Archive of Our Own

I.

On Mandalore, Ahsoka says, ‘I will help you,’ and doesn’t ask the question that could change everything.

They leave for Coruscant with a squad of clones more loyal to Ahsoka than the Republic. Jesse, the joker, a much-needed light in the dark, Payt, the engineer that had spent so many hours bent over Anakin’s arm, insisting with a gruffness undercut by fond affection that he check it out after a particularly intense battle. Flash the rambunctious flirt and Haat with his quiet brand of earnestness; two shinies Ahsoka hadn’t met before the Siege of Mandalore who followed her around like a pair of lost pups. There was Stitcher, the no-nonsense squad medic and keeping them all in line is Rex, the closest friend Ahsoka had ever had. Between one breath and the next these men become Ahsoka’s family in ways they hadn’t before. They are her bastion against the totality of the dark. 

Then, Palpatine issues Order 66 and Maul realises his plan to kill Palpatine before he can establish his Empire is already obsolete.

Together, Maul, Ahsoka and a newly-dechipped clone squad make a new plan.

At the time, Ahsoka hadn’t known that her decision would be the first step towards the long hungry Dark. Maul is a surprisingly patient teacher when he gets what he wants. Ahsoka learns early on the consequences of failing to meet his expectations, but she is quick and agile where Maul is strong. They are evenly matched, and Maul must soon devise other punishments for failure. Ahsoka doesn’t fail often after the first time he breaks sweet-tempered Haat’s arm. The Hungry Dark does come easier after that, though. The Patient Cold rises almost protectively around her and her clone family and sends Maul hurtling through an interior wall of a Black Sun base of operations the first time he tries to lay a finger on Jesse. Maul sits up among the rubble and laughs until he can’t breathe when he sees Ahsoka’s eyes glowing yellow above a snarl of pointed teeth.

Then, he says, ‘We can save them, you know.’

Ahsoka spits, ‘Who?’

‘Your clone pets,’ Maul grins like a dragon with a bantha between its teeth. ‘The Dark Side is the pathway to many abilities. Even the power to cheat death.’

Ahsoka’s breath catches. Something in her chest roars at the thought. She looks over at Jesse, crouched in a corner ready to spring, to Rex by the door ready to call in his brothers for reinforcements in a heartbeat. Both are frozen in place, shock painting their features.

‘We could...’ Ahsoka breathes, barely daring to believe it. ‘We could make them... age normally?’

Maul nods. ‘My master told me there was a way. He never told me what it was. Together, we could uncover the secret.’

Ahsoka meets Rex’s eyes.

‘Okay,’ she says and something inside her changes irrevocably. ‘Where do we start?’

II.

Maul teaches his new apprentice for months before they make their first move. In the meantime, the clones gather intel on the fledgeling Empire. The first time they return telling tales of a Sith Lord in a black mask Maul snarls in vindication as he spits Anakin Skywalker’s name and Ahsoka refuses to leave her room for several days. When she emerges, she throws herself into her training with renewed vigour and Maul’s satisfied smile barely disappears for a week.

There is anger in her now that wasn’t there before. A beskar-forged fury that demands to be directed at something. She shakes with it. Exhaustion after days and nights spent training her body and the Force do nothing to quiet the impotent rage that has burned itself into her heart. The exhausted aftermath of her first mission since Maul’s reveal is the best she’s slept in years. Doing something, following the plan settles her, turns her fire-hot fury sharp and cold. It doesn’t disappear, it mutates into something she can use. Something that makes her powerful.

Rex looks haunted the next morning when he sees her. That afternoon, Maul tells her of an ancient Sith Temple that may hold the secret to immortality as a reward for good behaviour and Ahsoka leaves with him in search of it without looking back. Vader may be a new enemy, but Ahsoka wouldn’t abandon her family. Never.

They return empty-handed, but she does not give up. She will not.

They use the crime syndicates under Maul’s thumb to gather resources. Spice, credits, fuel, weapons, Dark Side artefacts. Anything the Empire has Maul wants. There is a fervour to him in those early days, a manic glee that lights his yellow eyes. They attack Imperial convoys with their fleet of cartel-funded pirate ships, any cargo they can get their hands on is worth something. Any chaos they can sow will build to topple the Empire from the ground up, destabilise it enough to find the chink in Emperor Palpatine’s armour. This is their plan: one day Palpatine will make a mistake. When that time comes, Ahsoka and Maul intend to be powerful enough to exploit it.

The empire Ahsoka and Maul build resembles a pirate kingdom far more than what it technically is: a rebellion against the Empire. It's how she meets what will one day become the Rebel Alliance for the first time, she and her boys posing as pirates to take over an imperial shipment. The Empire has something she wanted - what it was doesn't matter -  but it isn’t really the Empire. It is a senator-prince, a man Ahsoka had known once, running relief for the people Ahsoka had once sworn to protect. It's a stark reminder of how far Ahsoka had Fallen. She orders her men to retreat when she finds out where the shipment is really going. 

She tells Maul she failed her mission once they’re alone and the clones out of his immediate reach. Maul slams her up against the wall, the Force a vice like grip around her throat, and gets in her face until all she can see are golden eyes and all she can feel is seething hatred. She does not fear. She is past fear. She snarls and lashes out, snaps out her sabers and breaks his hold. They move up and down Maul’s throne room trading blows until they start to tire and Maul pins her with her own sabers at her throat. He wins this round but there will be others. There are always others.

She glares up at him, teeth bared and thinks, one day.

That night, she thinks about Bail Organa and wonders how much longer this is going to take until they’re ready, until their opening. She wonders how many more innocent people have to die. The seeds of Light are planted but it will take a long, long time for them to grow.

The emergence of Rebels standing up against the Imperial regime is Ahsoka’s first major test. They get in the way of the plan. They don’t fit in Maul and Ahsoka’s vision. At best, they’re an inconvenience. At worst, they’re an obstacle that must be eliminated. Ahsoka tells herself she’s not a total monster, but if the Clone Wars taught her anything, it’s that sometimes collateral damage is unavoidable. Innocents always get caught up in war. That doesn’t mean the war should not be fought. Some things are just too important. 

And yet the Dark whispers, sinks its teeth into her soul, fuels her anger and hate and frustration at her lack of progress into a violent storm. Sometimes she doesn’t remember how she survived an encounter with the rebels or the Empire, swept away in a riptide of hate and fear for the lives of her men, her family. Sometimes the only clue she has is in the flecks of blood she has to wipe from her face and lekku. Sometimes Rex is the one that has to talk her down from doing something she'll regret later. It's a testament to his personal loyalty and his hatred for what Darth Sidious did to his brothers (and to the Galaxy at large, too) that he stays with her.

Jesse may have a reputation for being a jokester but he has a ruthless streak that even Rex never managed to beat out of him. When she gives him an order to shoot, he’ll execute it, so long as his target wears Imperial white. She only orders him to shoot at Rebels once. There are some lines he won’t cross and Ahsoka won’t ask him to. Not when she can do the dirty work herself. The clones already have too much blood on their hands. If Ahsoka can do this for them so they don’t have to, she will without regret or hesitation. That’s what family is. In turn, the clones have her back and stay her hand when she needs them to. That’s what family does.

Rex and the clones are Ahsoka’s anchor to who she used to be, and they all know it. The Dark Side, this deal with Maul, the cost of the war they’ve taken upon themselves to wage, that’s Ahsoka’s burden to bear, her sacrifice, and keeping her from plunging headfirst into an abyss she’ll never climb out of is theirs.

She will find a way to save them. Whatever it takes. She must.

III.

Ahsoka spends years searching for a cure to the clones’ accelerated aging. Each grey hair Rex or his brothers find is another tick in the clock counting down their years. She scours the galaxy. She does Maul's dirty work. She grows stronger. She grows colder. This is her life now and she throws herself into it like she had the war. No time for regret or hesitation. In war, she learned quickly, if you hesitate, you die. 

The Crime Syndicates are their greatest assets. They simply can’t de-chip enough clones to compete with the Empire in any meaningful way and besides, they have to fight Maul each time because Maul doesn’t believe in Ahsoka and Rex’s personal mission, doesn’t want to waste precious resources when they could kill the clones they encounter even easier. Sometimes Ahsoka and Rex win this fight. Sometimes they don’t. After all, Maul is still the Master in this arrangement. 

And yet... Somewhere along the road, Ahsoka finds herself pitying Maul, then, even sympathising with him. Sometimes when he talks of his time with Sidious when it’s relevant to their plans, she finds herself absolutely livid on his behalf. The first time Maul describes how Darth Sidious killed his former apprentice and brother Savage, still so angry and hurt over the loss that Ahsoka can feel it blanketing the Force in the room, all she can think of is the moment she had realised she had lost Anakin, lost Obi-Wan, imagines losing Rex or watching him lose one of his brothers and it stokes a fire inside of her. She burns with the urge to feel Sidious’ blood flow through her fingers.

Maul had mentioned once, on Mandalore, desperate for an ally, that they weren’t so different. At the time, Ahsoka had refused to believe it but now… hearing his story, the way the Sith had used him, turned him into a weapon and then cast him aside to languish in the dark alone… she understands what he meant now. Maul had underlings but he had no family. The closest he had was Ahsoka, where she had Rex and his brothers. The worst part was he hadn’t chosen this life, as Ahsoka had. Ahsoka had walked away from her old family, her Order, her life. Maul had been tossed aside, discarded like a broken toy. He hadn’t chosen to walk his path alone. He wasn’t built for it. Neither of them had been.

Sometimes when they’re training, she feels the Force tinged with a helpless all-encompassing loneliness and Ahsoka’s chest aches in sympathy. She remembers the feeling well. Too well. Sometimes she still feels it, when the clones close ranks after a particularly bad mission and she finds herself on the outside. Alone.

Maul starts to notice her changing mind, and over time, allows her more freedom, even listens to her more when she disagrees. Arguments come to blows less often, Maul leaps to her defence once on a mission, protecting her from an inquisitor pair that managed to get through Ahsoka’s defences and injure her. He reminds her of Anakin, at that moment, snarling like a Nexu protecting her cubs the way Anakin had done for her, for Obi-Wan and Padmé and clone troopers time and time again. It's surprising enough that she finds herself softening towards him a little. It makes her rethink her plan to kill him, some. Rex doesn’t agree when she suggests maybe altering the plan (their plan, the one Maul doesn’t know about) but he comes around eventually.

Destroying the Empire, and especially the Inquisitorius and the rival Sith has to come first. Ahsoka can wrestle with her own demons once the Sith are dead. The Inquisitorius have killed too many of Ahsoka’s family, the Jedi and clone troopers she’s grown up with, fought beside, loved and sacrificed for, for her to do anything but hate Vader, hate the Empire, hate everything except that which she holds dearest.

She’s a Sith, after all. All they know how to feel sometimes is hate. 

IV.

When they can, Ahsoka and the clones take their chipped brothers alive. Freeing any clones they can almost makes the whole effort worth it. Every brother saved is a spot of Light amongst so much Dark. Whenever they return from a mission with another clone in tow, Ahsoka almost feels like her old self again for a few hours. It keeps them all going, reminds them why they’re still fighting. It reminds them why Palpatine and Vader and their accursed Empire need to burn.

Almost eight years into their new reality, Ahsoka’s elite squad are on Obadiah reminding the Pykes that they work for Maul when news arrives that the Empire has taken the spice mines on Kessel. Ahsoka leads the retaliation, two clone squads and a small army of Pykes at her back.

She has three imperial troopers choking several feet off the ground when an explosion sends them all flying. Some trick of the Force throws the three troopers, unconscious but not-quite-dead, ploughing directly into Rex. A second later, Ahsoka hears over the comms a choked cry:

‘Cody?’

A series of near-identical shouts echo after Rex’s shocked exclamation and Ahsoka spots Rex hefting an Imperial armoured trooper over his shoulders and pelting through blasterfire towards their ship, parked a few hundred meters away. Ahsoka swears viciously and sprints after him, deflecting blaster bolts back into troopers with her twin pair of red sabers, sparing barely a thought for each shot. She would not be shot. The Force bends to her will so the Force will keep her safe. All she has to do is move when she needs to move. This has always been the way. Some things are universal, no matter the colour of one’s lightsaber.

Another clone, wearing the armour of one of Ahsoka’s, cries out and falls beneath a barrage of blasterfire. Ahsoka screams and sweeps her blades through ten stormtroopers, cutting a path to Rex without taking the time to check who it was. Whoever they are, they’re dead. She’d felt the moment they had winked out of existence. Right now, she has to stop Rex from meeting the same fate. She won’t lose anyone else today.

Rex is dragging an unconscious trooper in Imperial white up the ramp, tears streaming down his face, though his expression was nothing but determined. He barks a set of orders just as another explosion sets Ahsoka’s montrals ringing. She snatches at the Force and throws It at Rex and his trooper, sending them both tumbling up the ramp into the hold, then snaps her sabers out to cover their escape.

‘Imperial reinforcements!’ Neo, a newer addition to the clone squad, calls out, pointing to the sky from where he is setting charges. Imperial troop transports are setting walkers down on the ridge. Soon they wouldn’t be able to take off without getting shot out of the sky.

‘Retreat!’ Ahsoka orders. ‘We’re overwhelmed!’

‘I’m not letting my mines fall into the hands of the Empire!’ Marg Krim barks from his ship hiding behind the moon. 

‘And I’m not letting my men die for your karking spice!’ Ahsoka snaps back and cuts off communication with his ship with one angry stab of her finger. She catches Jesse’s eye. ‘Let’s go!’

Jesse salutes and grabs Flash by the shoulder, dragging the kid back by his armour as the other clone sends volley after volley of blasterfire back at the stormtroopers with his modified Z-6. Ahsoka counts off brothers as they retreat up the ramp.

‘Ahsoka!’ Rex screams and she chances a glance back at him to see him beckoning her furiously. ‘That’s everybody!’

Ahsoka leaps into the air, commanding the Force to propel her, and lands on the ramp twenty meters away. 

‘Wait!’ one of the Pyke commanders on the ground cries out over comms as the ship takes off. Ahsoka almost laughs at the comical way he’s waving his arms to get her attention. ‘What about us?’

‘Take it up with Marg Krim!’ Ahsoka salutes the doomed Pyke as he shrinks with the rest of the battle, then steps back and lets Rex shut the ramp.

Thirteen clones are gathered in the small hold. Two of them are in binders and Imperial armour. One of those has a distinctive scar curling around his left eye. Rex sits on the hold floor with Cody braced against his chest, both arms pinning him firmly in place. 

‘We lost Trapp and Luck,’ Rex says, meeting Ahsoka’s eyes. He looks so young suddenly, despite the healthy amount of grey streaking through his eyebrows and the lines around his eyes, his expression raw and open now the chaos of the battle has been left behind and the shock of finding his brother is setting in. 

‘We will avenge their deaths,’ Ahsoka promises like she always does. That is what their family does.

V.

When Cody wakes, newly dechipped, and sees Ahsoka’s yellow eyes by his bedside, he flinches, panics, then he dry heaves over the side of the bed. Rex catches him by the shoulders before he can fall and snaps at Ahsoka to get out! Ahsoka is too shocked to do anything but obey.

Hours and hours later, Rex emerges looking pale. He refuses to meet Ahsoka’s eyes.

‘Rex,’ she says.

Rex holds up a hand. ‘Don’t,’ he snaps at the wall. ‘I can’t look at you right now.’

That stabs at Ahsoka’s chest in ways she had forgotten she could feel. ‘What happened?’

‘He’s refusing to stay,’ Rex replies, voice hollow and flat. ‘He wants nothing to do with- with you... Sith. Darksiders. Whatever you’re calling yourselves these days. He wants passage outta here.’

Ahsoka swallows and clenches her fists at her sides. ‘Will you go with him?’ The words are curt, hard, angry, anticipating the inevitable betrayal.

She wonders what she would do if he said yes. She won’t lose him. She can’t. Not Rex. It's unthinkable. He's hers.

He hesitates. ‘I don’t know.’

Ahsoka takes an unthinking step toward him and he flinches. Something about the movement is a shock to her system. She hastily retreats until her back presses against the wall. ‘Don’t. Don’t leave, Rex. You can’t leave.’

‘Maul will kill Cody before he lets him leave,’ Rex says.

‘You’re going to smuggle him out.’

Finally, Rex looks at her, shoulders set, brown eyes hard. ‘Are you going to stop me?’

Is she? Could she?

‘I don’t know.’

Rex nods and moves to reenter Cody’s room. ‘Don’t get in my way, Ahsoka.’ His mouth twists into an awful humorless smile. ‘I’d hate to have to shoot you.’

VI.

Ahsoka doesn’t sleep that night. She waits outside Rex’s empty room, alternating between rage and grief.

Just before dawn, Rex rounds the corner of the corridor alone.

Ahsoka scrambles to her feet, crossing the distance between them, full of relief. ‘You- you came back.’ 

Possessive hands grip his shoulders and he pries them off gently but he only shrugs and smiles. ‘Cody’s gonna be fine on his own.’ The ‘you won’t’ is left unsaid. ‘When I leave, I’m not leaving you behind.’

VII.

When she meets Vader for the first time on Malachor, she's separated from Maul and Rex and the boys (have they abandoned her? After all this time, have they left her to die while they flee without even retrieving the holocron that they came for? Are they really leaving Ahsoka and the best lead to immortality they’d had in years to the mercy of two half-trained Jedi and a rival Sith Lord?). There are two armed Jedi at her back, a Sith Lord in front of her and Maul has always insisted he knows who Vader is but Ahsoka didn’t listen. She didn’t believe him. Not truly. She couldn’t, wouldn’t, and then there he is standing in front of her: Anakin Skywalker, alive, the man who had betrayed everyone he loves, been responsible for so much death and so much pain that Ahsoka had taken personally, and for a moment, she hates him more than anyone in the galaxy, more than Sidious, more than anyone. More than Anakin - Vader - hates her. 

He asks her to join him and that’s the last straw. She leaps at him, sabers flashing, and then there is nothing but the fight, the visceral need to hurt him, to exorcise the gnawing pain in her chest drowning every other thought or feeling in rage. He makes a mistake and she takes the opening, leaps, slashes down with all her strength and overpowers him, sending them both toppling. There’s a moment where they both scramble to their feet but Ahsoka is faster. She uses the Force to press down on his mangled chest until the machinery whines in protest and crosses her sabers at his throat where he lies prone.

Then, she hesitates. Just for a moment.

A hand pulls her back at the last second - it's the Jedi kid, Ezra Bridger. She spins in a wild rage, sabers leading, and nearly takes his head off before she sees where they are. Ahsoka sprints back towards the portal Ezra pulled her through into this nowhere place, a furious scream in her throat, but she’s too late. Vader is gone. She’s alone with a strange teenager who knows her better than he should in this strange world-between-worlds. 

Ezra says, breathless like he’s been running or fighting, 'You can’t kill him. We’re going to need him one day.'

He looks older, talks like he knows Ahsoka, like they’ve become friends, almost. Ahsoka doesn’t know what to say, can’t think through the all-encompassing hate. 

 ‘One day you’re going to thank me,’ Ezra says. ‘I don’t know if you trust anyone but you gotta trust me, Ahsoka.’

‘You made a mistake stopping me, kid,’ Ahsoka growls.

‘You were a Jedi once,’ Ezra says. He stands his ground and fearlessly meets her eyes, almost as if he’s challenging her.

Ahsoka pauses, feels the sting of the words and breathes it in, lets it ground her. She had been a Jedi once, perhaps, but not for a long time.

‘You can be again,’ Ezra tells her. He extends a hand. ‘You just have to make a choice. No one is ever truly lost. Not even Vader.’

‘How do you know?’ Ahsoka asks, something constricting her throat.

Ezra smiles a sort of knowing smile. ‘Think about it.’

Cackling sounds from behind her. Its Sidious, through another portal in a room full of mirrors and blue flames. Ezra grabs Ahsoka’s hand and sprints in the opposite direction. ‘Run!’

She might have been seconds from killing Vader but even she isn’t stupid enough to go up against Sidious alone. Blue flames lick at their heels. Ahsoka refuses to die here, where Rex and their family would never know what happened to her. She refuses.

‘Split up!’ she calls and Ezra lets go of her hand.

‘Come find me!’ he calls back and disappears.

Ahsoka jumps through a portal and returns to her world.

VIII.

Maul thinks she’s dead. She walks into their fortress, angry at him, angry at Ezra for stopping her from killing Vader, angry at herself for hesitating enough to let him, angry at Sidious and Vader for existing. Maul asks her to come back, they created this plan together, he needs her, this is where she’s meant to be. 

Ezra’s words echo in her head. All it takes is a choice. 

‘No,’ she says and Maul’s smugly benevolent smile falters, twists. ‘No,’ she repeats, stronger this time, feeling the Force surge with a sense of rightness. 

She steps forward, seething, and for the first time in a long time, she makes an effort to douse that flame. All this hiding, all this gathering of wealth, working in the shadows, what has it gotten them? 

‘Listen to me, my apprentice!’ Maul hisses. ‘Forget this foolish nonsense. We stick to the plan. Our plan.’

Ahsoka shook her head. Her hands move subtly to her hips where her sabers are hooked. ‘The plan is finished. I won’t be a part of it anymore. Working with criminals? Killing innocents? This isn’t how we defeat the Empire. This isn’t the way. All these years and we haven’t done anything useful! Those rebels have achieved more in the last five years than we have in fifteen! I won’t take orders from you anymore. I’m done.’

‘You think you can get your revenge on your own?’ Maul sneers. ‘You sound like a Jedi!’

‘I had my chance at revenge,’ Ahsoka says. ‘I faced Vader and I defeated him one on one. I could have killed him.’

‘Weak!’ Maul roars and finally stands, his saberstaff flaring to life.

As one, the guards surrounding Maul’s throne - and wasn’t that a joke! All this grandstanding was useless vanity, a farcical show of power - raise their blasters. In answer, Ahsoka hears weapons loading at her back and suddenly she is afraid.

Then, ‘We’re with you, Ahsoka,’ Rex says, pride infusing his voice so powerfully Ahsoka wants to cry with the force of it. It feels like a weight lifted off her shoulders. This, she realises, is what Rex has been waiting for all along.

Maul roars and charges Ahsoka. This is a battle sixteen years in the making, the fight to the death that should have happened back on Mandalore, when Ahsoka was still a child, when she had naively signed her soul away to the dark. She is done holding back.

But... she doesn’t kill Maul. She hesitates, just as she hesitated with Vader. Again, there is a hand on her shoulder dragging her away, but this time it is Rex, the one person Ahsoka trusts most in the world. She goes, with a hail of blasterfire at her back and twenty-three clones on her heels.

They steal a ship, jump to lightspeed and then... they’re free.

They’re on their own now.

She surveys her brothers and another puzzle piece clicks into place. This is always how it was meant to be.

Later, Rex finds her in her new bunk on their liberated freighter. On his face is the first real smile she’s seen since the Siege of Mandalore. She’s sitting, staring at her shaking hands.

‘Oh, Rex,’ Ahsoka sobs, suddenly overcome. ‘I’ve really kriffed up haven’t I?’

Rex chuckles and shakes his head. ‘No, Ahsoka,’ he says. He takes her head in his hands and places a kiss on her forehead, then the tip of her nose, which makes her giggle. ‘I think we’re finally on the right track.’

Ahsoka throws her arms around him and kisses him so soundly she can’t tell whose tears are staining her cheeks.

IX.

They come across Saw Guerrera’s extremist rebel sect very soon after breaking from Maul’s empire. They work together for a while - Saw’s an old friend from the Clone Wars and anyway, he’s always been an “enemy of my enemy” type. They clash, though, badly. Saw doesn’t appreciate his authority being challenged, nor having a faction of soldiers who only answer to Ahsoka. Ahsoka and her crew leave the first time one of Saw’s rebels pulls a blaster on Rex, and then they’re on their own again.

They hunt inquisitors. They find a Force-Sensitive youngling the Empire stole and take her under their wing. She is a tiny Iktotchi they find on an Imperial prison ship they’d broken into to save some brothers - an elite force operating during the Clone War, including an old friend. Clone Force 99 were already dechipped, sabotaging the Empire from the inside until they’d gotten caught. It's an emotional reunion for Echo and Rex. 

The child they discover, thanks to some quick slicing on Echo’s part before they leave, is only six years old. She was taken from wherever she came from too early to remember her birth name and the Empire never bothered to record it. Instead of calling her the Fourteenth Sister, the clones start calling her Cuyan - survivor -  or ad’ika. Rex calls her Ahsoka’s Little Apprentice. 

The girl helps Ahsoka remember herself. There’s something grounding in this process of teaching someone else about the Force, raising them. Cuyan is so young, so innocent, and Ahsoka's growing family of clones fold this youngling into their ranks so quickly and completely that soon it feels like she’d always been there. 

They find more clones, too. Not all of them want to join Ahsoka’s family in their crusade. The ones that opt-out are sent to Wolffe and Gregor, whom the Echo and the Bad Batch had found and dechipped several years earlier.

They come across the Jedi from Malachor; Ezra Bridger, his master Kanan Jarrus, and their crew of rebels, several times in the next several months. Maul takes an interest in Ezra after Ahsoka leaves and she feels honour-bound to help him when she can. It's a strange feeling after so long, but it’s familiar, and she latches onto it. She’s not a Jedi anymore, but when she eventually faces Maul again, this time standing with Kanan and Ezra on either side and her clone family at her back, she thinks maybe she’s not a Sith anymore either. Maul escapes, despite their best efforts, but there is something strangely final about this ending.

Later, Ahsoka will hear how Maul found Obi-Wan on Tatooine, how Obi-Wan killed him, and she will mourn her old Sith Master.

X.

They join the Rebellion, finally, after the confrontation with Maul. It’s Ezra that convinces her. Kanan doesn’t like it. He doesn’t trust her or the clones, but he’s a Jedi. They were taught that there’s no coming back from the Dark Side. It’s understandable, if incredibly frustrating. It doesn’t help Ahsoka’s belief in herself. She comes back from several of her encounters with the Jedi wondering if he’s right. If there is no turning back, no choice... what then? Is she only going to corrupt her little apprentice? Is she only dragging her family into the dark with her, like she had when she had answered to Maul? Rex does his best to talk her out of these dark moods, but there isn’t much he can do to convince her. Ahsoka loves him fiercely for trying, though. Sometimes that love is what finally pulls her out of her dark spirals. Sith can feel many things, but love? Pure, grateful and uncomplicated by greed and jealousy? There was nothing Dark about the love she had for her family. At least, not anymore.

The next time she ignites her lightsabers after that realisation is the first time they flash white instead of red. Ahsoka cries that night, once everyone else is asleep.

Ahsoka and her family operate as their own independent unit, but they’re part of something bigger now, something with purpose. It feels good in a way working with Maul never did. She and the clones raise their little apprentice, one squad running missions while the other stays behind, defending the base and making sure the little nuisance doesn’t get into trouble.

It's on one of these missions that they discover the Death Star.

It’s not quite complete yet, and Vader is there, overseeing everything. Seeing him again is a shock. She braces for the tide of hate and hurt to pull her under, and finds it dulled. She isn’t abandoned this time and... she’s made her own mistakes. She realises she cannot judge Vader for his. Not without giving him a chance, the way Ezra had given her. Like the boy had said, no one is ever truly lost. Not even Vader. All it takes is a choice.

‘There is something different about you, young one,’ Vader says, facing her down in a corridor as sirens blare all around and elsewhere Rex’s team are doing as much damage to this monstrosity as they can. ‘Where is your master?’

‘I have no master,’ Ahsoka replied, settling into a guard stance and waiting for an attack. ‘I am my own woman again.’

Vader cocks his head, studies her from beneath the mask. She has the feeling that if he had been physically capable, he would have laughed at her. ‘No one is truly their own,’ he drawled instead. ‘You lie only to yourself, Lady Tano. We know that you answer to the Rebellion now.’

Ahsoka shrugs. ‘We both know no one can fight a war on their own.’

Vader nods pointedly over her shoulders, back down the empty corridor. ‘Come to die, then? Or come to join me?’

‘I’ve come to ask you to join me,’ Ahsoka responds and in the same moment realises it is true.

Vader wheezes through the following silence. ‘That was a mistake,’ he says finally and attacks.

They move through corridors, red and white lightsabers flashing between them, Ahsoka giving ground under Vader’s assault, fighting for time rather than hits, until far below them Rex and the boys find a way into the breathtakingly enormous hyperdrive and blow it to hell. It doesn’t quite kill the battle station, but it’s gonna buy the Rebellion more time to find a way to beat it. 

They barely make it out alive, Ahsoka rendezvousing with the strike team after being separated from Vader by a collapsed corridor. She realises on the flight back to base that she’s almost disappointed Vader didn’t come with them.

They return to their hidden base and lay low. After the damage they did to the Emperor’s pet project, they’re at the very top of the imperial most wanted list right now.

The quiet does them good. She takes the time to teach Cuyan and do all the things they’d been putting off in favour of missions. They even start to make the base feel more like a home. Things are almost... good.

XI.

Vader finds them. He comes alone in a stolen imperial shuttle with the transponder disabled. He walks up to their hidden base with his hands clasped behind his helmeted head, from far enough away they have plenty of time to mobilise against him. Rex is the most vocal in his distrust of it. He’s seen Anakin Skywalker’s false surrender tactic in action before.

Then, Vader starts talking, and Ahsoka can feel in the Force the truth behind the words.

‘I don’t want to fight alone anymore. Ahsoka,’ Vader says. ‘Please.’

It wasn’t that Ahsoka was a Sith, like him, that convinced him to join her and their rebel cell. It was that, when they met again on the Death Star, he’d noticed how much she had changed. She was a darksider, but she’s clawing her way slowly, slowly back to the light. He could sense the Light inside her. It gave him something he hadn’t had for nearly seventeen years: hope. 

Ahsoka, Rex and the clones have a long conversation before accepting his surrender. Rex, Jesse, Flash and Tech are the last holdouts, but Ahsoka points out how they all have innocent blood on their hands, asks why they still stay with her if she hasn’t proven that darksiders can change. Rex closes his eyes and sighs.

‘Vader didn’t used to be like this,’ he says eventually, catching Jesse’s eyes, then Flash’s, then Payt’s. ‘He was one of us once. The best of us. I... want to believe that he could be again.’

‘We all do, Rex,’ Echo murmurs. He’d been unusually quiet throughout the discussion, a forlorn look on his face.

Tech splutters. ‘Sir, do you know the potential damage he could cause if he turned on us?’ 

‘And what about the potential damage he could cause the Empire if he turned on them?’ Hunter argues.

Tech gapes and goes still. Ahsoka can almost see the calculations running behind his eyes. ‘Oh,’ he says finally. ‘Oh.’ 

‘We have to do it,’ Flash says. ‘If there’s even a chance, we have to take it.’

They agree on the condition that he obeys Ahsoka and Rex’s orders, and makes a deal not to use the Dark Side. To be better. 

It doesn’t go well, at first.

XII.

Vader chafes under Ahsoka and Rex’s authority, their numerous precautions and protocols. He gets angry and destructive sometimes, but he learns, in time, to control it.

They give him limited access to the base at first, nothing vital or confidential ever gets anywhere near him. Ahsoka, Rex, Payt and Echo are the only four allowed to spend unguarded time with him, as members of the 501st Anakin Skywalker had once known and called friends. He doesn’t learn of Cuyan’s existence until every piece of intel he offers pans out and he has control of his temper well enough to be deemed fit to join the rest.

Vader is silent for a long time when he is introduced to every member of Ahsoka’s family at once. Cuyan is perched securely on Jesse’s hip, the pair flanked by Wrecker, Stitcher, Haat and Neo, all glaring at Vader. The rest of their brothers aren't trying to be any friendlier.

Vader squares his shoulders. ‘There are more of you than I expected.’ It’s difficult to tell through the vocabulator whether the statement is supposed to be judgemental or proud.

‘This is my family,’ Ahsoka says and introduces them one by one.

When she is done, Vader says in a strange tone, ‘Whose is the youngling?’

‘She’s ours,’ Ahsoka says. ‘We rescued her from your Inquisitorius. We call her Cuyan.’

Vader almost flinches at the mention of the squad of darksiders. Awkwardly, he says, ‘Oh… Good.’ And that is that.

In a way, it's Cuyan who best helps Vader keep his promise. He's killed or orphaned far too many children in his lifetime (one would have been too many) and he treats the child like she's made of spun glass. More than that, though, he grieves for the child he never knew, the one who died when Padmé died. He is wary of her, of hurting her, and keeps his distance, but Ahsoka often finds Vader watching the child talk or play with members of the rest of the family with something like wistfulness colouring the Force around him. Cuyan is wary of him, though she doesn’t seem to recognise him, which Ahsoka chooses to take as a good sign. It means Vader never had a hand in her time with the Empire. It's a small mercy.

They don’t tell the Rebellion about Vader’s defection right away. For all the Galaxy knows, Vader is simply gone; or planning something - or dead. Rumours spread through the Rebel fleet like wildfire, but they are ignored. It gives him time to get the worst of his impulses and temper under control. 

They find him better life-support. He and Payt, who'd been one of the 501st's best engineers back during the war, spend hours upon hours making adjustments to his various prostheses, easing some of the constant pain, improving the efficiency of the life-support suit, fixing it so he doesn’t have to wear his mask all the time. It’s a lengthy process. The intel Vader gives them on the Empire makes missions a thousand times easier, gives them an edge they hadn’t had until now, exacerbated by the disappearance of the Empire’s attack dog. The blows they deal to the Empire are swift, decisive and destructive. It gains the Empire’s attention - again.

XIII.

The Empire finds them. The Rebellion tells them that it’s time, that they should retreat back to Yavin IV. They can’t hide Vader any longer. Ahsoka’s not stupid, she comms ahead, tells Mon Mothma and Bail exactly what had happened, what they’ve been working on, who they’ve been working on. They have evidence to show them, mission reports that Vader’s intel made possible, statements from everyone describing life with Vader hiding in their basement. Vader is there for all of it, spends the conversation with his mask off, which Bail visibly struggles with, even under his politician’s sabacc face. That’s sobering for Vader. The man had been Padmé’s friend once.

Word has spread, by the time Ahsoka and her family arrive, that Vader has defected to the Rebellion.

The hangar bay at Yavin IV is deep-space silent when he steps down the ramp of Ahsoka’s ship, walking through the gathered Rebels with his back straight, his mask on and his mental shields shuddering under the storm of emotions he's trying to keep at bay.

Someone in the crowd fires a shot.

Vader is unarmed, but he dodges out of the way, finds the culprit with ease, reaches out to the Force, ready to choke them for the insolence, and really how dare they? He’d come here as an ally-

Ahsoka barks out a sharp, ‘Anakin!’ and he remembers himself, remembers their deal. 

He drops his hand, lets the Force go, raises his hands in a gesture of surrender and says, ‘I come as an ally.’

His breath fills the hangar for a tense minute. Ahsoka, and her clone family form a perimeter around Vader, Cuyan hiding behind one of his legs, waiting for the next shot, for the whole room to plunge into chaos. Mon Mothma appears at the door, flinches almost imperceptibly at seeing Vader in person. ‘Lord Vader,’ she says. ‘Follow me.’

Vader nods his head, says, as politely as he can manage, ‘Of course, Lady Mothma,’ and follows.

They put him in a holding cell. It's symbolic, mostly, since they don’t have the facilities to hold a powerful Force user like Vader, but it helps the Rebels feel less vulnerable about having the Emperor’s Hand in their ranks. There are a few assassination attempts. Ahsoka or one of the clones manages to intervene before Vader’s self-control is tested too far.

Organa calls Obi-Wan on Tatooine, tells him everything. Obi-Wan wants nothing more than to drop everything and fly to Yavin IV to see for himself, but he still has Luke to watch over. Even if Vader is no longer a threat, he still has the Emperor to hide Luke from. 

He does, however, decide it is time to tell Luke the truth. All of it. Owen is furious. It will take time - years, even - but between Luke, Obi-Wan and Beru, they will eventually convince Owen to let Luke leave to join the Rebellion, to meet his family. 

In the meantime, despite Owen’s protests, Obi-Wan starts training Luke to be a Jedi.

XIV.

After a month in holding, after interrogations by the Rebellion’s best and Vader fighting to be on his best behaviour, Organa makes the controversial call to let him out. He keeps his mask off this time, when he appears in front of the Rebels at the mess hall. Again, the hall falls deathly silent. Vader, unarmed, unarmoured, maskless, joins the Bad Batch at their table, dares anyone who has an objection to his presence to come and say so to his face with only his flashing eyes.

They’re blue.

It's not the end of his journey, but it's proof that he’s finally, finally, heading in the right direction.

Then, the Force slams into him, sending him flying backwards and crashing to the floor to a harsh cry of, ‘You!’ 

A young man is on top of him before Vader can react, slamming his fist into Vader's jaw. ‘You betrayed us!’ the man cries and punches him again.

Vader moves with the blow, mitigating the damage as the man throws another punch. ‘The Jedi were your family and you betrayed them!’

The Force coils around his attacker - a Jedi. One he's met before.

Vader catches the next blow before it can land. He holds it there for a moment. He doesn't meet his attacker's eyes - they're covered; blind. Vader brushes up against his presence in the Force instead, calling on the Light, clumsy but determined. He offers the man a glimpse at the black hole of remorse living in his chest, acknowledges the long-buried grief he feels from the man in turn. 

‘You were Master Bilaba's padawan,’ he murmurs when the rebel known as Kanan Jarrus rears back from Vader in surprise. ‘You knew Anakin Skywalker.’

‘I admired Anakin Skywalker,’ Jarrus replies, his voice no longer wretched but twisted with bitter irony. ‘I admired you. So many people did.’

‘I know.’ Vader stares up at the ceiling, taking in the ring of shocked rebels watching them. The Darth Vader they knew would never have gone down so easily. Vader swallows back bile at the thought of how weak he must seem to them. 

‘Caleb,’ Vader rumbles. ‘I am sorry.’

Jarrus sucks in a breath at the name, rocks back on his heels. A familiar hand appears on his shoulder. ‘Kanan,’ Ahsoka murmurs.

Jarrus takes her offered hand, let's her help him stand. Then, she turns to Vader. He lets her haul him to his feet too. Jarrus turns away from Vader, walks back to where a huddle of familiar rebels watches with sympathy. Captain Syndulla takes his hand and leads him away. The Padawan, Bridger, stares over his shoulder at Vader for a moment, anger and a strange sadness flickering over his features before he's dragged away by a Mandalorian girl and a lasat.

There's a moment of stunned silence and then the gathered rebels in the mess hall gradually pick their conversations back up. Vader sits back down at his table with Echo settling in on one side and Wrecker on the other.

‘I deserved that,’ Vader mumbles.

Echo snorts. ‘Damn right you did.’

Agent Kallus is the first Rebel to approach them. Vader had known him, back when they’d both been fighting on the wrong side. The former ISB agent sits down across from Vader, looks him in the eye, and says, ‘Thank you for doing the right thing.’

Vader replies, ‘I am... sorry I took so long.’

XV.

Things slowly return to normal. Ahsoka and her family minus Vader are sent on missions, often with the Ghost crew. She and Ezra become friends. She watches him grow into the man that saved her from killing Vader on Malachor.

A year later, Kanan dies, Ezra vanishes, and Ahsoka vows to find him. She leaves for her search, just her and Rex and their little apprentice in a small ship, posing as a family, to scour the galaxy for the Jedi’s lost son.

They’re on the opposite side of the galaxy from Yavin IV, still searching, when Galen Erso sends a pilot to the Rebellion with a terrible warning and a message of hope. The clones left behind, Jesse, Echo and the Bad Batch and the rest, are the second loudest voices around the council table calling for the Rebellion to take a stand. Vader is the loudest. He’s seen the Death Star in person. He knows what it could do in the hands of the Emperor.

Cassian Andor gathers nearly a hundred rebels for a rogue mission to Scarif to steal the Death Star plans when the council votes to hide instead. Standing at the back of that crowd are Vader and the Bad Batch.

Anakin had decided it was time to announce to the world whose side he’s on these days.

Echo catches Anakin in all his glory, cutting down stormtroopers and taking down an AT-AT on the beaches of Scarif on a holovid. It will spread through the HoloNet faster than the Empire can take it down. It will be a rallying cry to the Rebellion. It will bring them hope.

Between them, Anakin and the Bad Batch figure out a way to kill the planetary shield from the inside, slicing into the security network for the shield gate using a connection to the comms tower.

Jyn and Cassian send the Death Star plans to Admiral Raddus’ ship. Anakin has a stolen imperial shuttle full of rebels and clones in orbit by the time the Death Star and three star destroyers jump into the system.

Anakin boards Admiral Raddus’s command ship, barking out instructions on how to best evade the two remaining Imperial capital ships that had stayed behind to take on the rebel fleet. Raddus follows his instructions. The ship is flooded with Inquisitors, four of them cutting a swathe through the rebel soldiers on board until Anakin gets between them and the rebels. He holds out long enough for them to receive the Death Star plans.

The Death Star obliterates the Scarif base, but it’s too late.

The Tantive IV jumps to hyperspace. The rest of the shattered rebel fleet retreats. Raddus’ remaining crew abandon ship as the whole thing is blown to pieces. The escape pods are picked up by another rebel ship who immediately jumps away from the system, retreating to Yavin IV.

Mon Mothma meets Anakin and his crew as soon as they touch down with grave news. The Senate has been disbanded, the Tantive IV and everyone aboard has been reported destroyed. The war against the Empire, relegated to the shadows for so long, has finally begun in earnest.

Then, she tells Anakin where the Tantive IV was headed and why: Tatooine, to summon Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker to join the fight.

XVI.

Mothma sends Anakin on the mission the Tantive IV failed to complete. He goes alone.

Anakin is a mess of nerves and complicated emotions the whole flight from Yavin to Tatooine. He comms Ahsoka and Rex, still scouring the Unknown Regions for Ezra. He tells them who waits on the other end of his journey. He has a son. It helps, some.

Ahsoka and Rex tell him they've found something, a Jedi Temple so ancient they barely realised what it was until they were right on top of it. It held a library of holocrons Ahsoka had taken to sifting through during hyperspace jumps. She'd let him know if she finds anything interesting.

On Tatooine, Anakin finds R2D2 before he finds Kenobi. It’s early morning on the planet when they arrive and Artoo is raving about his mission, single-minded as always. He directs Anakin to Obi-Wan. With a little persuasion, Artoo plays Anakin the important message he’s carrying.

Bail Organa’s daughter had joined the Senate after Anakin had defected. Anakin has never met her in person, but still, looking at the holorecording of her addressed to Obi-Wan, hearing her voice... the Force almost seems to whisper that he knew her, somehow. It nags at him on his journey across the Jundland Wastes. 

Everything is hauntingly familiar here, even after all this time. Sand gets in his prosthetic limbs and clogs his mask until his lungs burn with grit. He hates the heat of the suns hitting his suit. The ghostly cry of Tusken raiders is carried to him on the wind.

The reunion with Obi-Wan is strained. There is so much between them, so much pain and death and guilt and so many secrets. Anakin sinks to his knees in the Tatooine sand, his tears welling behind his mask and he rips it off. He pleads for Obi-Wan’s forgiveness with wide blue eyes.

Obi-Wan is silent and frozen, pale beneath his desert tan until Anakin runs out of words. Then, he says, ‘Anakin,’ in a broken, weathered old voice, takes one aborted step towards him, hesitates when Anakin flinches back involuntarily. There’s a moment of awkward breathless silence, broken only when R2D2 tootles. Anakin translates automatically to cover his moment of weakness.

Artoo plays Leia’s message.

‘Mon Mothma sent me,’ Anakin manages after the recording is finished. ‘To make sure you got the message if Princess Leia failed. She wants me to bring you to Alderaan and I... I want to meet my son.’

‘Ben?’ a voice calls, young, masculine, tinged with that familiar Tatooine drawl that even Obi-Wan's vowels curled around these days. ‘I finished my-’ 

Anakin flinches violently at the hiss of an igniting lightsaber. The blade is a bright blue, like the eyes of the boy wielding it. It's Anakin's old lightsaber hilt in the boy's hand. He hasn't seen it in 19 years.

Anakin tries to stand but he's frozen.

‘It's alright, Luke,’ Obi-Wan murmurs, not taking his eyes off Anakin's. ‘It's your father. He's come home to us.’

Luke drops the lightsaber in the sand. He falls to his knees in front of Anakin, raising shaking hands to Anakin's unmasked face. His touch over the old burn scars is so gentle, Anakin can't fight back the fresh wave of tears. 

This boy is his. He can feel it in the Force, the way the Light sings around him, from him, the way his signature resonates with Anakin's own in a way he's never felt before. This boy is his and Padmé's and Obi-Wan's. He can feel parts of all three of them in Luke and it feels right in a way nothing else ever has.

‘My son,’ Anakin whispers. ‘My grown-up son.’

Luke’s voice is thick, but his smile is as bright as his mother’s. ‘I told Ben what they were saying was true. I told him you weren’t lost, I could feel it.’

Anakin leaned his scarred forehead against Luke’s, letting out a breath he’d been holding for two decades. ‘You were right,’ he whispered. ‘You were right about me.’

XVII.

They return to the Lars' farm and find it burning.

Owen and Beru are dead. Anakin watches the utter devastation on his son’s face at the sight of the burning homestead and remembers the fire reflected in another pair of agonised blue eyes a lifetime ago. Obi-Wan had been watching his entire life burn too, Anakin realises belatedly, regret lancing through his chest.

He hangs back as Luke takes in the ruins of his home and thinks of the Coruscant Temple burning, remembers the stench of death so thick in the air he’d almost choked on it, and the heavy wave of remorse and grief submerges him for a moment. He wondered what he would have done had he arrived on Tatooine to discover Luke had been lost with his aunt and uncle. He wonders if Bail Organa had collapsed upon hearing of the death of his daughter.

Obi-Wan places a hand each on Luke and Anakin’s shoulders. ‘I’m sorry, Luke,’ he murmurs. ‘But we cannot delay.’

Luke clenches his jaw, wipes away his tears and Anakin feels him breathe the worst of his grief into the Force. Already, Luke is a better Jedi than Anakin was.

Anakin drives them to where he’d landed his rebel ship. No one says a word. They slip through the Imperial blockade around the planet and into hyperspace without incident. It would almost have been anticlimactic if the silence hadn’t been so heavy.

‘Anakin, I don’t know how much you’ve been told,’ Obi-Wan says after a few hours in hyperspace. They are all sitting in the cargo hold, wondering what to say to each other. ‘But there are things you need to know.’

‘Like what?’

Obi-Wan pinches the bridge of his nose. ‘Anakin, please do not get angry.’

Anakin clenches his fist. ‘What did you do, Obi-Wan?’

‘Princess Leia Organa was Luke’s twin,’ Obi-Wan said. ‘Your daughter.’

Fury and a frantic sort of grief crash over him. Leia - Princess Leia of Alderaan, daughter of Padmé's dear friend and ally - he should've- he should have known somehow, and now-

'Force...' Anakin's mechanical lungs can't keep up with his panic. 

Now, Leia Organa is dead. Anakin had already been grieving quietly for her for nineteen years but to know he'd been too late to meet her by a matter of days-

Anakin stands abruptly, fists clenched, eyes wide, the Force coiling around him and Luke and Obi-Wan both flinch, reaching for the lightsabers on their belts.

'Anakin-' Obi-Wan tries but Anakin snaps out a harsh, 'Don't!' and stumbles from the cargo hold to the cockpit. There isn't even a wall separating the two parts of the ship but Anakin doesn't care; he needs to put some distance between himself and anyone he could hurt right now.

He flings himself into the pilot's seat, buries his face in his hands, feels his shoulders shake and hot tears spill down his ruined cheeks. 

It's maybe ten minutes before he stops trembling. A familiar warmth brushes against his mind as a warning, then an even more familiar hand brushes his shoulder. Anakin latches onto it with both hands, clings to it in a way he hadn't allowed himself to since he was a padawan, and wishes he had proper sensation in them for the first time. Obi-Wan is silent at his shoulder, his presence steady, solid. 

Anakin had missed him.

‘I'm sorry, Anakin,’ Obi-Wan murmurs. 

‘I know.’ Anakin doesn't know what else to say. ‘It's... Not your fault, it's- it's mine.’

There is nothing Obi-Wan can say to that that isn't a lie. He doesn't do either of them the disservice of trying.

XVIII. 

Alderaan is an asteroid field when they arrive. The Death Star hangs above it all, cold and terrible. All three had felt the planet's destruction. None of them had known what it meant.

Rage boils in Anakin. He knows Obi-Wan can feel it. If Anakin was by himself, he would have almost been glad for the tractor beam pulling them inexorably towards the abomination of engineering, for the excuse to rampage through the place, for some outlet for all the grief and despair inside him. 

But he knows better now. He knows himself well enough that the urge terrifies him. He’s promised Ahsoka, after all. 

Obi-Wan watches him with a shuttered expression, serious, deceptively calm. Anakin remembers that look from Mustafar. He's waiting for Anakin to show him who he really is. 

Anakin consciously relaxes his shoulders, unclenches his fists and jaw and reaches for the Light like a lifeline, letting it pour through him and carry the worst of the rage off in its tide. 

Only then does Anakin see Obi-Wan smile for the first time in nineteen years.

They find Princess Leia alive and furious in the cell block while they're waiting for Obi-Wan to disable the tractor beam. Anakin watches his children talk quietly the whole journey back to Yavin IV. There's a ringing in his ears and an ache in his chest. Obi-Wan stands beside him with one hand over his mouth and the other on Anakin's shoulder. The crinkles around his eyes tell Anakin he's hiding a smile.

Anakin and Luke fly out side-by-side when the Death Star follows them to Yavin IV.

Out beyond the Rishi Maze, Ahsoka Tano opens a holocron that changes everything.

XIX. 

It quickly becomes difficult to tell how long Ahsoka, Rex and their apprentice have been searching for Ezra Bridger. Time has always moved strangely in hyperspace and they spend so much time jumping between planetary systems in their search that the days blur together. Ahsoka spends her days training Cuyan and her nights curled up with Rex in their bunk sifting through Jedi holocrons. The ancient Jedi temple they’d found just before they’d reached Wild Space had been full of them; training holos on lost combat forms, ancient meditation techniques, historical accounts and personal journals.

Currently, Ahsoka is going through a series of journals by a Jedi apprentice, a Duros named Cado Panne. It's been interesting. Their insights into the Force have informed the new direction Ahsoka is taking with Cuyan’s training recently. Their journals are also less dry than the contents of much of the other holocrons she’s looked through and Ahsoka has found enjoyment in the ancient padawan’s description of missions they had been on or the novel they were reading. 

Tonight’s entry is on a mission Cado had been on with their Master to negotiate the settlement of a large group of refugees who became plagued by a mysterious disease.

‘A treatment for the DNA degradation none have yet discovered. Spreading, the disease is, and quickly. Many succumbed before reach them, myself and Master mine could. Fear, I do, that perish many more will before found a cure is.’ Cado signs off with that ominous proclamation and Ahsoka frowns.

Something Cado had said nags at her as she opens the next holofile. Rex snores on beside her.

‘Discovered a treatment Master mine has!’ Cado opened the next holovid with. ‘The DNA the disease attacked so the DNA Master healed! A cure it is not, though now a chance patients may have.’

Cado glanced around and added quietly. ‘Shared the technique with me, Master mine has. Much power it requires, a deep connection to the Force. Taken, care must be, for delicate the process is. Applied the principles of Force Healing must be on a micro-scale. Repair not the damaged tissue but the DNA itself. Much trust in the Force it takes. Impossible for a sentient mind it is to sequence DNA so try healers should not. Trust in the Force. If direct it you do to the cause of the degradation, fix it, the Force may.’

Ahsoka has gotten used to reading Cado’s moods in their holovids. In this one, there was awe inflecting their tone, obvious even through the antiquated language.

‘An old woman with the disease Master mine treated. Not only the degradation caused by the disease did she fix, but made her young again. Dangerous Master mine claims this technique is. Begged to share this discovery with the Order, I did, but Master mine refused.’

Ahsoka sucks in a breath, rewinds the holovid to the beginning and watches the whole thing again.

XX.

Rex’s golden-brown eyes open when Ahsoka wakes him the next morning and he smiles softly up at her. His hair is almost entirely white; he'd given up dyeing it years ago. It breaks her heart a little every time she sees it these days. She hands him a cup of caf and sits on the edge of their bed. Suddenly, she can’t quite meet his eyes.

‘I never asked you,’ she begins after a deep breath. ‘I never asked what you thought of… If you even wanted your years back. If you wanted a cure.’

Rex sits up but doesn’t speak.

‘I’m sorry,’ Ahsoka says and there are tears pricking her eyes. ‘I was so caught up in the fear of losing you and your brothers that I never thought to ask what you wanted-‘

‘Ahsoka,’ Rex murmurs, his voice deep and raspy from sleep. ‘Its okay.’

‘It’s not,’ Ahsoka says. ‘I was selfish. I couldn’t think of anything except- except what I wanted, needed, I leaned on you for so long and I never- Force, all the things you had to watch me do, over and over again, and you didn’t-‘ she closes her eyes and breathes, reaches for the Force and lets its Light fill her, then breathes it out again, taking with it the worst of the fear and shame. ‘I don’t know why you stayed with me for so long,’ Ahsoka finishes.

Rex reaches out and strokes his hand down one montral, nudging her head until she leans over and rests it on his shoulder. ‘Yes, you do.’

Ahsoka exhales again in a long sigh. She can’t be afraid anymore. That isn’t the person she wants to be anymore. ‘I do.’

She listens to him breathe for a few moments, treasuring the early morning quiet. Then, she says, ‘Rex, I think I’ve found the answer.’

XXI.

The destruction of the Death Star is the death knell for the Empire. The rebels flee Yavin IV and keep moving in search of another base to settle. Anakin and Obi-Wan spend most of their time in Alliance meetings. Leia often stands on the other side of the holotable, sending Anakin cold looks whenever he speaks up, but Obi-Wan always finds an excuse to touch him, to keep him grounded enough he doesn’t lose his temper at her continued coldness.

Anakin watches her slowly work herself into the ground from afar and can do nothing. Leia had made it clear from the moment they’d met that she already had a father and was not in the market for another one. The only time he expresses his concern for her wellbeing to her face, she nearly punches him, white-faced with fury. He almost thinks he feels the Force shift around her in response and there’s a moment of choking fear in him as the thought flits through his mind that maybe he was watching his own daughter, who looks so much like Padmé sometimes that it burns, Fall. She’s untrained in using the Force, but she’s powerful. No child of Anakin Skywalker could ever be anything other than a powerhouse in the Force.

He runs to Obi-Wan, as he had done since he was a youngling, fighting to release the fear into the Force. Obi-wan listens patiently, as he always has, and then disappears.

The next time Anakin sees Leia, she looks like she’s been crying, but in the Force, she feels Lighter, and Anakin hopes that this means there is still hope for her, for them both.

Luke splits his time between training with Obi-Wan, missions for the Alliance, making sure Leia is fed and well-rested, which he had quietly taken upon himself as his personal mission, and helping Anakin work over the Fleet’s hangar-full of starfighters. With all the skirmishes they got into with the Empire’s increasingly desperate and sloppy attacks, there was always something for him to do, and Anakin had always found things seemed simpler with a hydrospanner in hand. Luke may not have had Anakin’s inclination towards mechanics, but he was always eager to help, and Anakin found his son’s chatter just as soothing as the companionable silences they fell into sometimes when they worked. It felt good to teach again, too, naming tools and engine parts and showing Luke how to strip an X-Wing engine and put it back together better than new. He’d done the same thing with Ahsoka. Teaching Luke, even if it wasn’t in the ways of the Force, made him miss her terribly. He had almost gotten used to having her back in his life when she’d left again. Knowing it was the right thing for her to do never made it any easier to watch her walk away.

Sometimes Payt would join them in the guts of a Y-Wing and Cody, who had joined the fleet after the evacuation of Yavin IV with his own cell of rebel fighters, would join them on the training deck where Anakin would spar with Luke or Obi-Wan sometimes. Anakin took a fierce pleasure in introducing Luke to the clones who had taken him in after his defection. Jesse was always ready with a tale of Anakin and the 501^st's exploits during the Clone Wars, always highly exaggerated or downright fabricated and accompanied by uproarious laughter from his audience.

Sometimes, Anakin catches Obi-Wan watching him with something unreadable on his face that always leaves Anakin with the desperate urge to say or do anything to make him smile again. There are days when Obi-Wan is distant, a faraway look in his eyes that makes Anakin ache for him. He wonders what Obi-Wan sees when his eyes unfocus and he stops responding to whatever conversation he’s a part of.

Sometimes, though, Obi-Wan is the same man Anakin remembers. Anakin watches sometimes, when his old master takes Luke through his katas, and walks with him when he wanders the ship in the evening cycle. They walk and talk long into the night. Whenever the silence between them becomes oppressive, Anakin tells Obi-Wan about Ahsoka, about the woman she became when neither of them had been there to see it, how she had forged her own family and found her own way back to the Light and then opened her arms to Anakin when no one in their right mind would have. Most of all, he tells Obi-Wan how proud he was of her.

One of those evenings, Flash catches up to them, breathless and flushed, his white hair at odds with the youthful exuberance he had never lost despite everything. ‘General Kenobi!’ he pants. ‘Anakin, they’re back! Ahsoka and Rex-‘

Anakin would have forgotten to breathe if his mechanical lungs had let him. ‘Where?’

‘Bay seven,’ Flash grins and takes off again, Anakin and Obi-Wan only steps behind.

XXII.

Anakin is certain the ship still cooling down in bay seven isn’t the one Ahsoka, Rex and Cuyan set out in, but he has no doubt who’s on it. He can feel Ahsoka and her little apprentice’s presences in the Force when he enters the hangar on Flash’s heels. The rest of their little family is already gathered, waiting for the ship’s crew to descend. Hanging awkwardly in the back is Cody, all but hiding in Obi-Wan's shadow at Anakin's shoulder, the three standing a little apart from the gathered clones.

The ramp opens in a hiss of hydraulics and there’s a scream as a small figure leaps down before the ramp is even halfway to the floor. She crosses the several meters to her uncles in a few leaps and reaches Jesse first, throwing herself into his arms before anyone can track what’s happening. Jesse lets out a loud ‘oof!’ and goes tumbling backwards, Haat and Wrecker diving at him and the young Iktochi girl squealing as he digs his fingers into her ribs.

It's such a distracting scene that no one notices the others standing at the top of the ramp.

Cody spots them first after Cuyan has wriggled out from between Haat, Wrecker and Jesse and has flung herself at Neo, who was dangling her upside-down by the ankle, much to her high-pitched cries of delight. Cody says, ‘Rex?’ in a breathless, wondrous way, and Anakin drags his eyes from the scene to see what he's staring at.

Ahsoka stands at the top of the ramp, watching with the fondest smile on her face at the reunion taking place, flanked by two men. The first, Anakin recognises as Ezra Bridger, now a man in his early twenties with a beard coming in and his hair overlong, like he hasn’t been able to cut it for a while. The second is familiar in a way Anakin never expected to see again.

Seeing Rex is like taking a step back in time. His hair is cropped short the way it had been in the war, but its dark, like it used to get if he hadn’t been able to bleach it in a while. He stands with his spine straight and his shoulders set, and Anakin keeps expecting to see kama hanging off his hips and a pauldron on his shoulder, but he’s in spacer’s garb; synthleather jacket open over a dark shirt and pants. The blaster on his hip isn’t a DC but something he’d found on the black-market years ago.

He looks about thirty.

A hush falls over the gathering as one by one the clones notice Rex. Anakin glances over at Obi-Wan, who for once is present but looks utterly speechless. Several brothers are gaping openly as Rex and Ahsoka descend the ramp, fingers entwined, Ezra behind.

‘Karking hell,’ Stitcher swears.

Jesse shoves himself to his feet and steps forward, meeting Rex in the middle. Rex shifts a little uncomfortably at the attention, scratching at the back of his head bashfully. ‘Come on, vode, it’s not like you’ve never seen my face before.’

'Rex!' Cody shouts and steps forward. Rex's eyes go wide and then he throws himself at Cody, nearly lifting the old commander of the ground with the force of his hug.

‘What happened?’ Haat demands when Rex and Cody stop clinging to each other, teary-eyed.

Rex shrugs and grins over at where Ahsoka is watching the scene with her arms around Flash and Stitcher's shoulders. ‘She found the answer.’

Epilogue

The war for the soul of the galaxy is fierce and blisteringly short. When it ends, its with Anakin, Ahsoka and Luke standing side-by-side, facing down Emperor Palpatine himself in the great hall of the building that was once known as the Jedi Temple, a squad of rebels at their back. Anakin doesn’t remember a single moment in his life that felt as right as that one does. It’s almost poetic, in Anakin’s mind, that the Jedi Order is reborn where it had died twenty years ago. He will be forever proud of the son and Padawan who made it happen just as he will be forever ashamed of the part he played in its destruction.

When the Emperor is gone, Leia, Obi-Wan, Mon Mothma and their people descend on the galactic capital. Together, the Alliance to Restore the Republic is finally able to fulfil their true purpose; ushering Democracy back to the galaxy. It will take years to purge the stain of the Sith from the New Republic. Some scars will never fully heal, but Force damn it all, they will do their best to set things right.

When things settle down, Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Rex’s brothers all retire to Naboo.

It’s the one place that Anakin has felt at peace. Coruscant has far too many ghosts that can never be exorcised. There are things that Anakin will never be able to fix, never be able to properly atone for. The best he can do is pave the way for better people, for people like his daughter and his son, to shape the galaxy into what it should be. Something better. Something beautiful.

Anakin and Obi-Wan don’t return to the Naberrie Lake House at Varykino. That place, too, is haunted. Instead, they find a house in Theed. The clones, Ahsoka’s family, find their own place, somewhere big enough for all of them. They’re all happy, enjoying their newfound youthfulness. It’s difficult to watch sometimes.

There’s a distance between Anakin and Obi-Wan, a space he is still trying to figure out how to cross. If Anakin is honest, which he’s trying to be these days, it had always been there. He had always held up an invisible wall between himself and his former master, his best friend. Yet another thing to make amends for.

Luke visits often. He updates Obi-Wan on the progress he and Ezra are making in his project to rebuild the Jedi Order, starting with the Temple on Lothal, and updates Anakin on what Leia is up to in the Senate, since his sister won’t do it in person. It hurts, but Anakin has hope that one day she will change her mind. For now, he must rely on Luke’s updates, and the things Obi-Wan passes on after he and Leia have their long talks via holocomm.

‘Leia’s met someone,’ Luke says one day with a twinkle in his eye that Anakin remembers used to be at home on Obi-Wan’s face.

The three of them are sitting in Obi-Wan and Anakin’s garden, sipping tea and eating pastries from the local bakery. Its summer in Theed and the air hums with life. It’s Anakin’s favourite time of year. His and Padmé’s anniversary is coming up soon. He still hasn’t decided whether or not to mention it to anyone. As far as he knows, the exact date is a secret only known by himself and R2D2.

‘He’s a smuggler,’ Luke continues, ‘used to work for Jabba. Leia accidentally rescued him from Jabba’s Palace when she went to Tatooine on a diplomatic mission for the New Republic.’

Anakin scowls. ‘What does the Republic want with Tatooine?’

Luke shrugs. ‘She didn’t tell me details but I think she was getting in touch with the abolitionist movement gaining traction over there. She has a plan, anyway.’

‘No idea where she got that from,’ Obi-Wan murmurs to his teacup. Anakin hums in agreement.

‘He’s handsome, the smuggler,’ Luke adds, offhandedly changing the subject.

Obi-Wan raises an amused eyebrow at the comment. ‘Is he now?’

Luke grins. ‘Leia seems to think so.’

Obi-Wan smirks. ‘I’m sure.’

The conversation devolves from there and Anakin is happy just to listen to his son and his best friend talk like the old friends they are. Obi-Wan had declared Luke a Jedi knight months ago and retired. They’re both still getting a feel for each other outside of the master-padawan relationship that had defined them for several years. Anakin remembers going through the same thing at the beginning of the Clone Wars and had decided to let them be. They’d figure it out eventually.

‘Cuyan’s going to stay with us at the temple on Lothal for a while sometime soon,’ Luke says when the conversation tapers off. ‘Ahsoka and Ezra are organising it. Ahsoka wants joining the Jedi Order to be Cuyan’s choice. I suggested a try-out to see if it was the sort of thing Cuyan might want. Some kids we’ve found who evaded the Empire’s search for Force-sensitives are coming too.’

Obi-Wan frowns thoughtfully for a moment. ‘Do you think that wise?’ he asked.

‘I think if we’re truly going to rebuild the Jedi Order we are going to have to start somewhere,’ Luke insists. ‘This might be the best chance we have.’

‘Then you should take it,’ Anakin says. ‘If there’s any chance… you should take it.’

Luke beams at him and Obi-Wan briefly squeezes Anakin’s metal fingers. ‘I will,’ Luke vows. ‘You should, too, you know.’

Anakin smiles back at them both and the gentle hum of the Force feels like hope.