Who: Anakin and Ahsoka What: Anakin finally dreams of his mother’s death, he reached out to Ahsoka When: Early, early morning Where: Roof of Anakin’s apartment Rating/Warnings: sad and depressing
I’m on the roof. The doors will be open.
Anakin was on the roof, and that was the last text he’d sent Ahsoka since he woke up in the middle of the night. There were bricks keeping both the roof door and the apartment building door open. He didn’t have the Force to open them from a distance.
He sat on the roof wall, shoulders slumped, arms crossed in front of his stomach, legs hanging over the open alley at the back of his apartment building. His mind kept going over the pluses and minuses of the night, gauging where the weights landed. He was still doing the math when he heard the door open behind him.
***
Ahsoka had come as quickly as she could, only taking as long as it took to get dressed and get the car started. On the way to Anakin's, she picked up some Krispy Kreme; donuts couldn't solve anything but they could at least offer a little bit of warm comfort.
"Hey." She set the box down on an AC unit, folding her arms across her chest as she looked at him, unsure what exactly he needed from her but willing to offer him just about anything in her power to grant.
***
Anakin looked over his shoulder at Ahsoka. He couldn’t sense anything about her through the Force - a tally mark in the minuses ledger. But he couldn’t imagine dealing with the crushing weight of guilt that lingered from the dream after he woke up with his mind going haywire with a sensory overload from the Force. That was the plus tonight.
He didn’t say anything at first. He just wanted to crawl into himself and never come back out.
He stared at the city lights still on even at this hour.
“I didn’t get leave approved in time to be there when my mom died- here on Earth, I mean.”
Essentially the same thing happened in his dreams, too.
“For months I thought about how unfair the universe was because of that… I guess... the universe wins again,” he finished bitterly.
***
Dreamwise, Ahsoka only had a bare inkling; that his mother had died before she’d become his padawan. Of course, she knew a lot more now, thanks to those damn movies. The dirty secret she kept from both Padme and Anakin.
Witnessing the people she cared the most for, their lives and trials and hurts exposed to the world for entertainment had nearly broken her (and the only shining light had been knowing Anakin had returned to the light).
But she knew it would break Anakin so she let him speak. Let him tell his story on his time and no one else’s.
She approached him, standing a few feet away as he spoke. “You never spoke much about it, in the dreams. It was too raw, even after a few years and all the pain of the war. So I didn’t press you on it.”
***
“Did you- do you ever find out the truth?” Anakin asked. How much did he need to explain… if he wanted to explain at all?
***
Ahsoka worried at her lip, then nodded her head. "Some of it, yeah. That she'd been taken by Sandpeople. That you were there with her when she died."
She met his eyes. “You don’t have to tell me any more than that, if you don’t want to.”
***
Anakin looked away, but didn’t close his eyes. He just focused on the lights. When he closed his eyes he saw what he did in the dream. He never wanted to see another campfire again.
He didn’t have to say anything, but who else was he going to talk to about this. Ahsoka knew other things.
“I killed all of them.” ***
What did one say to that? Even if she hadn't seen the damn movies, Ahsoka would have picked up the way Anakin stressed his words. The implications in the word 'all' and the knowledge that Sandpeople had families too. Some would call that the danger of attachment. Ahsoka called it the danger of not teaching people to accept their emotions.
And she wondered, not for the first time, what would have happened if the Jedi had simply gone back for his mother. If the concept of compassion had been truly understood and not simply ... whatever it had become.
Maybe Barriss wouldn't have fallen, maybe Vader would have never existed. Maybe Luminara and so many others could have survived and maybe the war might never have happened at all.
One of Anakin's turning points wouldn't have happened, at least, even if Ahsoka was certain Palpatine would have found other ways to push him in the direction he wanted.
Regardless, she wouldn't offer him condemnation any more than she'd try to downplay it. Instead, she held out an arm, offering a hug if he wanted it.
***
The gesture caught Anakin’s notice out of the corner of his eye, but he didn’t want to move off the wall.
Reality was different now. There was no returning to the point where he didn’t know what it was like to give into an anger so powerful it called on the darkest side of the Force.
And it was one thing to feel someone die in the Force, it was another to be the reason for that feeling.
“Does anyone here know how to erase memories?”
Even as he asked it, he knew it was a dead-end answer. The dreams repeated, without prediction. And he knew he had years more of evil to dream about. This was just the start.
***
Ahsoka let her hand rest on Anakin’s shoulder instead of a hug. Even without the force, offering comfort was still a part of sentient beings. Most species needed connections with others, even the more solitary ones.
To be linked together instead of driven apart.
“No one I’ve ever heard of. In the OC I mean. It’s…” She hesitated, then continued. “Technically possible with the Force. To wipe memories and implant new ones. I read about it in a holocron I studied once. But it’s very dangerous and didn’t work forever. Not to mention morally wrong.”
***
“Exactly the thing I want to avoid.”
Anakin’s shoulders seemed to slump more. It wasn’t Ahsoka’s touch - he didn’t try to move her hand - it was her answer.
After another silent pause, he said, “I don’t know what to do with this feeling. And it’s only going to get worse.”
***
There was so little she could say, to either reassure him, or to at least offer him a path forward. It would be a treacherous and dark path, and a painful one. Ahsoka resolved to walk it with him, with the same sort of finality that had led to her decision to fight him in the Sith temple. In her dreams, she'd had every expectation of dying; and every intention of taking Vader with her.
But he wasn't Vader yet, and maybe this time she could save him. Or at least, help him save himself.
"Yes, it will get worse. But you won't be alone this time, surrounded by blinded people." Including the both of them, if she was honest.
***
Anakin knew that that should make him feel better - having friends to help you was a good thing.
He nodded and gave a half mumble for a response. He wanted to muster more but he felt miserable right then. Maybe, hopefully, he start to feel whole again. But just not right then.
“And we should really work on my promises for that spell. Figure out what they should be.”
***
Ahsoka knew that if she'd stayed with the Jedi, or even just Anakin, she would have died. That didn't alleviate the guilt no matter how true it was.
But that was there and this was here, and there was no Palpatine to worry about, nor Order 66. Just a single Sith she kept a close eye on.
"It's scary, dealing with magic. But I had a friend who was a sorceress once. And dated another. So it's easy enough to believe."
***
“Unless it turns me into…” he paused, the idea of him lost to the Dark Side was closer to reality for him now. Saying it had greater weight than it did before. “Unless it makes me fall to the Dark Side, then it can’t make things worse.”
***
Ahsoka wondered if that was even a risk. Magic could be tricky or tricksy, even, and unless things were worded very carefully… “Well, we’ll just have to make sure everything is worded very clearly. Magic can sometimes be literal. Like wishing for immortality but forgetting to specify eternal youth.”
***
“Okay,” Anakin shrugged, dismissive and snide. But he didn’t mean to be mean to Ahsoka. He just didn’t care if there were negative consequences for him. As long as there weren’t any for anyone else.
But he tried again.
“Sorry, I mean…”
He paused, thinking.
“One promise could be that I won’t try to torture people? Poke holes in that, so we can make it better.”
***
She'd meant his promise could backfire on the people he was trying to protect, but Ahsoka decided that wasn't an argument that really mattered right now.
"Maybe specify with the word malicious. There are pleasant and fun ways to "torture" someone, though I'm really not wanting to imagine any of those with you involved."
*** Anakin didn’t stop himself from looking at Ahsoka like she’d said the wrong thing because, well she did say the reason it was inappropriate herself.
But getting back on track, “So, I’ll promise that I won’t try with malicious intent to torture people? How do we properly modify ‘I won’t kill anyone’?”
***
That one actually seemed a lot easier to Ahsoka. “You should leave an out for self-defense, of course, or getting in an accident. So ‘I will not murder or assault anyone’. Adding assault covers battery but…”
Ahsoka rubbed a lekku. “I’d hate to think it might trigger if you smack someone.”
***
“So…” Anakin focused on processing that and then restating it so that he understood.
“One promise - Outside of self defense or accident, I will not try to murder anyone. And then another promise - outside of self defense or accident, I will not try to assault anyone. Should I add in training in that second one?”
***
“Yes, add in training. I’m not taking any chances.” When it came to magic, or the Force for that matter, anything was possible and in Ahsoka’s experience the Force could sometimes act like a capricious fae, complete with twisting the meanings to thing.
Combining that with magic was a risky enough endeavour without being too vague about it.
“Can’t think of anything else. I’m going to assume this spell won’t take games seriously.”
***
“Should probably ask,” Anakin shrugged, not really concerned.
“So three promises. Are we forgetting anything?”
***
Ahsoka shook her head, feeling a sort of tightness in her chest. “I don’t think we are.”
She squashed the anxiety she was feeling, knowing it was useless and the enemy. “Are you sure you want to do this?”