At the sound of voices out in the common room, Ahsoka put down the datapad she'd been trying to distract herself with. She reached for the cup of tea that Padmé had brought some hours earlier. The last thing she wanted was Padmé giving her one of those disappointed Mom looks that she had perfected—or, worse, reporting back to Kix that she hadn't been drinking. She managed to gulp most of the tea, now quite cold, and return the cup to the bunkside stand before a knock sounded her door.

"Come in," she called, and Leia entered, a datapad under her arm.

"Are you busy, Aunt 'Soka?"

"Not too busy for you, little one. What is it?"

"Mama says your mission was bad."

"It wasn't good," Ahsoka said.

Leia raised an eyebrow in an excellent approximation of Obi-Wan's most skeptical look. Ahsoka half-smiled in spite of herself before admitting, "It was bad."

"Why?" her niece asked.

"Come, sit with me." Ahsoka patted the thin mattress, and Leia climbed up, turning so she faced her aunt. She looked like a little Padmé, but the intent watchfulness in those dark eyes was Anakin through and through. After every battle…. How are you doing, Snips? Such a far cry from whatever that icy cataract a few days ago had been. Tears prickled at Ahsoka's eyes, but she blinked them away.

"It was bad because I met someone who used to be a friend, until she turned to the dark side and hurt me, a long time ago."

"Did you want to hurt her back?"

"No. Not anymore. I wanted to help her."

"Why? If someone hurt me, I think I'd want to hurt them back."

"Hurting her wouldn't help me. And helping her would have been the right thing to do."

"By why? If she was bad—"

"Bad people are still people. They still have the choice to change, to do good."

"But if they can choose to be good but don't, then doesn't that mean they don't want to?"

"Maybe not. Maybe they don't know how to be good, anymore. Maybe they can't do it on their own. Maybe it's like going into a dark room. You don't know where anything is, and you trip over things, and it feels like there are monsters in the corners, even if you know there aren't. But it's easier when Luke's there, isn't it? You still don't know where anything is, and both of you trip over things, but you know someone else is there, and that makes it a bit easier."

"Does the dark side really work like that? Uncle Obi says if you fall, you're stuck that way." Leia paused, considering. "Mama says she thinks he's wrong, but she also says if we don't fall in the first place, we never have to find out. So I think she's afraid he might be right after all."

"I want to believe he's wrong. I hope so. I think…. But in a way, that only makes it worse, because… it's one thing to know you can't help someone, and then hurt them. But to know that you could help them, but you have to hurt them anyway—" Ahsoka's voice snagged and refused to continue. It was probably for the best—Leia didn't need to hear more of the sordid tale. She shouldn't have any reason to wrangle these moral tangles until she was much, much older.

She drew in a deep breath and managed to dismiss Leia with only a slight quaver. "I think you'd better go, now. Be sure to tell Kix that I drank some tea, so he doesn't pull medic rank on me, okay?"

"Okay," Leia agreed, but her expression remained dubious, and her retreat was rather meandering, as if she wasn't sure she ought leave her aunt alone.

As the door shut, Ahsoka heard her call, "Uncle Obi? Aunt 'Soka's crying!"

She turned her face into her pillow, half hoping he would come, half dreading his arrival. The door soon swished opened. Quiet footsteps heralded Obi-Wan's approach.

"Ahsoka?"

"That little tattletale," she choked out.

"Utterly reprehensible." He settled down on the edge of her mattress. "What's troubling you, my dear?"

She shook her head. Nothing intelligible would come if she tried to talk right now. It was all muddled up together—Barriss and Anakin and Leia, past and present and future, everything she'd done and everything she hadn't, everything that should have been and never could be, all the shards of what had broken, some of them mended back into a wonderful mosaic, while the others jabbed sharp under her skin, under everyone's skin, everyone slowly bleeding from some wound that only the dead could have hoped to heal—and no other choice than to go onward, onward, onward.

And so she cried. For the time when life was simpler, when the height of ethical quandaries was the question of whether to prank a crechemaster or sneak into an off-limits area of the Temple. For the time when the world had looked all bright and new and shining. When there was always someone there who could fix the problems that were too big for her. For lost ages, lost innocence, friends who had lost their way.

She emerged from the cloudbank to the feeling of her grandmaster's hand stroking her back—down, down and up, down again—at once firm and gentle, and as steady as the hum of a well-kept engine.

"She could have come back," she said, addressing Obi-Wan and the wall beside her bunk equally. "I saw the light in her. It just… maybe not even a second… but it was there. She was her. She... and then I pushed too far, and she attacked, and I—" Obi-Wan's hand, pausing in its journey, remained steady on her shoulder as she struggled for a modicum of composure. "How could I do that to her? It wouldn't be so hard if I hadn't seen… just for a moment, I got through to her. And then I killed her. She could have come back, and I denied her that chance."

"You gave her that chance, Ahsoka. She didn't take it."

"Only because there wasn't time to—to show her—let her see that there was a reason to come back! Look at Ventress—she came back from the dark, well, sort of, but it took years! If we'd had that time…."

"But you didn't. And that is not your fault, young one."

"There still had to be another way."

Obi-Wan slid one hand under the girl's shoulder and pulled her up to lean against him, encircling her with a sheltering arm. "Perhaps. But if we could all see all the ways, all the time, this would be a very different galaxy. You did what you could, with the resources available. Many would not even have tried what you did." Himself included.

"I made such a mess of the whole thing. That poor kid—Barriss—my contact—two people died for nothing, and one—I don't know how Inquisitors are trained, but if it's anything like what Ventress says about how Dooku trained her—"

"Don't forget that one of the vod'e has also been brought home."

"I know. But it still… I could have helped her, and I failed."

"Ahsoka… you can offer someone all the help in the galaxy, but if they don't have the will to act, it won't change anything. The Dark Side—it takes away anything that would give someone that will."

"Do you really believe that? Or is it just what you tell yourself so you can sleep at night?" she asked bitterly. Do you know that he's alive, do you ever wonder, do you suspect?

"Master Yoda's views on the matter were clear."

"Maybe Master Yoda was wrong. People… you can't just pack them into nice little platitudes, they're— You'll see, someday."

Well, that was ominous, knowing what he knew, and recalling Ahsoka's declaration that her training bond was intact. Had she come across some information on Daiyu to confirm her belief that Anakin lived? Some voice whispered that he should tell her, warn her, before she walked into a worse situation than her last mission had been. Words began to push forward, Ahsoka, you need to be careful, your master—

What are you thinking? he asked the voice. She's just proven that she will stand in the face of darkness itself, risk her opportunity to escape and indeed her very life, to try to coax forth one speck of light. And she would only be more determined now, because it would not just be her former friend, but her brother—and because she's already failed once. She would promise not to fail him as she failed Barriss. And she would suffer for that promise.

He could not let Ahsoka die by her master's hand. He could not let Anakin kill his own padawan.

That was another complication in the matter. For the Empire knew, now, that Ahsoka Tano was alive. A bounty had been issued, set to match his own—an exorbitant quantity of credits, with the stipulation that the individual in question must be alive. Whether hale and hearty or clinging to existence by a mere thread of determination was left to the artistic inclinations of the capturer. Obi-Wan was unsurprised that such terms should be set for him, given his transgressions, but that Ahsoka should be subject to the same terms—Ahsoka, the padawan Anakin had once done everything in his power to protect, even when she had gone dark under the Son's influence and tried to kill him.

So he kept his uneasy peace.

While Ahsoka, recalling again the vivid response elicited by that touch to her training bond, nearly resolved to share the experience—which had most certainly not made it into her report—but she, too, held her tongue. There was no point in telling Obi-Wan now. Though he had made great progress in some areas, thanks no doubt to the joint influence of Padmé and the twins, he was still too attached to Yoda's dogma to entertain the notion of coaxing Anakin back to the light. He would see it as a lost cause; better, then, to wait. Gather information, make some sort of a plan, and try to bring Obi-Wan around to the idea that falling need not be a permanent ailment.

In the meantime, though, something tickled at the back of her mind—a delicate, young shoot of a thought, seeded Force-only-knew-when, watered by the deluge of guilt regarding Barriss, fed on sunbeam hopes for a better future—sinking its roots deep into a rich soil of resolve. She still wasn't sure whether it was a desired thing or an irksome weed, so she let it grow on, unnamed, reserving judgement until it had taken on a more definite form.

"Obi-Wan," she asked, "when… if…. Supposing you start to rebuild the Order… what about the attachment rule?"

Obi-Wan shifted, but he didn't speak for a moment or two. When he did, his tone was dry, but there was a softness to it. "Considering our present situation, young one, I do believe it will have to go by the wayside, unless you think I ought to render myself an utter hypocrite."

The sproutling in the back of her mind put forth another tentative leaf. She thought, perhaps, it was beginning to look like a very welcome sort of plant, indeed, and she snuggled a little closer to her grandmaster. "You know, I don't think hypocrisy suits you."

Obi-Wan reluctantly excused himself sometime later, plainly hesitant to leave his grandpadawan to her own troubling thoughts, although he was due to attend a meeting with Mothma and the others. He need not have worried, for as he exited, Leia slipped back in and came to stand near Ahsoka's bunk again, this time shuffling her feet with unusual trepidation.

"I'm sorry for making you cry," she ventured after a moment.

"You didn't make me cry, Leia. It was going to happen sooner or later." Probably for the best that it all came out now, anyway. Things like crying tended to get pushed aside—wait until you aren't on a mission, wait until your report is done, wait until that next meeting is behind you. There was always something more important to do.

Leia didn't look convinced, but neither did she press the point. Instead, she held up her datapad. "I was gonna ask if you want me to read you a story, before. Mama always reads us stories when we're not feeling good."

"That would be lovely," Ahsoka replied. "But where's your brother? Should we let him listen, too?"

"He's busy. Mama said he can't do anything till he finishes his homework because he keeps getting 'stracted with building things."

When the story was done, Leia lingered.

"Aunt 'Soka?" she murmured, from the little hollow she had tucked herself into between her aunt and the wall.

"Yes?"

"Mama and Uncle Obi are afraid I might fall someday, like Dad, 'cause I get mad and stuff. They've never said so, but I feel it. You know."

"You're not going to fall." But something about the words had the clatter of cheap, plasti beads, and Leia gave her a reproving look. In a world where her family could die one by one or could be mostly wiped out by a single shot from a destroyer—

"Aunt 'Soka, promise you'll try to help me, really try, if I ever fall? Promise?"

"I promise, Leia." There was no question of falsity now; the Force rumbled deep with Ahsoka's sincerity. Force grant she would be able to live up to it, if such was ever required of her. Force grant that it would never be required.

Darth Sidious was enduring a rather challenging week. First, his pet Inquisitor had been found dead, which, though it affected nothing about his present plans, did rather complicate several contingency plans. He had had her in mind for a new apprentice in the event that Vader should ever take it into his head to turn on him. Granted, that event was unlikely, but the problematic reappearance of the Tano pest had thrown a trifle too much uncertainty into the matter for Sidious' liking. It was just remotely possible that she held sufficient sway, perhaps not to lure to her former master back to the light, but at least to inspire him to throw off the chains which Sidious had so painstakingly guided him into. Her betrayal had not been so dramatic as Kenobi's, and might be forgivable, under the right circumstances.

Sidious could not have that, not when his emergency apprentice queue had been depleted. At this point, he was going to have to resort to taking the Grand Inquisitor as his apprentice if things went awry. Which he did not expect them to—but it was always best to be prepared.

And then there was the problem of his pet Grand Moff, who had apparently fallen victim to the machinations of Crimson Dawn—which organization had finally, after several days of silence, stepped forward to claim responsibility for stealing Governor Tarkin's identity. (Perhaps it was unwise to give the syndicates such leeway, if this was how they were going to thank the Empire for it.) And that identity theft had resulted in the subsequent theft of a load of kyber from an Imperial base, where it had paused in transit. It was not the loss of the kyber which Sidious minded, but the potential for word to get out to the Rebels. The Handmaidens of the deceased Amidala were mostly still alive and active in the Rebellion, and lamentably adept at their work. If they were assigned to the task of tracking kyber shipments, he little doubted that they would eventually discover their destination and their purpose—perhaps not for several years, but even that was sooner than he intended for his pet project to be unveiled to the galaxy. A weapon of mass destruction in the hand was a valuable tool, but a weapon of mass destruction in the making was an invitation to systems everywhere to rise up before it was too late. All in all, it was clear that Tarkin dearly needed a reminder of the conditionality of his continued enjoyment of Imperial favor. Sidious could, of course, admonish the man himself….

Or he could send his apprentice to do it.

A most felicitous solution, that. Not only would it convey the necessary reminder to Tarkin—really, what sort of fool allowed their identity to be stolen, and by one of the syndicates with which they were supposed to be on quietly amicable terms, no less?—but it would also serve to remind Lord Vader that he was subject to the Master's whim. Plus, sending Vader to speak to Tarkin, after informing him of Tano's survival, would make for a delightful barb for needling Sidious' disappointment of an apprentice.

A few minutes later, the Sith Master leaned forward to watch the blue image of said disappointment attentively.

"It has come to my attention," he said, "that the First Sister has met an untimely demise. You would not have been involved in this matter, would you, my apprentice?"

"I would not."

"And were not?"

"Likewise."

Manifest resentment in that reply, which was gratifying. Yes, Sidious had enjoyed watching Vader chafe against the prohibition placed on killing Barriss Offee. The First Sister had been a wonderful tool. She had stirred Vader's ire for what she had once done to that Tano child, which had given Sidious excellent fodder to use in taunting him about Skywalker's existence. For it would not do to let Vader forget his former identity completely, when it was so bountiful a source of pain, and hatred, and all their kindred off which the dark side fed. Really, it was a damnable inconvenience, the woman dying so soon. But, such was life, and now he could only wring a bit more use from the Sister's metaphorical corpse.

"You had nothing to do with her death, despite her involvement in the sordid matter of Skywalker's poor young padawan?"

"That name and all associated with it hold no meaning for me."

A lie, but a welcome one.

"Then you will be quite dispassionate when I tell you, by the bye, that young Tano is very much alive and—well, alive, at any rate."

The break in the conversation stretched a little too long. Sidious smiled under his hood.

"Tano will be dealt with appropriately, my Master."

"Excellent. I shall eagerly await that report."

Vader might attempt to turn Tano to become his apprentice, but she would not turn—no, not her. She would sooner die, and then Vader would once more have no one left but Sidious, and no cause but his master's bidding. It was pathetic, truly pathetic—it was not the way of the Sith, and Sidious despised such feeble, clinging reliance—but it was also undeniably convenient to have an apprentice who was unswervingly loyal, despite the hatred he bore his master.

Putting aside this entertaining reflection, Sidious continued, "But this is not why I have summoned you. I find myself plagued by complaints about a missing shipment of kyber, which was last seen being loaded onto a shuttle that transmitted Governor Tarkin's codes. Inform the good Moff of my disappointment, and do remind him that my favor is contingent upon his continued demonstration of a reasonable competency."

"It will be done, my Master."

A strange spike of anticipation thrilled through the Force once the holoprojector shut off, and Sidious frowned. Was something amiss? He detested seemingly baseless shifts in the Force. They reminded him that, though he saw much, he was not omniscient. He didn't think he had underestimated the likelihood of Vader turning on him, even given Tano's entrance onto the stage, but it was just possible…. He must keep a sharp eye on his apprentice.