When it's all over, when Anakin (Vader) has lost himself to flame and darkness, Ahsoka finds herself wondering (very rarely, at night when she is alone with herself and the stars, just barely whispering into the void that was once the living Force) if there was any way she could have known. She isn't blind; she might be careless and dangerously foolish but she knows, knows her instincts are sound and always have been. She should have known; she must have seen his fall coming. She ate and fought and slept at his side, and still saw nothing of the man and knew nothing of the monsters that clawed at his mind and finally devoured him —

She shouldn't think about it. It won't do her any good to dwell on this, here on her own, on the run from the soldiers who would see her dead at his command. Obi-Wan didn't see it — Master Yoda didn't see it — it's hardly her fault, is it, if her master goes rotten, if she is blinded by his treachery.

But, Ahsoka thinks. But. She cannot dismiss Anakin (Vader) as a fraud from the start, though her head tells her so; she knew him at his finest, didn't she, she saw him perform heart-stopping feats of bravery and grace time and again, and those were no lie, those at least came from a true place in his wounded heart.

("You dare," he says, "pity me," and his voice is low and strange and made more terrible by the thread that runs beneath it, the steady inescapable rhythm of the machines that breathe for him, and as he closes his black-gloved fist the ghastly mechanical breathing comes to play counterpoint to the quickening drumbeat of her blood in her ears and now her fingers scrabble uselessly at her throat and now her eyes grow wide with horror and pain —

But no, that's not right: this comes later.)

The thing is, they're both utterly suited for one another and entirely mismatched. Where Anakin's more violent tendencies were quelled, at least a little, by Obi-Wan's steadying presence he himself cannot curb Ahsoka's aggression; how can he, when he can't tame himself? When he lectures her — and he does, he tries to rein her in, honestly he does — he's just made all the more aware of his own lack, the anger that drives him, the antagonism that can't be justified by the inherent predatory instincts Ahsoka can at least call on to excuse her actions. Yoda does not, generally, make mistakes; but Anakin wonders far more in those first few days than he would ever admit whether Yoda has made a massive one here.

And then, when she manages a dazzling, daring feat like the one she just managed, and when she grins up at him, eyes searching for his approval, the guilt rips up his insides for doubting her.

"Ahsoka," Anakin says.

Her face falls; she thumbs her lightsaber off and tucks it away in her belt, trying to look repentant, but he can read the mutiny written across her features. When they're around others, he generally saves his reprimands for when they're alone — he won't forget the mildly scandalised look on Master Luminara's face when she'd seen the two of them get in a blazing fight over procedure in the middle of a recon mission — and now, the clones have moved ahead of them and she is already bracing herself for his lecture.

She says, "Master — "

"You were reckless," Anakin says, though the words taste of hypocrisy. "And what's worse, you were thoughtless. Your actions have consequences, Ahsoka. If it was just your life you were endangering by pulling those stunts, I'd leave you to it, but your men could have died there. And for what? To show off?"

"But Master, I — "

"Enough, padawan."

She catches her lower lip with her eerily sharp teeth and looks down, knuckles going pale when she clenches a fist at her side. Anakin bites back a sigh, and reaches out for her, tentatively, through the Force, though he barely needs to; she has to rein herself in. Emotion is coming in waves off of her, frustration and disappointment —

But not with him, he quickly understands. With herself. Disappointment, tempered with shame, for failing him — Anakin feels another stab of guilt, for ascribing to her motivations that are his own, seeking discord where there is none. Without warning, he slings an arm around her shoulders; Ahsoka looks up at him uncertainly, but hopefully, and he shakes his head.

"I'm sorry, Snips," he says, and nudges her. "You showed excellent creative thinking, and you kept your head under pressure. I'm proud of you."

He tries to return the smile that lights up her whole face, but it feels forced.

Ahsoka remembers this:

The smell of wet soil and scorched leaves. His hand on her shoulder, jointed metal and cybernetics under black leather squeezing gently into her flesh — strength and pressure carefully calculated, of course, not to hurt her. The way his scar tugged at his eyelashes when he narrowed his gaze in the direction of one of the rising suns, the pale freckles sprinkled across the bridge of his nose from days spent on that bright hot world.

They didn't say anything else that morning, walking together through the steaming jungle; and though his blue eyes were troubled she would be lying if she said she hadn't felt brilliant and untouchable walking at his side.

Now, she pulls her cloak around herself more securely, to hide her lekku; she is more humanoid than a good chunk of the galaxy, but this planet has never been exactly welcoming of non-humans and the new Imperial policies have only aggravated the situation. It may have been a mistake to come — though he hasn't made it here yet, rumours are flying about his imminent arrival, some engineering project or another to oversee, and his troops are already coming in a steady trickle. Ahsoka knows her brief respite is over as she turns her face upward into the cool night air.

(She can hear his voice echoing in the back of her head, calm and cruel: you really think you can escape me, he tells her, I know you, Ahsoka, you cannot run forever.)

It is, she thinks, time to move on.

Padmé shifts in her sleep, coiling around him softly, her breath warm on his neck. Anakin tries to slow his own breathing to match hers, tries to drop back into sleep, but it doesn't work; he gently disentangles himself from her grasp and sits on the edge of the bed, head dizzy with his nightmares.

It's early in the morning, far earlier than he needs to be up, but Coruscant — always humming with incessant activity — is too distracting to him at the best of times. He misses (the harsh serenity of Tatooine in a sandstorm, wind whistling past the windows as the world fades to beige and white) the peacefulness of space, the cool empty blackness.

He makes his way to the Temple as the sky lightens, pacing the halls, hands folded behind his back with a composed tranquillity he doesn't feel. The first rays of the sun are trickling through the vaulted windows when he finally finds Ahsoka, sitting in a high nook set deep into the wall, her legs tucked up against her chest.

"Hello," she says, surprised.

"C'mon," he says, holding up a hand to help her down. "Let's get out of here."

It was a mistake to come here.

Her heart is drumming in her chest as she ducks into the narrow alley behind the bar. The green chemicals that coat her skin are starting to wear off; she won't be able to disguise herself as a Twi'lek for much longer. As she winds her way through piles of trash she tries to steady her breathing, reach into the Force to listen through the walls:

"I saw her go out back," she can hear someone say, voice ringing through her mind, and she starts to run as the door slides open and stormtroopers spill out from the kitchen, blasters raised —

(I am here.)

Something hits her from behind, and everything goes black.

Ahsoka laughs across the room.

Anakin swings his lightsaber up to parry another volley of blasterfire, limbs moving of their own accord by now in that perfect state of grace and instinct that has always worried Obi-Wan because it doesn't come from harmony or from thoughtful meditation, but from battle and crisis and teetering on the edge of disaster. The room smells of ichor and burnt metal, and he smiles.

He looks for her across the room. She is moving swiftly through the ranks of droids, practically dancing as she ducks and swivels, hands moving so fast they're blurred and lit violet from the blade of her lightsaber. Anakin meets her gaze, and sees his own reckless grin mirrored on her face.

The binders are heavy on her wrists as the stormtroopers shove her forward; she stumbles but quickly recovers, and when she raises her head the first thing she sees is her lightsaber, gutted and disabled, parts strewn across the table. Rage blazes its way through her and she wrenches her arms, flexing her wrists against the binders furiously.

"Your temper always was your weak spot," that monstrous voice says, but she doesn't look up; she blinks blood out of her eyes and calms her heart, listening, dipping into their old connection that was once as natural as breathing. He is still there, doubt and uncertainty and an unwillingness to do her harm lingering at the bottommost levels of his thoughts — despite what his Master may demand of him, she knows he will offer her life, if she will turn, and she feels a surge of triumph before he shoves her out and slams the doors of his mind closed.

Vader, she means to say, means to spit it with all the hurt and anger she cannot suppress, but it's not what comes out — "Anakin," she says, looking at him for the first time, and her voice is far softer than she'd think herself capable of.

Though she cannot see his face behind the mask, she knows instantly it was a mistake. The temperature drops, and a chill blazes its way down her spine. Oh, she thinks, and he steps forward.