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The message came as soon as she dropped out of hyperspace.
Ahsoka had spent the journey in meditation, considering her next move. She'd spent half a year in this new role, coordinating the intelligence network for what wasn't yet a rebellion, no matter what Bail said. Ahsoka went from world to world making contact with the sympathizers he'd already convinced to join him in his cause. "Call me Fulcrum," she said to each one, leaving behind the means to contact her, and more importantly, a means for her to enlist their help at need. Fourteen planets, twenty allies. Set against the might of the Empire, it seemed like some sort of cruel joke.
Wondering what fate's sense of humor would send her next, she opened the channel, intentionally leaving the holoprojector off. "Go ahead."
"I've been asked to relay a message to you," Bail's familiar, welcome voice said over the communicator. "A mutual friend on JanFathal wants to meet with you."
Now there was a flash from the past. For a moment, Ahsoka was years younger and her friends were alive and well, and Djinn Altis was offering a different Jedi path than anything she'd ever considered. In another moment, she was herself again, older and alone. A mutual friend? Another Jedi survivor? Or had Rex returned to a place they'd worked together before while searching for her?
Not allowing herself hope, she asked, "Can you give me their name?"
"Your friend from Raada." Kaeden then, not Rex or a Jedi, but a beloved friend nonetheless.
"Did she say why?"
"Not to me. She only said that she had to speak with you as soon as possible."
Kaeden didn't have one of Ahsoka's communicators yet. She and her sister were already allies of the fledgling rebellion, and it would be good to see her, even if JanFathal was full of ghosts. "I'll go immediately."
"I don't have to tell you to be careful."
She listened to the tone of his voice. Bail Organa had been a politician for his entire life, and he never said a single word in a manner he didn't intend. "What do you suspect?"
"Your friend is worried. This isn't a social call. If she was identified by the Empire as one of your associates, they could be using her to lure you in."
Ahsoka nodded, although he couldn't see. The Imperials had done so before. "I'll be careful."
Kaeden's coordinates were well outside the capital city of Athar. Bail or his associates had arranged for the Raada refugees to be relocated to various settlements dotted around the planet, blending into the local population. That was no guarantee the populace would let them blend, or wouldn't turn in the strangers to the Empire. She must be cautious. If Kaeden had been compromised, Ahsoka would do what she could to save her, but she would do so sensibly.
As it was, Kaeden met her outside the settlement, and the uncomplicated joy on her face as she saw Ahsoka put those fears to rest. "You came."
"Of course," she said, and took her friend into a pleased embrace. All her injuries had healed, and Ahsoka saw no new ones taking their place. "What's happened?"
Kaeden turned, casually taking Ahsoka's hand in hers as she hurried back towards the dim lights of the settlement streets. "Miara found him. As soon as I saw what he had, I knew you had to be told."
"Him?"
"Come on."
They made their way through the squat buildings, not much different from the plain, prefabricated homes back on Raada. The fields surrounding the settlement showed neat lines of crops. Kaeden had traded farming life on one world for another. Ahsoka saved her questions, not knowing who would be around and could be listening.
Kaeden led the way to a small building not much different from the rest, and knocked lightly. The door cracked open, and Miara answered, her face lighting up at seeing the pair of them. "Ashla!" she said, then hesitated, confused, as they let themselves inside and latched the door. Something tickled at the edge of her mind.
"Ahsoka," she said, and gave the girl a quick hug, which was returned with rib-squeezing joy. "It's good to see you both. Can you please tell me what's going on?"
"In here," Kaeden said, and opened a curtain to an inside room. Ahsoka followed her, then froze at the entrance.
She'd been through a lot in the last few years, and even before that, she'd fought in a war. The clinical, detached eye of the warrior noted injuries, both the fresh wounds bandaged with some care and the old scars healed over with pink, proud flesh. He'd been hurt, in battle or by a tormentor, and the gaunt, tight flesh on his face spoke of terrible deprivation. The cold eye took all this in, assessing the need for medical attention and the weeks before he could return to any kind of battlefield, assuming his mind was still intact.
Her other eye bypassed everything, seeing only the injured body of her former master and closest friend, and her heart ached.
She turned to Kaeden. "What happened?"
"Miara found him while we were in Athar selling the harvest with Vartan. He was like this, left in a back alley. I saw his lightsaber. It wasn't lit, but I knew what it was." She looked at Ahsoka. "I thought at first he was like that grey alien who came to Raada, but he seemed different."
"What did he tell you?"
"He hasn't said a word. Vartan thinks we should have left him, that he's going to die. I knew you'd know what to do."
Ahsoka accepted Kaeden's hope in the matter, but she had no idea what to do. "Thank you," she said. "You did the right thing."
"Do you know who he is?" Ahsoka didn't reply, and Kaeden said, "You do, don't you?"
"He's an old friend, yes. I believed he'd died." She looked at his still form on the small bed that had been made up on the floor, and wondered if she'd arrived in time to watch her belief become reality. She recalled one nickname from the few people who knew him best and decided it was safe enough. "His name's Ani."
"He's a Jedi like you, isn't he?"
Ahsoka looked at him again. "Yes," she said, and while it wasn't quite the truth, it was a lie that didn't hurt.
She shared their evening meal with them, a little concerned when a new face joined them to eat. Ahsoka was still on edge, more so now, but once again, her worries were set aside by Kaeden's smile.
"This is Nani," she said. "Nani, this is our old friend Ashla."
The look on Nani's face said a lot of things at once. "It's good to finally meet you," she said. "Kaeden's spoken of you often. What brings you to Padtir Settlement?"
Ahsoka hesitated. Before she could reply, Kaeden said, "She's passing through for a few days."
A lie and a bad one. Kaeden was never very good at falsehoods, and if Ahsoka was reading Nani's expressions correctly, she hadn't improved. Other people's romances were not her problem, Ahsoka knew, but they could complicate matters.
"It's kind of Miara and Kaeden to let me stay, but I should be going tomorrow. I have business in Athar."
Nani softened a little. "That's a shame."
They passed through dinner with small talk, Ahsoka focusing firmly on the more boring tales from Raada, as brief as her time was there. Nani seemed not to know about the Imperial invasion then, nor apparently about the guest in the back room now. Ahsoka was used to secrets. She would help her friends get rid of one particular secret as soon as she could.
"Is Selda here?"
"No," Kaeden said. "He moved back home." Shili, then. He would be less noticeable among their people than he would traveling with human friends. Ahsoka didn't have to wonder how much the parting would have hurt him, even if it had added an extra level of safety for everyone.
After dinner, she went back into the other room. She'd taken stock of Anakin's wounds before, satisfying herself that he'd been tended as well as anyone could expect. "What happened to you?" she asked in a low whisper.
Perhaps he heard her. One eye blinked open. The other was swollen shut. "Ahsoka?"
Instantly, she placed her hand over his mouth, hushing him. Joy suffused through her, but so did prudence. She stepped out of the room and caught Kaeden's glance. "I'm sorry," she said, "but I'm a lot more tired than I thought I would be. Would you think badly of me if I went to sleep now?"
"Of course not." Kaeden's face told her well that she didn't understand everything, but she took Ahsoka's meaning well enough. She gave her a big hug. "Nani and I will be next door. Don't be afraid to come over if you need anything."
Unexpectedly, she and Nani took their leave of Miara as well, and 'next door' meant out the door and to another house. Miara said, "Sorry. Nani would have asked too many questions if we didn't have her over for dinner."
"She seems nice," Ahsoka said, and Miara's partial shrug and half-smile spoke for her. Nani wasn't good enough for her sister, but no one would be, and that was that. "Ani woke up."
"Do you need anything?"
"I don't know yet. If we can move him, I should probably get us to my ship. I can take him away from here." She returned to the back room. Anakin had tried to get up in her absence. "Hey," she said, kneeling next to him. "Stay put."
"Where are we?" he asked her. "I was looking for you. I didn't think you'd find me." The words exhausted him. He closed his good eye.
"We're on JanFathal. We were here before, remember?"
"I remember." His eye stayed closed. "That's why I came to find you."
"Millions of worlds and you looked for me here?"
"It worked, didn't it?" His mouth moved into a smug smile. She breathed out in annoyance and also in relief. Part of her had believed this was some trick, that it wasn't Anakin but some double here to trap her. No one else got under her skin quite the same way.
"Where have you been? What happened to you?"
He didn't reply. After a while, she saw he'd fallen asleep, only the darting of his eyes under their lids to tell her this was slumber. He startled awake after an hour, rousing Ahsoka from the dreamy meditative state she'd drifted into.
"Ahsoka?"
"Still here."
"Are we prisoners?"
"No. You were found by some friends of mine, fortunately for you. They saw your lightsaber and contacted me." She had inspected his lightsaber while he'd slept. It wasn't one she was familiar with, and the blade lit red. Another worry. "Where did you get it?"
"Took it off the guy who was sent to kill me."
"I did that too," she said, thinking of the crystals in her new lightsabers. "Have you been in hiding?"
He blinked at her. The other eye almost opened. She hoped his vision would be restored when the swollen flesh healed. He'd look weird with an eye patch. "I escaped."
That would explain the older scars. "Tell me what happened. Rex and I were on Mandalore when everything went wrong. Where were you?"
"Coruscant." His voice trembled. "I was there. The Chancellor revealed himself as a Sith Lord. He gave me a choice to save...." He paused. "To save people I cared about, in exchange for my loyalty. I said no." He coughed, and said, "It turns out Sith Lords can fire purple lightning from their fingers. It hurts a lot."
"How did you survive?"
His mouth tightened into a line. "He threw me into a cell. He killed them all, everyone he could. He wanted me to watch as everyone I knew was destroyed, while I couldn't help them. You felt it too, didn't you?"
"Yes."
"I escaped a few weeks ago. One of his Inquisitors tracked me here. I beat him in the fight, barely."
Ahsoka had questions, too many of them. Things didn't make sense. If the Emperor had put someone as strong as Anakin into a cell, how had he possibly escaped from it? He'd said he had come to this planet looking for Ahsoka, but if the Inquisitor had tracked them, were more on the way?
She left him and went back out to the main room. Miara had already gone into her own room. Ahsoka hesitated. Her friends had done so much for her, and she hated to ask another favor now. Urgency drew her on. She tapped on Miara's doorway. The girl woke instantly.
"What is it?"
"I need your help. Kaeden's, too. We have to move Ani as soon as possible."
"All right." Miara yawned and wiped her eyes with her hand as Ahsoka went outside. The next house over had a little light on over the door. She knocked, aware of the late hour.
Nani answered, suspicion all over her face. "I'm sorry to wake you," said Ahsoka. "I need to talk to Kaeden now."
"Do you?"
"I wish I didn't, but yes."
The door closed. In a short time, it opened again. Kaeden had the look of someone who'd shrugged on her clothes in a hurry. "What is it?" she asked.
"Can you come over? Now?"
"I'll be back," she said to Nani, who didn't seem like she believed Kaeden at all.
"I'm very sorry for causing trouble," Ahsoka said.
"It's not trouble. You're leaving, aren't you." There was wistful regret in her voice, and also understanding that this was for the best.
"I'm afraid so. I want to get my friend to my ship. I have a bad feeling he'll be followed." Ahsoka didn't believe Anakin had escaped on his own. She believed he'd been allowed to escape to lead the Empire to his friends, and to her friends as well if they lingered here.
As if confirming her worst fears, there was a bright light off to the west of the settlement, towards the capital. Kaeden saw it too, then set her shoulders and went into her sister's house. Miara had already helped Anakin struggle into the middle room.
"My ship isn't far, but it's far enough," said Ahsoka. Together, the three of them moved him as quickly as they could. He could walk, barely, almost helpless in his pain. He'd beaten the Inquisitor, but had Miara not spied him, he would likely have died in the alley, nameless and alone. He might still die, but all of them certainly would if Ahsoka didn't get him free of this place.
"I'm not sure if Padtir is safe," she told them, huffing between steps. Even emaciated, Anakin's body was solid. "You may want to go to another settlement for a while."
"I'm staying," Kaeden said. "If they did track Ani, there's no evidence he was with us. We'll make sure of it."
Miara said, "No one else knew but Vartan. He'll hold the secret."
More lights brightened the dark sky as they walked. Ahsoka tried one more time when they reached her ship. "You could come with us."
"We'll be fine," Kaeden assured her. She gave Ahsoka a long hug. "Come visit again when it's safe."
"I will. I promise."
Her worry eased when she left the atmosphere. Yes, the Imperial presence in the system had grown since her arrival. Yes, Kaeden and the rest would be safer with Ahsoka and Anakin far away from them. She plugged coordinates into the navicomp and breathed a relived sigh as the blue of hyperspace surrounded the ship.
Anakin had passed out again, sprawled uncomfortably in the ship's lone bunk. Ahsoka moved his limbs to something that looked less twisted, taking the opportunity to inspect his injuries again. He'd gone unarmed against an Inquisitor wielding a lightsaber. He was lucky not to have lost his other hand, or worse. The bacta patches seemed to be helping but she'd be happier dunking him in a tank for about a year.
They came out of hyperspace an hour later. She'd picked this world at random, a quick hopping point where she could examine her options and set off again. The more stops along her way, the less likely she was to be tracked. If only she knew where they were going.
She couldn't take him to Alderaan. Bail might be able to help him with proper medical care, but the risk was too great. She had to stay well clear of the Core. She'd been making contacts, and one of these might be helpful, but she worried about calling in a favor too soon and burning up an asset for the nascent rebellion when that asset could be more useful down the road. She really wanted to find out where Rex had gone to ground. He wouldn't think twice about helping, and also, she missed him.
Selda had returned to Shili. She had considered it, losing herself among millions of Togruta. Let the Empire try to track her there. But she had her work before her now, and going home would protect her at the cost of stopping her from protecting anyone else. Anakin wouldn't be safe there.
As she considered, her proximity alarm went off. Her heart slammed in panic as three ships appeared before her. The Empire had found her, but how?
She threw in a random destination into the navicomp, evading the first blasts as well as she could.
"Hold on, Anakin," she said, and veered the ship, waiting for the calculation to complete. A moment later, it was ready, and she hit the hyperspace control, zooming away to freedom. She leaned back in the pilot's seat and breathed.
Four more jumps, four more attacks. Ahsoka barely let herself sleep, the stress of their constant peril weighing on her mind. If the ships were following them, at least they'd left JanFathal and would not track Anakin's trail back to her friends there. She could lead them away and buy safety for the others she cared about. But they only had so much fuel, and Anakin would only heal so much under her solitary care.
"You should eat," she told him, not for the first time. He'd asked her for word of the rest of their friends, but the only one whose safety she'd seen to was Rex, and he was hiding somewhere among the stars where even she couldn't find him. The rest were lost, and at their names, the ones she knew for sure were gone, Anakin had sagged deeper into despair. He'd searched for her seeking hope, and instead Ahsoka had only sorrow. The little rest she allowed herself, she spent next to him in the cramped bunk with her arms wrapped around him, both taking solace from the other's forgiving warmth.
Today he was being stubborn. "Those are your special rations. You need those, I can make do with the regular ones."
"I don't have any regular ones, Anakin. I wasn't expecting passengers. I'll get us more at our next stop."
But at their next stop, the Empire found them within an hour, and she had to flee again.
"You should have left me there," he said. "They would have found me and taken me back, and you'd be free. I shouldn't have come looking for you."
"But you did, and I came. I will always come looking for you, so don't get any bright ideas about grabbing the escape pod."
The truth was, despite the constant danger and his foul mood, Ahsoka found her heart was lighter having Anakin around. She'd missed him, more than she'd even known herself. She had run from place to place trying to survive. She'd carved out a task for herself in Bail's loose group. But now, for the first time since Mandalore, maybe even since her trial, she felt like she'd found the place where she belonged. Wherever Anakin was, Ahsoka was home.
All she had to do was figure a way to clear out the pests.
She darted out of reach once again into hyperspace.
There must be a tracker.
She turned her head towards the back where Anakin rested, fear and sorrow threatening to drown her.
"Hey," she said, rousing him from his uneasy rest. "I need you awake now."
"What's going on?" The swelling had gone down, and he stared at her with both blue eyes. The second was a little bloodshot, and she'd like to get him to a doctor sooner rather than later, but he was recovering.
"We're being tracked. I need to check some things." She'd run a scan over his stolen lightsaber first, hoping that was the answer. It wasn't.
She ran the scan over everything they'd brought with them. The tiny dot of light blinked and beeped as she ran it over his prosthetic arm, and she swore.
"Language." For one moment, the old times were back, and he was her master teaching her how to be a proper Jedi, more or less. The moment passed, and they were different people now. He was her friend, and he needed her help.
"They must have implanted the tracking beacon while you were imprisoned. We'll have to remove it."
Anakin's eyes flicked to his arm. "Do you want me to talk you through it?"
"No. I'd like you to be unconscious. This might hurt." But she had no good means of sedating him, not even any alcohol.
"I trust you," he said, and shut his eyes again. Ahsoka set to work, aware that they would soon arrive at their next destination, and would not have long after before their pursuers followed. She examined the pistons and conduits inside his arm, somewhat familiar with the workings but knowing her own limitations. She wasn't a medic. If she made a mistake and severed a connection he needed, she wouldn't be able to repair it, and he could lose the use of his metal hand.
The tracker was buried deep inside the components of his forearm, tied in to the power supply that allowed him to move his wrist and fingers. Using the smallest tools she owned, Ahsoka carefully separated the wires and detached the little device. She had to reset his pathways, but already she could sense their ship was about to drop out of hyperspace and into danger.
"Wait here," she told him, and hurried back to the cockpit. The starfield appeared around her, and she quickly calculated another jump. As soon as she had the navigation ready, she went to the airlock and set it to jettison the tracker.
The same three ships appeared before her as before. Ahsoka jumped them away. Then she went into the back and finished her work.
Anakin waited until she had closed up the metal casing, then gingerly tested his fingers. One by one they spread open and closed. "Nice work. I never told you often enough how impressed I am by you."
"No, but you can tell me as often as you like."
She grinned at him, and he grinned back. Then she yawned. "Budge up and make some room. I need to sleep for about three days."
Obediently, Anakin made as much space as he could in the bunk that had been designed for one person. He wrapped both arms around her as she settled against him, and she fell asleep feeling safer than she had in years.
Two jumps later, she docked. The space station orbited a mining planet. Travelers came and went, all species and no history. Two more wanderers didn't warrant a glance as she checked him in to the stations medical unit under a false name.
"What caused his injuries?" asked the droid with perfectly-cadenced care.
"We were set on by pirates. We got away, but he was injured badly as you can see."
"It has been some time since he sustained the wounds," said the droid.
"Our ship is low on fuel. It took us a while to arrive. Can you help him?"
"Yes. Your husband will require four days in a bacta tank and will need to convalesce for some time after."
Husband? Ahsoka went to correct the droid, and stopped. Her last experience on JanFathal had told her not every Jedi had to follow the same path to reach wisdom. A million paths stretched before her now, but the only ones she intended to follow were those with Anakin beside her. Some cultures used special names for those they spent their journeys with, be they fellow traveler or dearest heart's mate. 'Husband' would do for today, and tomorrow could look to itself.
"Thank you."