To the reviewer who said this fic is like a lot of other fics of its kind out there-if by any chance you happen to see this, would you be able to drop links/titles for some of those fics, please? I've been looking for other fics like this without much luck, which is part of the reason I'm writing this one, but maybe I was using the wrong search terms or something. Thanks! :)

Ahsoka was jerked out of dismal cogitations while putting away leftovers of what barely passed as soup by a surge of ire through the Force and a shout as furious as it was unexpected.

"Obi-Wan Kenobi!"

She dashed out, lightsaber in hand, to the common room, where she found—

Padmé. Who stood just inside the door, white-faced, trembling with rage or fatigue—or perhaps both. The shadows beneath her eyes were unusually pronounced.

"Where is he?" she demanded of Ahsoka.

"Offworld."

Padmé wilted before Ahsoka's eyes, as if the promise of Obi-Wan's blood was all that had been sustaining her. With a shuddering sigh, she sank into a chair and hid her face in its back, resting clenched hands atop her head.

"Padmé?" Ahsoka ventured. "Do you want to talk?"

"I am—very—angry," was the muffled reply.

"Should I leave you alone?"

"No. Please. I think—I think I'd go insane."

So Ahsoka perched on the arm of Padmé's chair and waited.

Padmé's anger was strange. It wasn't the dry, tired kind that sometimes whispered when someone mentioned old times. It was fresh, it was livid, yet it was controlled, like a lightsaber's blade—intense, deadly hot, but contained. Precise. Directed. Apparently at Obi-Wan?

There was only one thing that could mean. She must have figured out the truth about Vader. Ahsoka wanted to sweep it all away, ease the turmoil, make it so whatever had led to Padmé's realisation had never come to pass. It must be so much worse for her, with the twins, and having been there, through the whole morbid episode when Anakin fell and took the Jedi and the Republic with him. Ahsoka was fortunate to have only heard the story, and several years removed from the fateful period, at that.

"Three days," Padmé said into the back of the chair. When she lifted her head to face Ahsoka, tears gleamed in her eyes. "I've kept it together for three days. Knowing— Obi-Wan has a lot to answer for. I had a right to know! I had a right to know that— What if he had found out? What if he had found out that I'm alive, and the twins, and I didn't know? How am I supposed to keep my children safe if I don't know! This! This is why I need to know!"

Ahsoka leaned back. To see Padmé, normally the picture of composure, fly off the handle was more than a little intimidating. Evidently realizing this, Padmé took a breath before continuing, more calmly.

"I went to meet with the Ryloth contact. They knew. There were troopers. And Vader." She spat the name with a venom that could only be personal. "Force, I feel like such an idiot. Even after he told me—he told me! I've talked with that—" she hurled a curse Ahsoka had never even heard, "how many times! And I never guessed. Couldn't put a few simple things together. Not until I was sitting in his ship—that stupid control setup, it was just like the kriffing Twilight—"

She passed a trembling hand over her hair.

"I stole his ship, Ahsoka. I stole it. He taught me how to steal his own ship," she said, with a bitter laugh, "and I did. It's funny. But it isn't funny at all."

"What happened?" Ahsoka asked, but Padmé shook her head.

Ahsoka rested a hand on her shoulder. "I already know. About Anakin. Rex and I figured it out a few days ago."

"Oh, Ahsoka…." Padmé reached up to pull Ahsoka into an awkward embrace. "Are you…"

She trailed off. It was immeasurably silly to ask if Ahsoka was alright. It took only a glance to see that she was no more alright than Padmé herself, though more composed. Weariness showed in the slope of her shoulders.

"I've been better," Ahsoka said. "Had longer to get used to it than you, though. I've suspected for a while, just didn't want to believe it could actually be true. I guess that was better than getting the truth like a Venator in the face. Now, tell me about it?"

"He figured out I would be on Kafrene. Revenant would. Not me, I'd've know if he knew before then—anyway—I thought I was so clever, using the lightsaber to make a distraction—pretty much told him exactly who I was. He knows." She yanked the comm from her pocket and dropped it into Ahsoka's hand. "I don't know how many times he's called. I don't want to know. I don't want to deal with any of this! And how—how could Anakin, of all people in the galaxy… just blindly following his master, hurting people, and now it's an entire Empire suffocating in his grip— How does someone who was a Jedi, who hated slavery, who wanted to protect people—how could he turn into that?"

She flung out an emphatic hand, gesturing toward nothing in particular.

Ahsoka sighed. She knew all too well. "Desperation and despair can do ugly things to the best of people. The dark side twists their vision. And when they're alone, or think they are, it's so much the worse. There's no reason to do any differently."

There's always a reason! Padmé wanted to insist. But she was fortunate enough never to have known such circumstances as would truly try the strength of her convictions. Even if there was always a reason to resist evil, that didn't mean someone drowning in darkness would be able to see it.

Are you sure you haven't been tried, and failed the test? nagged a scrap of conscience whose memory was vexingly precise. You overlook your own flaws and misjudge the strength of your resolve. For had she not said that she would abandon the dying Republic, flee with Anakin and leave the galaxy at the mercy of the Empire, dump the burden of resistance on her colleagues while she shirked duty to raise her children with her husband who had helped to bring about the catastrophe? Sentient and fallible. She was not so strong a bastion of democracy and justice as she liked to fancy herself. Rather, she had not been, but she would not fail again.

Ahsoka, meanwhile, was still talking. "—always this idea that falling to the dark side is permanent, but that can't be true, can it? There's Asajj, after all, and I know this doesn't have to be the way it ends. Anakin could come back to the light, I know it. Maybe together, we would be enough, the two of us."

She tugged on Padmé's hand. "Help me, Padmé. Help me to help Anakin."

Ahsoka's earnest plea opened a door Padmé had tried to keep shut. Within, she saw the glowing shard that refused to be smothered, no matter how deep common sense and duty tried to bury it. She knew the worst and the best of Anakin Skywalker, and she believed—no, she knew—that he could choose to do better, to be better. She refused to entertain the possibility that the dark side could be stronger than the sentient will. Somehow, even after Mustafar and all that Anakin had done since, even though Padmé wanted to rail at him with all the fury of a driving gale—even so, there was something in her which sought to cast a merciful eye upon the person she had once known. And she feared it like she feared no physical threat.

"I can't, Ahsoka."

"What?" Ahsoka stared at her, shocked. "You? You can't? I thought you didn't agree with Obi-Wan's no-coming-back poodoo."

"It's not that." Padmé mustered her courage and faced her demon. "I've always had this sort of glitch, you could say, where Anakin is concerned. We married when we had only known each other about a week. During that time, he killed the entire Tusken tribe that captured his mother. I knew it. It didn't stop me. When he turned to the Sith, I tried to persuade him to come away with me. He had already killed the Jedi in the Temple. I knew it. It didn't stop me."

She pressed her hands to her face, as if that could hide her from the shame of her fallibility.

"Was what happened on Mustafar enough to stop me? Is everything he's done since? Stars know it should be. But I'm afraid, if I try to bring Anakin back, I'll just fall too." She ended in a whisper, as if to speak the words was to give them truth. She would not fall into directed evil, but perhaps complacency—that was her fear. That, rather than stand firm as an anchor for the wayward one, she would but be towed along in his wake.

"I can't risk it, Ahsoka. For the sake of the Alliance, and Luke and Leia—I have to keep my distance."

As long as she did that, she would be safe. One could not trip and fall if one stayed well back from the precipice.

Ahsoka wanted to protest, but there was little she could say in the face of Padmé's admission. She could argue that if they brought Anakin back, it would end the Empire so much sooner, but she couldn't guarantee that he would come back. There was a world of difference between could and would, and when the stakes were so high, Padmé was right to play it safe, even if Ahsoka personally thought there was no way she would ever fall neatly in at Vader's side after the years she had dedicated to the Rebellion.

"I understand," she said, and slide down from the arm of the chair to squeeze in beside Padmé.

"Thank you. It isn't easy, you know—refusing. It's all such a mess. It was safe, when I thought he was dead. Knowing he's not makes everything so complicated."

And Padmé hated that it did. Her common sense screamed that it shouldn't make anything complicated. And, of course, the very fact that she could say things were complicated did nothing to allay her fears.

"We were young and stupid. Idiots in love, but we did care for one another. It wouldn't hurt so much, if we hadn't really cared. But we did, and it does, and… I'm just so tired," she finished, leaning against Ahsoka. That, too, felt wrong, as if she was taking advantage of the younger woman's strength. As if Ahsoka wasn't struggling under a similar burden of knowledge. "And there's so much to do…."

"I know." Ahsoka toyed with the commlink Padmé had discarded. One of its lights was still blinking. "You have a message."

"I know."

"Do you want me to watch it for you?"

"No." That would be taking advantage. "I'll deal with it. Sometime. When the twins are safe." Padmé looked around, suddenly. "Where are they—I didn't even—ut you're not worried, so—"

"They're helping Rex check over an arms shipment we just got in."

What a warped state of things, when seven-year-olds were invited along to check over illegal arms shipments.

Padmé hauled herself out of the chair. "I have to call Beru—"

"Tomorrow."

"And Numa—"

"Numa?" Ahsoka asked, bewildered.

"The girl from the mission, my contact—she's coming to stay here, talking with Mon now, she couldn't go back to Ryloth when Anakin knows about her, and me—"

"I'll take care of her."

"Ahsoka, no. I know this isn't any easier for you—"

"But I've had more sleep, and you can't out-stubborn me, anyway. The obstinacy is strong in my lineage. Now, go." Rising, she gave Padmé a gentle push between the shoulder blades. "Rest. You need it. I'll send the twins in to say goodnight if you aren't asleep when they come back."

Vader sank to one knee before the holo of Sidious, whose displeasure was abundantly clear.

"Lord Vader."

"What is thy bidding, my Master?" The words stuck in Vader's throat, but he managed to choke them out, and the vocoder never knew the difference.

"It has come to my attention that your recent excursion to Kafrene was a dismal failure, and that while the rebels there slipped through your fingers, another cell carried out the successful sabotage of a Corellian munitions plant."

Vader shifted his weight in a vain attempt to ease the pain which his present attitude produced at the connections between thigh and prosthesis. For all that Sidious required him to kneel in his presence, he certainly had not had his construction designed to be conducive to the action.

"The rebels on Kafrene displayed unusual audacity—"

"I am uninterested in how you justify your failures, apprentice. Only a truly extraordinary circumstance could lessen my disappointment."

Vader buried all thought of his wife and son behind layers of hatred that had been years in the making.

"I have no excuse to provide." To you.

Sidious favored him with an unpleasant smile. "This carelessness will not happen again, of course."

"It will not, my Master."

"Good. I should so hate to be forced to take more… drastic measures to improve your performance against these insurgents. Carry on, Lord Vader."

The holo faded, and Vader rose, with effort. Padmé's words from their most recent conversation came back to him.

Why do you enslave yourself to your Master?

Why, indeed?

Simply knowing that Padmé survived, he had felt more alive these past few days than in all the years since he had last seen her. For the first time since then, the future was not a meaningless void. There was reason to live, and to question. Sidious had told him of Padmé's death, but she had not died. Had he been honestly mistaken about her fate, or had he lied? Vader had no way to determine, without revealing that he knew she lived. If Sidious had lied, the point was moot—but if he truly believed her dead, then Vader was not at all certain that he desired to correct the misapprehension.

Padmé was alive, and that changed everything. There was no need to bow before his hated Master. For he had a son—he had a son! Luke. He wanted to know everything about him—what did he look like? How did he sound? Had he inherited Padmé's political mind, or his father's inclination toward flight? But sentimental digression would solve nothing. Vader had a son, and if the boy was a Force user, he could become his new apprentice. Even if he was Force null, there was still Starkiller. Together, Vader and his apprentice could overthrow Sidious. They would bring about a new era for the Empire, where the Emperor would crush its foes, while his Empress governed its peace.

Though Padmé now stood with the rebels, she had also, until just a few days ago, carried the snippet and the lightsaber which Vader had lost. She had not forgotten their love. Once she knew him to be alive, she would return to him, and he would let nothing separate them again.

Vader paced his quarters, absorbed in his thoughts and in the echoes of Padmé from the kyber crystal tucked inside his glove. Thanks to the incompetence of one trooper, she had escaped—in his own ship, nonetheless! He would have been proud of her, had it been anyone else she was trying to evade. As it was, he was less than amused. Subsequent searches had turned up the TIE, abandoned on some world not far from Kafrene, but no trace of Padmé or Numa Sivron could be found. Or, rather, no sign of Revenant. Vader had not informed his men of her true identity, lest word of her survival should reach his Master.

He reached once more for his commlink and entered her code.

Alone in the common room, Ahsoka moved down to the floor, leaned back against the couch, and palmed Padmé's commlink back and forth, watching the blinking light. What would that message contain? How far gone was Anakin? Not so far that he could ignore Padmé, clearly.

She felt for their training bond, barricaded behind strong shields. She didn't know if Anakin had ever so much as knocked; the barrier was too thick. Though she wanted to let it down, reach out, call out to her brother, she didn't dare—partially to protect herself, but mostly to protect the Rebellion. Let it not be said that she failed to learn from past mistakes.

Another light started flashing on the comm, and Ahsoka's finger hovered over the button to turn it on. She could answer the call. Talk to Anakin.

And say what? Just asking nicely is hardly going to work.

Besides, then Anakin would know she was with Padmé, and probably Luke, and he might try to use Ahsoka to locate them. The less he knew, for now, the better. Ahsoka needed to wait until she had a decent plan. As of now, all she had come up with was leading him on a chase in some remote area, sabotaging any means of escape, and waiting it out until he saw reason and abandoned the ways of the Sith. As plans went, it was less than spectacular. She sighed. So much to do, and no idea how to do it. It was a hopeless tangle. Save Anakin, and they were that much closer to saving the galaxy—but in order to save him, they would have to risk the Alliance. If Obi-Wan had just told them everything, they could have been spending all this time in thinking of a better way!

She was a little angry with her grandmaster, yes, but mostly disappointed in him. It was all too reminiscent of the Rako Hardeen incident. Didn't he trust the soundness of her judgement? She wasn't a kid anymore. Hells, she had been actively serving in the Rebellion for longer than he! Or, maybe it wasn't about her. She thought back to the holos she had watched, how Vader was far taller than her master, less agile, and never seen without his infamous armor. Maybe the armor was for the sake of intimidation, or maybe—she remembered Master Plo's mask—it was necessary for life. Maybe Obi-Wan was responsible for all that, and couldn't bring himself to speak of it out of shame or horror. Padmé had said he killed Anakin, but that clearly wasn't the case. Force, what had he done to him?

Before she could speculate on the matter, a knock sounded from without. Answering the door, she found Mon waiting with a young Twi'lek at her side.

"Hello, Fulcrum. Where is Padmé?"

"Retired for the night," Ahsoka said.

"Ah, yes. She informed me briefly of what happened on her mission. Has she told you about Numa?"

Ahsoka nodded.

"In that case, I'll leave her in your hands." Looking down at the Twi'lek, Mon gestured to Ahsoka. "Numa, this is Fulcrum. She's a friend of Padmé's, and will get you settled in."

Once Mon left, Numa stood awkwardly inside the door, surveying the space.

"Guess you're not the family that's being trouble, then, huh?" she offered after a moment, startling a laugh out of Ahsoka, who was hunting out some blankets.

"I'm not." She began to make up a bed on the couch.

"You don't have to do that for me. I don't want to make extra work for you." Numa wandered to the couch and tried to take over, but Ahsoka shooed her away.

"Just sit down. Have you had dinner?"

"Lady Mothma gave me some during the debriefing."

"Good, then you won't have to eat my failed attempt at soup."

That coaxed a little grin out of the girl. "I don't know, could it be worse than ration bars?"

"Objectively, yes," Ahsoka said. "And although it might also have a slight advantage over sewer sludge, I think that depends on personal preference."

"You're just kidding now."

"Maybe a little. Do you have any nightclothes?"

Numa shook her head.

"We'll see the quartermaster in the morning. For tonight, you can use some of mine." Ahsoka glanced at the scrap of a girl. "They'll be a little big on you. Padmé's would fit better, but I don't want to disturb her."

"Really, I can just sleep in what I'm wearing," Numa protested.

"But you don't have to."

Ahsoka finished with the blankets and added a pillow she had nabbed from the twins' room. They probably wouldn't miss it; they usually ended up using each other as pillows, anyway.

"It's rough leaving home," she said. "I just want to make it a little easier for you than it was for me."

Across the galaxy, Starkiller picked dolefully through the heap of parts that used to be his friend. He had decided to start small and was trying to reassemble one of PROXY's hands, but it was no easy task. Many of the pieces were bent or straight-up broken, and all he had to work off of was a schematic for a similar-looking droid that he had found on the holonet. It wasn't very helpful, and Starkiller had to guess at about half of the hand's structure. Four attempts, and he had yet to guess right. It just didn't work, and he hadn't even tried to do the wiring yet. The electronics textbooks he had found on the holonet made absolutely no sense whatsoever. It didn't help that more than half the words were far outside the scope of his eight-year-old lexicon, as were the words that the holonet used to define those words.

He found the part he was looking for—at least, he thought it was the one, but couldn't be sure—and screwed it into place. It looked all right, but now the finger he had added it to refused to move.

Stupid mechanical stuff. Starkiller bit his lip to stop its trembling. He wasn't some weak little kid. He was a Sith apprentice—an apprentice's apprentice, at any rate—and he wasn't going to cry. Blinking furiously against tears of frustration, he hurled his datapad across the room, where it slammed into the wall with a satisfying crack. He wished he could hurl his master, too, and then smash him into a million tiny pieces! No—first, he wanted to smash whatever Vader loved best in the worlds, and make Vader hurt like PROXY's destruction had hurt him.

It wasn't fair. Starkiller had just wanted to show his master how he had been practicing with that new training module. Just doing what he was told had never been enough to please the Sith, so he'd thought maybe he wanted him to think for himself and try something new, on his own. But when he had tried to take initiative, Vader had destroyed his friend, and all but threatened to destroy Starkiller himself.

The boy kicked at one of the standard-model training droids.

Take that, you wheezing old pile of scrap!

Another kick, and the droid toppled over. Starkiller retrieved his practice lightsaber, the one that was too big for him, and began to hack at the droid.

I hate you! I hate you! I don't want you to like me anyways! I don't care if I never see you again! I don't care if you fall down dead and die!

Padmé found Ahsoka, Numa, and the twins in the kitchen the next morning. Leia was pelting Numa with questions about Ryloth, while Luke rolled bits of ration bar into balls, which he proceeded to roll across the table at his sister. His primary objective seemed to be "accidentally" dropping all the balls on the floor so he wouldn't have to eat them. Ordinarily, Padmé would have told him not to play with his food or waste it. This morning, she couldn't bring herself to care, as she greeted Numa and then kissed both Luke and Leia on the top of the head.

"I missed you two."

Luke threw his arms around her neck.

"Missed you too! Pick me up? Please?" he added, as an afterthought.

She hoisted him up to perch on her hip and listened with half an ear as he chattered away about starships, treasuring the moment while she still could. There would not be many more. One way or another, she needed to distance herself from her children. They would be safer away from her. Worse, she knew they would be safest if she separated them. Sent one to stay with Beru and Owen, and the other… Bail might be willing, but Vader might well find it suspicious if the Organas "adopted" a child right after he discovered Padmé to be alive. Saché and Yané, however, might be able to take one in without arousing too much suspicion. But would she ask them?

Luke, sensing her lack of attention to his discourse, wriggled his way out of her arms. "Mama! You're not listening!"

"Sorry, Luke. I'm a little distracted today."

"Did your mission go bad?"

"It became very complicated."

He wrinkled his nose. "That's just the grownup way of saying it went bad."

"While I was on the mission, I learned some very—ah—surprising news. It turns out that Dad is alive."

Neither child so much as blinked.

"Oh," said Luke. "We've known that for ages."

"What?" Padmé forced herself to remain calm. "Did Uncle Obi tell you?"

Leia shook her head. "Nah. Luke dreams about a shadowy man sometimes, and one time he was Dad."

"He was being weird," Luke added. "He said he killed Dad, but I knew he couldn't've, 'cause he was him. And he was still him in other dreams later. And it made the Force different."

Padmé glanced up at Ahsoka, who gave a tiny shrug and mouthed, Bond?

Oh, that was just wonderful. At least it offered a possible explanation of how Luke had been able to describe Shmi in the Raiders' village—but it also offered a way for Vader to find out about Leia.

"Luke," Padmé said, carefully, "have you ever talked with Dad in your dreams?"

"Sure! But he always just thinks I'm dead."

"He may not think that anymore. Have you ever mentioned Leia?"

He thought a moment, then shook his head.

"Good. Luke, I need you to promise me something, because Dad still works for Palpatine, and I don't want you or Leia to get hurt. He doesn't know Leia exists, so I need you to promise that you will never, ever, ever tell him about her. Don't mention her name. Don't mention that you have a twin, or a sister, or even a sibling at all. Okay?"

He nodded, solemnly. "I promise. I won't talk about the base, either."

"Thank you."

Leia pouted. "How come Dad doesn't know about me? I'm just as here as Luke!"

"Believe me, love, it's a very good thing he doesn't know."

"Like the way everybody thinks you're dead is good?"

"Yes, like that."

"Mama?"

"Yes, Luke?"

"Can bad people stop being bad?"

Padmé didn't need the Force to feel Ahsoka's gaze on her.

"It isn't impossible," she told her son. "But it isn't very common, either."

He gave her the skeptical look he usually reserved for novel forms of vegetable matter on his dinner plate. "Why."

"Because people with power like to hold onto that power. And because it's easier to just keep doing bad things than to stop. It takes a lot of courage for someone to face all the bad things they've done, see them as bad, and then try to be better. Nobody's going to do that without a very, very strong reason."

"What sort of reason?" Leia asked.

"Different reasons for different people, I would think. We can talk more later, but right now, I need to go make a call."

"Are you calling Dad? Can I come too?"

"No, Luke, I'm calling Aunt Beru."

"Ooh, do we get to go visit her and Uncle Owen?"

"Maybe. We'll see what she says."

Padmé felt a little guilty as she returned to her room to make the call. The twins were so happy and excited at the prospect of visiting their aunt and uncle, but they had no idea yet just how long that visit might become. That thought settled the question of asking Saché and Yané to take one twin and sending the other to the Lars. Although splitting them up would be safer, for Leia at least, she couldn't bear to do it. They had always been together, and they had always had each other to turn to. She couldn't take that away from them, when she was already sending them away from all their family on Yavin.

Besides, she thought, ruefully, if they're split up, they might try to use the Force to talk to each other, and that could be like a beacon for the Sith.

Better to avoid that possibility.

"Beru?" she said, when her call went through. "It's Padmé. I need your help."