Had she, for real and truly, thought herself able to hide from him? She'd done a marvelous job of running, he had to admit to himself. She'd gone through all the places he didn't want to go, and some that he was more than happy to, because he knew that his plans or his mission would be worthless without her.

And, at long last, he'd caught up to her again. There would be no escape anymore; alive or dead, she was coming with him.

"Ahsoka, please listen to reason. I am your friend here. The Jedi Order has been eliminated, exterminated-"

"By your hand!" She shouted, though a light Force Choke silenced her.

Or, at least, it felt light to the young Darth Vader. The former Padawan, however, was turning a nasty shade of purple as her air supply was cut off; he released her, dropping her to the ground, and glared at the young woman with his red-rimmed eyes of golden evil.

"You will silence yourself, child." When Ahsoka could only glare, her once-master continued. "The Jedi are gone. I know how hard a decision it was for you to leave the Order, and how like me you are...join me once again. Help me. With you by my side, I know that I can defeat Sidious."

"I may not like the Jedi way, but I hate the Sith most of all. Your teaching drilled that into me, master."

"Only a Sith deals in absolutes, Ahsoka." Vader laughed, but it wasn't the one that Ahsoka remembered from her days as a Padawan of the man before her. It was a cruel laugh, a mocking laugh. "The Sith are not evil, and the Dark Side of the Force is not either. We simply interpret the Force in a way that the Jedi cannot: we allow our emotions to guide our power, where they simply sated themselves on the strength of their wills. Join me, and I can show you."

"You know my answer, master. I will not fall to the Dark Side."

The man appeared hurt.

"Please, Ahsoka. You must understand why I've come to you. I have done what I did in order to save Padmé, and that will mean killing Palpatine. I know that Obi-Wan and Yoda will never listen to me, and you are my only hope...don't leave me in a world where my only companions are against me."

Her only response was to ignite her lightsabers, one shorter than the other, and charge.

"...so be it." Vader declared, true sadness in his voice. "I had really hoped that this could be avoided, my friend. We were student and teacher, but our bond was closer to siblings. Will you not reconsider?"

She slashed at him, jumping, but he still had yet to draw his blade. Rather, he lifted his hand and sent her arms skyward; her body remained levitating. Holding her in place was no difficult task, as Ahsoka's basic Padawan training could never compare to her teacher's vast midi-chlorian count and a lifetime spent sensing the Force. As he drew nearer to her, lifting his leg, she knew what was coming.

"Perhaps a little...persuasion...is in order." He said the words calmly, but the scowl on his face belied the truth before Ahsoka felt a sharp crack in her ribs.

Moments later, Vader had healed the shattered bones with the Force. All the while, she remained hanging; he repeated the actions several times, on different parts of her body: her legs, her arms, fingers, spine, jaw, hips, toes...nothing was off limits to him, and she couldn't count the number of times she screamed in pain.

"Can you not see the vast difference in our power levels? Come with me, Ahsoka. You know that it will make the pain go away, and that you'll be safe with me. Have I ever lied to you?"

"A Jedi does not lie, but he often speaks in riddles and half-truths. Don't try to trick me!"

"I'm not."

His eyes blazed, drilling into her own, and she could detect no attempt at deceit...but there was still the difference. They were not the kind blue of her master, who had welcomed her into his service and guided her in the ways of the Force; they were the hard yellow-gold of the Sith, the Dark Side, of evil made flesh and emotion made action. They were eyes that she could not trust, no matter her feelings. Most importantly, however, they belonged to the man who had exterminated the entire order of the Jedi on his own.

She did not respond.

"Please, Ahsoka. This will be the last time I ask. I'm going to release you once I finish speaking, and your answer will determine your fate: join with me so that I can kill Palpatine and live my life with Padmé in peace."

She dropped in a roll as he ceased concentrating on holding her in the air, lightsaber and shoto coming up in an X-slash to quarter him. Still not drawing his own lightsaber, Darth Vader used the Force as a moving wall; Ahsoka flew away, the shoto falling from her grip, but charged at him again.

"Take me seriously, master!"

"After all this time, you still call me your master. Do you, perhaps, wish to come with me? Is this no more than some juvenile attempt at gauging my power to see how strong I have become?"

She clenched her jaw, teeth grinding together as she leveled a vicious glare upon him.

"I will not be mocked."

"And I will not take you seriously until you prove that I need to. I am the Chosen One, destined to bring balance to the Force, but that never meant that I would eliminate the Dark Side. It meant that there would be an equal number of Jedi and Sith, as it should be. Join me so that I can kill Sidious, and bring the prophecy true! You and I shall be the two Sith, as it should be, while Obi-Wan and Yoda are the last remaining Jedi!"

"You've gone insane."

"I have taken my destiny into my own hands...but since you refuse to accept the truth, I will not allow my feelings towards you to drag me down. You were my student once, Ahsoka. You can have that again. I the Emperor, Padmé the Empress, and you as our beloved princess. I will absolve you of all wrongs and crimes you have done. If you wish, I will adopt you as my own flesh and blood and heir. Can you not see how great we can be together, Ahsoka? Teacher and student, father and daughter, and with twins about to be born by Padmé you can have siblings to teach in the ways of the Force."

Ahsoka, in shock, nearly dropped her lightsabers. "You would do that for me, master?"

"Yes, my child, my daughter. For you, I would do that."

"Then..." She held her head high, her eyes challenging him. "...I am truly sorry for what I must do, and what must happen."

She lunged. In one final, desperate act, she hoped to slay the Jedi-killer; he had frozen her in place once again, though this time he made her body move into a shape that seemed reminiscent of the crucifixions she'd seen on various planets: arms out to the sides, feet together. Darth Vader walked to her, in the few steps that it took, and looked her in the eyes.

"No, Ahsoka. You have nothing to be sorry for. I am the one who must apologize, both for what I must do and for having failed you as a teacher. I take no enjoyment from this."

He drew his lightsaber, at long last, and lit the blade. It was blood-red and mighty, as long as both of her own swords put together from hilts to tips. Holding it out to his side, he leaned into her ear and whispered.

"You were supposed to help me calm my nature, not aggravate it. Help me bring peace to the galaxy, not force me to destroy it. You were my student and my sister, Snips. I loved you like I would love my daughter, Ahsoka Tano..." He pulled back slightly, and she closed her eyes as he kissed her forehead.

When the lightsaber cut into her flesh, decapitating her, she couldn't feel it at all.

Many years later, long after the total fall of the Republic, Darth Vader still carried a pair of small lightsabers with him in the back of his belt. He never used them, but they served as a constant reminder of what he had lost: a friend, a sister, a student, and a child. He thought of her often, sorrowful and somber, but comforted by the knowledge that he did the right thing. While he would have liked to have Ahsoka by his side, he knew that she would never have been comfortable in this new reality that would have faced her. She would have fought him every step of the way, kicking and screaming, no matter how he might have coaxed or wheedled or forced her into submission. His next apprentice was certainly powerful, he knew, but he could never fail to find the boy wanting in comparison to Ahsoka and her skills.

He wondered what life might have been like if she'd come with him willingly, slain Palpatine, and ruled the galaxy. How Luke might have become even mightier than his father, the Chosen One, and how beautiful Leia and Padmé would have looked together. In times like those, he might take out his lost Padawan's blades to simply stare at them, mind wandering and eyes close to watering. He grieved for her just as much as he did for Padmé, for Obi-Wan, for the children who would never see him as the father he had wanted to be for them. He sits alone, as he always does, thinking and pondering and simply remembering.

He remembers the day they met, and he accepted her into his life. The day she was given her shoto. Learning that she had survived against the fearsome General Grievous. Her temporary fall to the Dark Side. Having her stationed in the Archives. All the times they had fought together, trained together, living life and playing at it like a game...and he remembers the day she ran from him, with all the times that she narrowly escaped him. Then seeing her again, at long last, as he brought a true traitor to justice. The reunion being so bittersweet, in the knowledge that she was leaving the Order forever.

The Dark Lord's last encounter with her is unlike the others, however. It is burned into his memory with the power of the Force, by his own choice, and it is often the target scene of many of his near-constant nightmares. Particularly poignant are the feelings of her pain while he beat her, before healing her, and the dry kiss which he'd placed on her orange-toned brow. He remembers her death as clearly as his own mother's, as well as the powerful rage that followed both events.

He never spoke of it to the Emperor, though the man wouldn't have cared if such a thing had come to pass. It was Vader's burden to bear, and would only shackle him.

When he had been dying, with his true flesh-and-blood progeny before him, he wanted to speak to Luke about the one who came before, a girl who he'd viewed as his own child. He wanted to talk about Padmé as well, so that the boy might know a little about his mother. There were so many things he had wanted to say, but all he could do was attempt to give them to him through a bonding of the Force. He had also taken out the two lightsabers, much to the son's confusion, and rolled them to Luke with a grim chuckle.

"My student's, before she died...trying to save me from a danger I couldn't see or sense."

The last thing that Darth Vader sees before the light leaves his eyes is a great big family, of himself and his people. Shmi and her husband, whatever the man's name had been, with Vader's own stepbrother and the man's wife. His brother, Obi-Wan, and their mutual father Qui-Gon. Old grandfather Yoda, with his cane in one hand and a lightsaber in the other. Luke and Leia were there, with people he did not recognize, and three children among them. They were in front of Padmé, who stood beside Vader's younger self. In the very center of the group, behind her younger brother and directly in front of her father, was an orange-skinned Togruta girl who gave a soft smile.

He lamented what could have been, in the seconds before his death. Though it seemed that everything worked out for the best, with Luke heralding the rebirth of the Jedi as they were supposed to be, Vader let a single tear slip down his face as the world went black around him. In a final act of selfishness, he acknowledged that he didn't care about whether or not it was for the best; he had only ever wanted his family to be happy, and his great tragedy was that he had failed to save any of them. He had failed his wife, his brother, his father, his teachers.

Worst of all, however, was the knowledge that he had failed his child.