Disclaimer: I own nothing; everything is Disney's.

Although He Smiles

Chapter One: My Brother.

Two-hundred and sixty-six, two-hundred and sixty-seven… there were only another four-hundred and eighty-three steps to go. The rhythmic tapping of her boots against the ancient stone steps would be sure to haunt her for years to come. Two-hundred and eighty-two. The warm gust of Coruscanti wind blowing too warm for this time of year waked around her, a gentle caress. Two-hundred and eighty-seven. Doubtless it would have been more fitting it were a cold day, where the whisper of ice on the air bit away at her skin. If Ahsoka was one for romantics, it would have been perfect. But, this was real life.

And currently, reality was that Ahsoka Tano was descending the steps of the Jedi Temple for the final time.

She was turning her back on all she had. Well, they couldn't expect anything else. The only family she had ever known were willing to abandon her to the wind — she was a pawn in the political game the Ancient Jedi Order were eager to partake in. Well, not all of them. There were still a few she could consider friends. She knew one was standing below the colossal pillars, wracking the remnants of their training bond in the attempts to illicit any sort of response from her. The unspoken question became unbridled and panicked across the bond — Could I have done more? She hoped he understood that she could never blame him. Not your fault, Mast — Anakin. It's not your fault. This is something I have to do for myself.

- Snips! -

He'd heard.

She knew it wasn't her imagination that her footfalls now fell faster.

No one would be right in blaming her. All she had ever known had betrayed her. Ideals and values she pressed to uphold could be so blindly abandoned by the Jedi Order. The innocent became board pieces, moved about and sacrificed in a game all to benefit the higher-ranking pieces. Well, not this board piece. Never again.

Three-hundred and three. Really, it had never occurred to her so much as it did in this moment that there were so many steps up to the Temple. But Ahsoka was determined to count each one, and let every step add weight to her shoulders. Each one was a further step away from the Jedi, away from Anakin, away from everything she had ever known. But it would be counterproductive to turn back now; she would betray herself.

She had to keep going.

A part of her looked to the Force now, wanting to find some solace in its omnipotent presence. Another part true to her resolve, ignored the Temple behind her and wanted her to hurry her steps along. So, as she tapped into the ancient presence, and found nothing but blank space, she stopped. No, froze would be a more accurate description.

Keep going, Ahsoka, she told herself.

Swallowing past the stone in her throat, another foot fell before the other.

So the Force had no comment on her decision. But it wasn't only that… There was no response at all. No whispering wind almost a caress around her form. No calming presence passing through her mind. There was an emptiness that wanted to see her fall; trip down these buggering steps.

Three-hundred and seventy five, Force dammit.

Why was there no response? Why was there no answer?

…

Was she wrong?

For a fleeting moment, she almost turned her head. Would it be so bad to rush up those stairs and embrace Anakin? Wouldn't it be better, safer to allow the Council to welcome her back? She'd miss Rex, Jesse, Fives and the others. Many an evening saw her in the barracks, reliving the heroic, and often ridiculous endeavours of the 501st.

She craved one more cup of tea with her grandmaster on his preposterously soft couch. Long missions that dragged her own Master away sent her knocking on the next door up. More than once she'd crawled into a ball on that couch, and woke to find a robe tucked around her. It was often the smell of brewed caf or tea that tempted her from sleep when she awoke in Master Obi-Wan's common area. It was a strange thing to recall now, granted... but she found it was a memory she was fond of, nonetheless

...

I should go back.

No… It rocked through her, an adamant force behind it urging her steps onwards… and away. She nearly slipped down a step. The breeze she felt was more than the unseasonably warm gusts passing by. Relief flowed through her at the familiar presence once again offering guidance. Her pace resumed once more.

Perhaps she could leave. And in doing so, not worry that it would lead to what seemed to be the looming downfall of peace and justice in this Republic — not that she played such an important role. But to wake up one day and find the Sith in power and the Jedi no more, and know in her heart that she could have done something...

Step four-hundred and forty-five.

What to do now? Where do I go? She waited with belated breath for some answer… for some form of guidance. In fact, she waited another two-hundred and twenty steps, but still nothing. No, she wouldn't turn back. She would keep going. Anakin had trained her to be better than this… stronger. If the Force was going to be silent, then let it. She may have left the Order, but she had its training and deep-set values and ideals. She would be patient, she would wait for the Force to answer in its own mystic time.

Perhaps she should give it a few days, try and acclimatise herself to the beginnings of a new life, and maybe then try and commune with the Force. There was nothing overly pressing that needed addressing right this instant, surely. She was leaving the fate of the Republic, the Light itself, in good hands. Justice and peace would not crumble under the Jedi's guidance.

You know those are empty words, Ahsoka. Why else would you be stuck counting these steps? They sacrificed you in a political game.

Then she would make her own way. She would find a new life, away from here, away from the Jedi. Some place where the Force was clear, and she could be of help in this desolate war.

Yes. Ahsoka clenched her fists on step six-hundred and fifty-nine. She would resign herself to a quiet fate and find someplace in this universe that needed her. Jedi flow wherever the Force blows, was Master Anakin's ridiculous idiom. She often questioned where he came up with such sayings. She doubted Master Kenobi, with all his incessant eye-rolling and ever-tapping feet, would have been the source of many of his former apprentice's inane sayings.

Oh, Anakin.

She hoped with a crushing sincerity that he would carry on without her. The Order may not need her, but it needed him. The galaxy needed Skywalker. The Force needed its Chosen One. He wouldn't have to do it alone. He had Master Obi-Wan to watch out for him, and (if Ahsoka's suspicions were correct) Senator Amidala as well. He was in good hands, despite all his mounting frustrations and quick to anger demeanour. To be honest, she sometimes half expected Master Kenobi to reach the end of his tether with 'Anakin's Antics'™. It was easy to imagine an exasperated hand perhaps snapping out past oversized robes to slap away his grin. Yet, in those moments she knew it wasn't her imagination when she felt the fleeting flicker of frustration bleed away from her grandmaster's aura.

Ahsoka was smiling when she finally reached step seven-hundred and fifty. Yes, if she had faith in anyone in this universe, it was in Anakin Skywalker, the Chosen One — and in Obi-Wan Kenobi, the unwavering light in any situation. She was just sorry she wouldn't be by their side to witness the end of the war.

A sense of calm glided over her, accompanied by a soft, promising curl of her lips. She folded her hands to the small of her back, and lifted her chin to face the sprawl of Coruscant. Her boots finally passed beyond the boundaries of the Temple, and made firm contact with the Coruscant cityscape below…

... The sudden shove on her back, and the wrench on both her arms sent her reeling towards the ground.

Her skin was crawling, set alight by some unknown source. A deafening whistle pierced her skull. And nothing, no whistling bomb nor battlefield clatter, could come close to matching this — it screeched, shrill and torturous as it shattered a hole through her. It seemed to writhe beneath her skin, inching its way slowly, deeper and deeper like a hot pike, or a piercing lightsaber. Sith, was the only thought that came to her in all the pandemonium.

Ahsoka Tano was a Jedi padawan trained by war. She had faced down countless armies of battle droids, walked the scarred lands of distant battlefields and spent her years trying to match every step of Anakin Skywalker, the Chosen One. She'd faced the Children, Force wielders who brandished the Force as if it were a mere play thing. She had been hung over a Slaver's city in an animal's cage, no more than a rodent and awaiting Anakin's rescue. She had spent hours in Sith torture chambers, counting the moments to Anakin's inevitable arrival as if it were the only thing keeping her sane. But that was nothing compared to the storm of anguish that rained down upon her now.

But in the mess of remembered hardships, one constant thread kept her memories stitched together — the promise that Anakin would come to save her. So, in this exact vein, it could be forgiven that her first thoughts — her first pleas — were for her master.

ANAKIN!

…

No!

It echoed passed the pain, splintering along every stretch of her mind. It was not Anakin's voice, neither was it any voice in particular. The contradictory tone, both bellowing and hushed spoke of only one source. The Force. The Force itself was screaming. Screaming at her.

What did I do? What do I do? Ahsoka tried pleading with it. She had had visions before, but nothing of this magnitude. Nothing to this extent of sensation nor immersion.

The Chosen One. It was whispered around her, once again a paradox. The gentle roar replaced the whistling shriek. Anakin's title echoed around her, repeating all at once with varying arrays of emotion. Anakin? Anakin!

Can't help. Won't help. The Force exploded through her mind. She was faintly aware of her own screaming joining the cacophony in this nowhere-place. He is the Chosen One. He will bring balance. Everything came instantaneously, the sensation overwhelming. Balance? Pain!

Why? Ahsoka choked.

Show her. A breath down her neck, then everywhere. And then she was weightless. The pain stopped.

A haphazard array of vivid colours burst before her mind's eye. Ahsoka swallowed back a strangled cry, as slowly the dominant colour washed her vision. The burning red of a lightsaber. The Sith. The smell of burnt durasteel, the settling dust of rubble, and the stench of singed flesh assaulted her. She recoiled. The Chosen One repeatedly sounded around her.

And then the red was blue, and pivoting at an impossible speed towards her. Instinctively, she dived away from the blade, but it was too late. It cleaved through her shoulder, separating muscle from bone and cauterising flesh. She cried out, before she was standing once more, the wound gone. She felt the familiar weight of a lightsaber in her palm, and the Force flowing unbounded through her body. Then came the shots.

Up came her blade, blue and the wrong length, to fend off the bolts. Fear gripped her, and soon her movements became panicked, mistimed. And then she felt the searing heat burn through her body, again and again until it was no more. No more, she pleaded.

Her only response was a change of scenery.

'Stop him!' someone shouted as Ahsoka found herself somehow soaring over… clones? Details were blurry, but they were most certainly shooting at her. She rebounded off a surface, bringing her 'saber down through a helmet before she was flipping once more, the remaining clones shouting at each other to 'bring down the Jedi!' What was this? Someone was screaming at them to stop, that 'no!' bloodcurdling. An urgent need to get to the Senator sounded through her mind, the voice young, unknown and terrified. And then it was no more. A bolt ripped through her thigh, bringing her down. Then it was pummelling repeatedly through her body. The last thing she saw was the Coruscant skyline, the sun slowly disappearing and the familiar, comforting shadows blanketing the skyscrapers.

She came too in the cockpit of a starfighter, the fighter moving at speeds she was unprepared for. Hands, gloved in a clone's armour shot out to pull the fighter around. Flanking another starfighter trailing the sky of some planet she barely recognised, Ahsoka watched as her hands reached for the weapons control, and she homed in on the Republic fighter before her. Her disbelieving mind refused to accept the insignia scrawled across the side of the fighter. She knew the serial number off the by heart, herself having sometimes waited in hanger bays of cruisers or the Temple hanger itself for the starfighter to appear, with its red paint peeling off from battle damage and the vacuum of space. But, like Anakin, it would always return, and she would find solace in its lone occupant. No. No! She fired, the shot perfect as it clipped the starboard engine, sending the fighter into an uncontrollable spin. The burning ship trailing a frantic line of smoke plummeted into the suspended city, now only a ball of fire to rain down upon the planet surface below. Ahsoka's heart clenched.

"Master Skywalker!" A voice, quiet and terrified, gasped the name with a sense of desperate relief. Ahsoka found herself staring at a youngling, far too young to be acquainted with the amount of fear she felt radiating off of him. But his cry. Anakin? She asked into the Force, hoping to feel his comforting presence. Whatever horror she was witnessing, living, his presence alone could soothe her. They could save these younglings. Master Anakin was here. They could get them out of there. He would be able to do that. Always. Easy. Skyguy could save the day. "There's too many of them! What do we do?"

Anakin, we can use grappling ropes out that window, Ahsoka tried to say, moving towards said pane of transparisteel to inspect for any easy-to-exploit structural weaknesses there might be. Somewhere in her mind she wondered how long it had been since the Council had the panes replaced? Ten, twenty years? There should be a point where the transparisteel was weakest... If not, she'd do the honours herself. Reaching for her belt, Ahsoka had barely brushed the cool metal at her hip before a lightsaber igniting had her flinch. Her mind had snapped back to the litany of tactical training she possessed so readily, that she hadn't thought to wonder why Anakin hadn't responded.

The terrified gasp that resonated through the room sent her heart crashing. She felt his chilling determination pierce through the Force. No.

Oh, please no.

No no NO!

She wailed in defiance, whirling around, nearly tripping over her own legs in the haste to turn and run at him.

She had no 'saber.

She was unarmed.

Ahsoka caught a glimpse of her master's ghastly expression, finally skidding to a stop before the small boy. She tried to summon the boy's training 'saber, but it was useless. She had no physical presence in this vision. The blade, angry and fizzing, fell through her. She closed her eyes when she heard the strangled scream behind her, and the sickening splutter of burning flesh. What followed was a cacophony of terrified, panic-stricken shrieks into the Force, pleading with anyone for help. Please! Master Yoda! Master Windu!

She purled around, summoning every grasp on the Force that she had — and yanked. The robes on that monster jerked towards her, and Anakin's feet were wrenched out from beneath him. His head turned, and she continued to pull him towards her, every ounce of her strength concentrated on holding him down, no matter that this was a vision. She nearly stumbled when she gazed into the yellow orbs so alien to Anakin. Those eyes would forever burn into her.

The younglings, as if suddenly becoming aware of her, gasped. "Behind me!" Ahsoka commanded, calling Anakin's lightsaber to hand. She felt clambering hands at her legs and skirt. His gaze narrowed, and she felt his rage flare. "Ahsoka." He boomed, the voice so eerily familiar, yet so foreign all at once.

She did it. The Force was suddenly back swirling through her mind. No! Not now! Ahsoka gasped in a breath, the voice ensnaring her concentration. No!

But how did she do it? There was confusion. She is the one. Take her!

Ignore it, Ahsoka, ignore it. She told herself, for Anakin was beginning to move on the floor. Tiny fists gripped her tights. Faces were pressed into her legs, their combined strength somewhat throwing her balance. They need me... I can't leave them!

And then they were gone, the decision made for her. Ahsoka was left blinking in the wake of Anakin's tormented visage. Vader, the Force breathed. Vader?

This time, when she came too, it was not just her own pain, both physical and mental that she felt. Instead, it seemed to be heightened by the presence of another. Someone else's thoughts and feelings flowed through her. A blinding heat burst across her face, as if she had stuck her face in a blast-furnace. She could not shy away from it. Up there, came the thought, and instinctually, Ahsoka found herself reaching for her lightsaber. What was this? What was the Force making her live?

Towards you. Move. Now! Ahsoka rolled away at the unspoken command. Sure enough, two boots nearly smeared her into the rocky ground below. The 'saber in her hands ignited as she recovered from the roll, once more upright and eyeing off the attacker.

She nearly fell back to the steaming ground below. Anakin, yellow-eyed and seeping fury into the Force stood before her, lightsaber blaring.

"Anakin!" She screamed at him, but the voice was not her own. She wanted to ask him what was going on, but instead, "Why do this? Anakin, why?"

Master Obi-Wan! Realisation swept across her like a wave, her arms coming up at their own volition to deflect a blow. She wanted to cry, and it was not solely her wish.

She moved fast, quicker than she ever had before. Of course, she had had her own share of tricky situations and tough scenarios that called for fast hands and a trained eye, so she was more than adept with a lightsaber. However, there was a controlled strength flowing through her now as she parried and slid against her Master's blows, and she understood to some extent that this was not solely her own skill with a 'saber at play. There were years of practice and sheer talent being called upon desperately to hold back a foe at equal, possibly even better footing. This was Master Kenobi. She knew the presence flowing through her, her every move now his responsibility. It was an intrusion she was more than uncomfortable with.

As she made a jab at Anakin, the two of them dancing up a beam suspended perilously above a flowing river of lava, she realised that she had never been privy to Obi-Wan's thoughts before. Somehow, she imagined they weren't usually this panicked and pained. Every time she caught a glimpse of Anakin's eyes, she felt not only her own heart stop, but Obi-Wan's as well. Double the pain, double the blow. As she— Obi-Wan moved, she was too caught in the desperate need to stop Vader to think on her own. She found herself missing a master she never knew; a love she never had; a diplomacy that now lay in ruins, awaiting the cruel tyranny of an unwanted emperor; and a brother, son she never had.

No wait. Her brother was currently making unremitting swings and cuts at her. It was their brother that Obi-Wan swung at.

The Force didn't need to scream through her head, it didn't need to prick her every nerve ending and needle its way through her burning flesh. No. Not as she stood as Obi-Wan, slipping as he held back the boy he had raised. Not as she stared into Anakin's face and felt the anger flare into the Force around them. No, the pain alone in the mind she occupied would be enough to plague her every waking moment for the rest of her existence.

She flipped— they flipped, and ended up on a bank, the fiery hell of Mustafar racing by. Ahsoka watched as her master stilled before them, the lightsaber hitching, squirming in his hand, as if he were itching to kill Obi-Wan and be done with it — as if it were a life long goal he was about to accomplish.

This was all so wrong. So utterly, horribly wrong. Ahsoka wanted to stop; to just watch the horrendous nightmare she were living play out and not be forced to partake like some puppet that Obi-Wan wielded. The heat encroached from all around, both her and Obi-Wan's breaths laboured and hard. She had tried to stop him, they had both tried to stop him. But Anakin, with the lightsaber in hand that had sliced through countless innocents that had cried and pleaded for their lives, snarled at them both.

Anakin. Why? Obi-Wan repeated the thought that had sounded continuously throughout their fray, and she swallowed the throbbing heart in her throat.

She had abandoned him. She had abandoned him. She had not been there to help him. Ahsoka had left the Order, and she had not been there to help him. Words, names, faces all whispered through her mind; she could neither tell if it were Obi-Wan's thoughts or the Force desperate to show her what abomination her master had become.

Padme… Visions… Death… Children?

He killed them all.

…

No.

"It's over Anakin, I have the high ground!" The words left her mouth, hoarse and exhausted.

The Sith's eyes narrowed, its shoulders squaring. "You underestimate my power."

"Don't try it." Obi-Wan breathed, Ahsoka tightening her grip around the blue-bladed 'saber in hand. The Force writhed around them, clear through her mind. The groove of Master Kenobi's lightsaber felt both alien and familiar in her hand; it was both hers and not. But there was no hesitation, no reluctance or fumble when Anakin sprung up and summersaulted over them. Her arm went up, Master Kenobi controlling the angle.

She wanted to close her eyes when she heard the expected tear or cloth and the sickening sound of cauterised flesh. Something, multiple somethings fell before what remained of her master met the burning ground. She was forced to look on him, and it was then that her world finally collapsed.

Words alone could not describe the struggling corpse attempting to pull himself up the embankment. One arm was all that remained of his limbs. His face spoke a thousand words, but betrayal was the most prominent. Help, and hate seemed to be contradicting each other, but they were there as well. Master! Anakin!

She tried screaming at Obi-Wan, to drag him down that embankment and pull what remained of Anakin to safety.

But he could not, and she understood why. She was defeated. She wanted to collapse.

And then, if her own pain was not enough, it seemed that a sudden bridge had given way, and the entirety of Obi-Wan's emotions became hers. She nearly choked. If before, the Force had been attempting to show her glimpses of the events that lead to this, she now received every detail. She felt every bit of his being, every inch of his pain, and begun to cry.

"You were the Chosen One." Her throat was on fire. "It was said that you would destroy the Sith, not join them."

Pained flashes of the Temple, padawans, knights, masters and younglings littering the hallways.

"Bring balance to the Force, not leave it in darkness!"

Anakin fell to his knees before someone — the Force was hazy around whoever it was — upon a shoddy holorecording. Ahsoka flinched back as she saw Master Windu fall to his death out a shattered window. The Emperor rose over Anakin, his face a deformed monstrosity, and the Force flowing pure black around him. And, it seemed, the Force was equally as obscure around her master.

Sudden movement from Obi-Wan dragged her away from his memories, and away from the howling creature that was once Anakin Skywalker. Up the bank Ahsoka was taken, until he stopped. Her eyes followed his. There on the ground lay her master's lightsaber. Both Ahsoka and Obi-Wan reached for it. One final hesitation saw Master Kenobi turn back to his fallen padawan, and she almost begged him not to turn and look back. That wasn't Anakin. It just couldn't be. A sudden surge of pain gripped her heart like a vice.

I HATE YOU!

It rattled through both their minds, and an unwelcome image came to her, of a small, innocent face, enclosed in the arms of a young Jedi Knight. If it were possible, she felt Kenobi's heart shatter just that bit more. However, the image was quickly destroyed by the overpowering truth of Anakin— Vader — a monster left to die upon this forceforsaken planet. Master, Ahsoka tried croaking. She thought Obi-Wan was done, but,

"You were my brother, Anakin," my son, came the thought. A tear went down both their cheeks, quickly swallowed up by the blistering heat. "I loved you."

And then the inevitable happened. Dangerously close to the lava, what little remained of Anakin's legs caught fire, the flames rapidly licking up his back. No, end this. End it now. Please! His screaming grew tenfold, his pitch warbling, the pain unescapable.

All he had been… all that kindness, all that bravery, selflessness…

A brother, a son, a friend, a husband… my master. A General in the Republic Army, an image of light and hope! He was the Chosen One.

Help him.

And then the heat was gone. Mustafar fizzled into nothing, Anakin's demonic howls were no more, and the foreign presence of Master Obi-Wan's mind was taken with it. Finally Ahsoka was allowed to collapse. What constituted for her legs in this form gave way, but then she could not stop herself. The Force swirled through her mind and soul, her body tugged in all directions. Head went over boot more times than she could count. She tried to scream, but there was no breath left to scream with.

Everything burned a blinding white.

A/N: Reviews are always welcome! They help us writers improve :)

~Autumn.