Log: Anakin Skywalker and Ahsoka Tano WHO: Anakin Skywalker and Ahsoka Tano WHAT: Young Skywalker is in pain. Terrible pain. And so is Less-Young Tano! WHEN: The aftermath of the stuff on February 25 WHERE: Up on a rooftop, Coruscant's Undercity WARNINGS: Basically a log full of remember-how-Anakin-is-a-murderer? and emotional devastation
The Jedi taught of the dark side and the Sith only in terms of evil, weakness, imbalance, a corruption to avoid. Anakin had learned those lessons. He'd learned them well enough to parrot them to Palpatine the night they spoke at the opera. The Sith rely on their passion for their strength. They think inwards, only about themselves.
How well had he really learned? Dooku had taunted him about skirting the dark side. You have hate. You have anger. But you don't use them. And then Anakin had taken Dooku's hands, and then his head. Anakin had murdered Dooku. It wasn't the Jedi way, but it was right.
He had been tempted to kill Palpatine, too, when Palpatine revealed himself to be the Sith Lord. I can feel your anger. It give you focus... makes you stronger. Ultimately Anakin had prevented Palpatine's murder by Master Windu, and had since argued heatedly against the assassination attempt, but the things he'd learned about Padmé dying anyway and the future Empire made him wish he had killed Palpatine when he could have. An Empire that used slavery was not the right Empire for Anakin. Unfortunately, this time period of Coruscant was wrong, so he had been unable to finish off the Jedi and then eliminate Palpatine as well. At least in this Coruscant, the Jedi had never existed-- but slavery was still very much a reality.
Anakin had found himself on the Prettiest Star before he could have any formal Sith teachings, or fully immerse himself in the dark side, but perhaps he already had some understanding. Passion, anger, and hate would give him strength and focus. He just had to embrace them and let himself use them. But freeing slaves wasn't selfish, was it? It was thinking of them. Certainly part of it (a large part) was his own desire to avenge them and himself on the slavers, but even that ultimately served others. It wasn't selfish. The Jedi hadn't understood that.
He had let his emotions fuel him in the raid on the slavers' den. Ahsoka and Padmé had led his family and friends in a rush to join him, if only so he wouldn't righteously kill the slavers for their evil. So he had not killed any of them (though with the filthy Hutt he had tried), but instead brutally tore through them and left them scarred or in pieces or only barely alive. They would always remember what he'd done to them, and think of what he could have done. And the slaves would be free.
After, he had dodged the HoloNet reporters and everyone who had come to "help". He sought out a solitary vantage point on the scene below. But he had never really been good at hiding from Ahsoka even when he wasn't radiating "dark side over here" vibes.
It was easy enough to sense Anakin in the Force. The last few weeks had reintroduced her to him (and not Vader), and Ahsoka had really missed him. It was even more achingly obvious since he'd disappeared and come back just that much closer to the edge. She followed that sense, feeling on edge on Coruscant, despite the lack of Imperial influence.
It just hadn't been the same since Barriss had betrayed her and the Jedi. Barriss had been right about the Jedi, of course; they'd lost their way. Anakin could see it too. Murdering younglings, however, wasn't right, and the Anakin she knew would never stoop to that level. He would have seen it as the worst betrayal.
She'd always been a graceful runner, channeling the Force to help her jump faster, run harder and longer, and land with sure foot. Climbing was an Ahsoka speciality, a piece of jifcake.
(That reminded her to pick some up before they left planetside.)
It didn't hurt that she often knew his habits. It had been so long since she'd been fighting by his side in the war, but she knew where to find him. She knew she didn't have to come out of the darkness for him to know she was there, but she did it anyway so they were on even ground. "Figures you'd be up here."
It was probably partially (or largely) Obi-Wan's fault that Anakin had developed certain habits. Standing there with billowing robes was a very Obi-Wan move. It didn't surprise him when Ahsoka found him. Acrobatic and leaping skills were a standard part of Jedi training, but even compared to others with the same, Ahsoka excelled. She had only grown more talented over the years she'd lived apart from him. The sense of her was still so different to him after these weeks, but recognizable; still, he appreciated that she called out to him. "Am I that predictable?"
It was probably her Togruta heritage and those montrals with the extra sense that helped her with those acrobatics. Everyone had their thing that set them apart, and some had more than one thing — like Anakin and Obi-Wan. She often thought about them, remembering traits that she hadn't thought much on during the war. Nostalgia had a way of digging those up, making you miss them.
"Probably just to me. And maybe Obi-Wan." She wasn't even sure if Padmé knew as much about Anakin as they did. War and training had a way of doing that. "So your secret's safe."
"Probably." Over the last few years, he'd spent more time with Ahsoka than almost anyone— more time with her than with his own wife, thanks to the war keeping him away so much. He wondered again what might have been different if he'd left when Ahsoka did. Or what if instead of turning Barriss over to the court, he had found another way to free Ahsoka that didn't keep Barriss alive? When the time came to clear out the Temple, he intended to go to the prison cells to express to her exactly how he felt about her role in driving Ahsoka away. Barriss hadn't been wrong in her philosophy, but losing Ahsoka had been too high of a cost.
He tried to pull his thoughts back into the present. Ahsoka had fought beside him again; that was a good thing. But fighting beside him had kept him from acting as he'd wished. "Why did you… 'help' me?"
Ahsoka struggled for a moment for the right words that didn't betray him, but also didn't skirt the actual reasoning. Anakin (and her for that matter) had done with too many lies through omission. Or just flat out lies. "Anakin…"
Their final battle weighed heavily on her mind. She wondered if telling him was a good idea, but keeping it from him was just as bad. Telling him might snap the reality of what was to come from his head. "I will do anything to keep you from the Dark Side. I've seen where that path leads, and it's — it's not you. Vader once told me that he destroyed you, and I cannot let that happen. You mean too much to me to not try here."
For a little while, Anakin silently considered what he should tell her. He had certainly been omitting certain details about his current state in talking to her and everyone else here. From the way they all talked, he considered himself justified in keeping things quiet. They hated the "psychotic killer" he would become.
Early in Ahsoka's apprenticeship, Anakin had refused to talk to her about his past or fully admit to his frustrations with the Jedi. Over time, though, she had developed a way of getting him to admit to things. It helped that she tended to react by listening instead of immediately judging.
"It's... too late for that. I made my choice. The Jedi way has not given me what I need, but the dark side will. Vader is not some… separate person in my body. I am Vader. But perhaps now, without Palpatine as my master, you will all see me differently."
Ahsoka's eyes grew overbright at that answer. There was still time to save him; he hadn't fully given himself over. There was still hope. There was always hope. She had to hold onto that. "Choices can always be reconsidered, undone. I will never give up on you."
She closed her eyes briefly, considering how much this would hurt them both. She did not want to emotionally blackmail Anakin, but he had to know how their relationship would turn out. "Anakin, if you do this, you are destined to kill me. It is foretold. A prophecy that is destined. We meet on the battlefield for one final time, and I refused to leave you."
"... what?"
It was the only word he could get out at first. He couldn't breathe. He could hardly think.
When he'd been told of not opposing the planetkiller, of taking Luke's hand, of torturing Leia, he hadn't liked to hear it, but he could imagine possibly coming to those decisions— assuming he hadn't known Leia was his daughter, of course. But this? Battle Ahsoka? Kill Ahsoka?
"That's… no… that's impossible… I could never kill you. I love you."
"Search your feelings. Search mine. You'll see that it's true. I was taken from the moments before my ending to here. It took me a long time to realize that Vader was you. I couldn't — wouldn't — believe it for a long time after. I spent months meditating with the Force to find it if was true." Vader had confirmed it, and once he said that he'd destroyed Anakin, the rage and grief that Ahsoka felt could have tumbled that whole Sith temple on Malachor.
Search his feelings? They said it was impossible— at first, and he refused to go deeper than that, full of fear of what he might find. But searching hers showed him she wasn't lying or trying to mislead him, and she was genuinely pained by what she'd shared.
He let out a wordless scream in his own agonized realization. He didn't really know how to cope with this level of pain. When Leia had told him Padmé would still die in childbirth, he had started to tear into the ship until Padmé stopped him. When his mother had died in his arms, he'd massacred the entire village. Such intense grief made him want to lash out destructively.
He maintained just enough awareness that he couldn't risk hurting Ahsoka with his unthinking fury; he turned from her, ran, and leapt for another rooftop. This part of Coruscant had uninhabited buildings; if he found one with squatters, they would surely flee from him.
Ahsoka let him go. She'd devastated him, and she could sense his anguish: so painful and visceral. It was almost like she was experiencing it herself. If he hadn't run away, she would have embraced him, trying to pull away some of that intensity from him because she never wanted to burden him with any of this.
But he'd asked why she'd helped him, and she couldn't lie to him. Of all the people in the Galaxy, she could never and would never lie to Anakin Skywalker, if she could help it. Perhaps she'd miscalculated here. When he was out of sight, Ahsoka dropped to her knees and began sobbing.