels like it's being sucked into the black hole her master is and it's sickening. But at least he's dead and all she can feel is a vicious, wild satisfaction.
Sidious wasn't wrong about this being – power. But she didn't do this to lose herself. She can't – do that. She can't –
She's not going to Fall.
Anakin could be your Sith master again, like he was your Jedi teacher a voice in her mind whispers and she slaps it away, for all that it suddenly feels momentarily tempting.
She remembers Anakin's gentle hand on her shoulder back during the war, his constant light and brightness before Sidious took that, his firm belief in the Jedi way even if neither of them believed in the Council by the end, his and Rex's constant help and how much she loves them and – truly, that actually feels so much more intense in the Dark but she reaches for some level of calm, trying to let the darkness fade away.
It feels like it's working now maybe but she doesn't know if it'll stay true. It was a momentary decision but she has no idea what the effects could be. She doesn't really regret it either for all that it was the only chance to defeat Sidious. And her master is still here.
Ahsoka opens her eyes – she doesn't remember closing them – turning to see her master kneeling on the ground, unmoving.
"Anakin?" she calls, but he doesn't answer.
Doesn't even move.
Did – did killing Sidious do something to him? Is he dying for real this time or –
No, no. She'll think of a way around that. She has to. And she doesn't even know that that's what's wrong, even if her heart is already pounding as she scrambles over to his side. She stubbornly ignores the cold crawling its way deeper and deeper into her bones, until it feels like it's all she can do not to shiver non-stop from it, even if her forehead is burning.
Dying.
She's the one who's really dying.
But she'll worry about that – later. First, she needs to make sure her master is okay.
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