Chapter Text
Opheia Heldsworth dropped her forehead against the metal bar, feeling the cold of the steel seep into her skin. It did little to help calm her down. She dragged the macrobinoculars back up to her face. Below her, the humanoid Sith meandered around the now deserted town. It wasn’t any of the red-eyed Force-wielders she recognized so, if she had to guess, this particular slaughter was their “initiation”.
The thought made her sick. It didn’t quell her anger to know that she was late, once again. She really needed to get some new informants.
Slowly, she scooted away from the edge of the roof. The hop to the ground was easy, cushioned by the Force and perfected to be painless and soundless. She crept closer.
Once upon a time, Opheia had been a spy, trained in the art of silence and observation. She’d learned more from watching Ahsoka Tano bounce around with her togruta agility and even more from observing the tactics of others in a big Jedi Temple back on the planet of Coruscant. Years of being on the sidelines only served to groom her into her current role.
She was behind the Sith before they sensed her, her lightsaber buried into their shoulder before they could react. Opheia’s free hand clamped over the Sith’s mouth. She lunged and shoved them onto the ground, knee planted firmly on their spine.
The Sith struggled underneath her, but each twist only served to make them cry out in more pain. Opheia’s body languidly moved forward, mouth hovering next to their ear. “I can’t believe they still let you wander around alone,” she whispered.
She pulled her hand back, her shoto flying into her hand and activating next to the Sith’s neck before he could so much as squeak. “Listen,” she said. “I just need some answers, which you are going to give me if you value your life even the slightest bit.”
The Sith growled. Opheia sighed. “I honestly just want to know where he is.”
Her statement hung heavily in the air for several seconds. Opheia twisted the lightsaber still in his shoulder. She took no joy in the shrieking sound that the Sith made. “Where who is?” the Sith gasped out between choking breaths.
“I don’t understand why you all play dumb,” Opheia dragged her lightsaber slightly to the side, listening to the sizzle of flesh as it tore through the Sith’s muscle. “After all, we all know who I’m talking about.”
She pulled the blade back the other way. “Stop! Stop!” the Sith shouted and she paused. “I don’t- I don’t know where he is. I haven’t even spoken to the guy, I swear.”
Opheia could feel a headache coming on. She groaned. “You’re one of Maul’s goons, aren’t you?” she all but whined. “Why can’t you be a little bit more distinguishable? You know, different colors maybe?”
“You know my Master?” the Sith almost sounded hopeful.
“Not personally, no.”
Opheia withdrew the blade by the Sith’s neck, planting one foot on their back as she stood. “Well, another dead end,” she muttered, more to herself than to the man lying prone underneath her.
“Are you going to let me go?”
She frowned. This man had literally just slaughtered an entire village of men, women, and children. Was he honestly that stupid? “Look,” she said. “It’s nothing personal, but you’re really not of use to me.”
With a yank, she ripped the lightsaber out. They started to plead, shout, scream. Opheia just drove her lightsaber into their heart. The Sith went limp underneath her.
Opheia turned away, deactivating her weapon and setting out to find some kindling for fire. It would be better to leave no evidence behind. Of any of this.
She kept her eyes off of the ground as she made her way through the small village. Even now, all these years later, it wasn’t any easier. She stepped over the bodies, avoided the centers of the tiny area. It didn’t take long for her to locate a kindling box and it took even less time for her to set each of the straw huts ablaze.
Five years, she thought as she returned to her ship parked several miles away. Five years and she still hadn’t done what she set out to do. Sidious was a ghost, there one second and gone the next. Every lead brought her to another dead end and every step closer sent her three steps back.
The Clone Wars ended years ago, but she was still here, still fighting against the neverending threat of the Sith.
She wasn’t the only one, of course. She knew she wasn’t the only one. She’d seen the Jedi from a distance, arriving on the scene before she did or appearing right after she left. There was even a file for her in their Archives, though there was no official name or picture tied to that file. She was simply “Sith Killer”. Very original. She was considered: armed, dangerous, usually seen wearing a red cloak. There wasn’t much else to it.
Her other file, the one with her name and face and ever-remaining status as a Jedi Knight, was detailed, full of her biography and test scores and accomplishments all the way up until she reached the ripe old age of seventeen. Then she was listed as MISSING for about two years. And later, DECEASED.
It was weirdly comforting to know that Skywalker never gave up her secret.
Opheia climbed onto her ship. It was as silent as ever, save for the occasional ping from her navigator. She kept no droids, had no companions, and rarely spoke with her informants.
Opheia was alone. Everyone was safer that way.
Ahsoka popped open an eye, watching the giggling twins in front of her. Their eyes were still closed, but their wide grins betrayed the fact that they were, in fact, not meditating. Leia prodded Luke with her elbow, snickering when he tried to shove her back and failed. He nearly tipped over until Ahsoka reached out with the Force and righted him.
Both five year olds fell silent, their gazes swivelling around to their teacher. Ahsoka just smirked at them. “We’re supposed to be meditating,” she said as she pulled the Force back from Luke. He nearly toppled over onto Leia.
“Meditating is boring ,” Leia whined.
Luke nodded in agreement, even as he resituated himself into a lotus position. Both of them stared at her wide, imploring eyes. She swore they were too much like Anakin sometimes. And just like with Anakin, she couldn’t say no to them.
“Fine,” she sighed, not bothering to hide her fond, exasperated smile. “What do you want to do instead?”
“Mechanics!” Luke exclaimed at the same time Leia said, “History!”
Ahsoka untangled herself and stood. “Free study it is then. C’mon you little nuisances.”
They raced after her before starting to chase each other around the trees and bushes. For the time of day, the Temple gardens were unusually quiet, devoid of most life forms aside from Ahsoka and the Skywalker children. She supposed it wasn’t that odd. The twins were often given a wide berth when they were within the Jedi Temple. It was likely to discourage other younglings from interacting with them.
Luke and Leia hadn’t seemed to notice yet and Ahsoka wasn’t about to mention it. Maybe she understood in some way. Letting the Skywalker twins study in the Temple was a ginormous exception of the part of the Council, so their reservations made sense. Although, everything was an exception when it came to the Skywalkers and Ahsoka.
“Miss Tano?”
Like the use of Miss instead of Master. That was, of course, an Anakin thing. He’d never been entirely comfortable with the title himself and he never insisted that his kids use it.
“Yes, Luke?” Ahsoka glanced back at the twins.
Luke held up a bundle of flowers he’d collected, a small shy smile on his face. “These are for you!” he said, his cheeks colored slightly red.
Ahsoka decided not to scold him about picking flowers this time. Instead she took one a tuck it behind his ear before tucking another behind Leia’s ear. They both giggled at the action. “Flowers are for all of us,” she said as pinned one into her robe. “For everyone.”
They nodded sagely at this advice. Ahsoka patted their heads before taking their hands. If she was holding their hands, then they couldn’t pick anymore flowers. Luke still gripped the rest of the bouquet in his free hand. “In that case, we should give one to Mama and one to Papa.”
“And one to Mister Obi-Wan!” Leia added. “Right, Miss Tano?”
Ahsoka smiled down at the two of them. “Yes, we should give them to the people we love.”
There was a small lull in the conversation, including a moment when Luke stopped to stare at a particularly mundane bush, before any of them spoke again. “Who do you love, Miss Tano?” Leia asked suddenly.
Ahsoka nearly stopped, the question catching her entirely off guard. She looked down at the little freckled brown haired girl swinging their hands back and forth. She thought the answer was pretty straight forward. “I love you. And your Mama and your Papa and Obi-”
“No!” Luke said and Leia nodded urgently. “Like how Papa loves Mama. Who do you love like that?”
The togruta stared down at the children, confusion spreading across her face. She had definitely taught them about the Jedi principles and why Padme and Anakin were such a big exception. Then again, they were only five. “Jedi don’t love people like that,” she explained again gently. “Remember?”
Luke’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion and he met his sister’s gaze in front of Ahsoka. They were having a silent conversation, she knew. One that not even their father would ever be able to decipher. After a moment, Luke looked up at Ahsoka. “But... You do. I can feel it on you, like it's on Mama and Papa. And sometimes it’s on Mister Obi-Wan.”
Ahsoka’s heart nearly stopped in her chest. Were these two kids already so attuned to other people’s emotions? So much so that they could tell when her thoughts returned to-
“But both of you are sad when you feel it,” Leia added. “Like right now.”
Ahsoka shook her head, pulling both of the children to a stop. After a moment, she sighed and crouched down next to them. “I know you can feel how I feel,” she said, making sure to look both of them in the eye. Her tone was soft and patient and gentle, things that came with age and family and wisdom. “But it’s not nice to talk about other people’s feelings unless they want to. Understand?”
Luke and Leia immediately looked guilty, shuffling in place together. Sometimes, it was uncanny how similar, yet different they acted. “Yes, Miss Tano,” Leia said.
“Sorry, Miss Tano,” Luke said.
Ahsoka smiled at them both. “It’s okay,” she said before standing back up. “C’mon. We need to get at least a little bit of studying in before your Papa picks you up.”
Neither of them brought it up again, but the thought stuck in Ahsoka’s mind for the rest of the day. Who do you love, Ahsoka ?
For Ahsoka, love was an impossibility, ripped away from her before she even had a chance to grasp it. If things had been different, if she hadn’t woken up alone all of those years ago, maybe she would’ve been able to experience it. Experience happiness and love like what Padme and Anakin shared.
But this was not that timeline.
Even so, when asked the question, the answer had come to her as easily as breathing.
She’d been a Jedi Knight twice; once in a world only she remembered and again in a world she changed. She died once, twice, three times. The deaths blurred together in her mind, visions and memories tangling into webs of nightmares. Once upon a time, she remembered her death as clearly as she remembered the second before. She still felt the phantom pain in her chest, still tensed at the sound of crying children. Sometimes, late at night, as she laid in her cot and stared at the metal ceiling of her ship, she was overcome with the chilling instinct to run .
And sometimes, late at night, when she was too lost in her mind to move or consciously think, another body curled into her side. Opheia knew she was touching air, but the lekku felt so familiar beneath her fingers; Ahsoka’s breaths against Opheia’s so soothing. More often than not, she let herself fall into the fleeting vision. It was safer than the nightmares, but just as haunting.
Tonight, both plagued her.
Ahsoka mixed into nightmare. Green lightsaber buried hilt-deep into Opheia’s chest. Bright clear blue eyes replaced with furious red. A grin made of bloodlust marring her warm, mischievous smile. “ Phey ,” Ahsoka said, too soft for her actions. “ Come with me .”
Opheia jolted awake, her head smacking into the low-hanging shelf above her cot. She’d hit it so many times over the years; she hardly felt it now. Even so, warmth trickled down the edge of her face. She brought her fingers up to her forehead, wiping away the blood before it slid into her eyes.
It took her longer than usual to catch her breath, to calm down and settle into the reality of the world. Her hands were still shaking when she reached over the edge of the bed for the datapad she dropped. Eventually, she stood and made her way to the refresher.
The shower was quick, efficient, and cold. She desperately missed the days of being able to stand under a steaming spray of water until she forgot the time of day. Back on her cot, her alarm was going wild, but she just let it be. Eventually, it would shut off and the silence would return. For now, she was grateful for the additional sound.
She dressed quickly in a pair of brown trousers a size too big and a button up shirt with sleeves that were too long. She only had a few articles of clothing and this was the closest she had to leisure wear. It was comfortable enough that she could forget she was an assassin wandering the galaxy, if even for a moment.
Her eyes did not linger on the mirror, shattered to pieces by the previous owner of the ship. And she just dragged a brush through her long red hair before tangling it into a braid and winding it into a bun. It only took ten minutes to get ready, but it felt like hours. Everything dragged when she was among the stars.
She continued on her daily routine, playing various galactic news articles in the background. Check the gauges, watch the radar, spin around in her spinning chair, check for messages from informants, tidy up, eat something flavorless, scan her old notes, write new notes, learn something new.
The repetitiveness overtook her thought processes, the entire day passing by in a monotonous flash. Eventually, her alarm for the night went off. She returned to the refresher, undoing her bun and leaving the braid. She changed into a simple shift. She grabbed a datapad, slid into her cot, and read until her eyes drooped.
That night, Ahsoka came to her as she usually did, pressed against Opheia’s side. Opheia reveled in the unstable, falsified touch of another. She fell asleep more lonely than she’d woken up.
By the time Ahsoka let Anakin into her apartment, the twins had curled up on her couch and dozed off. The two of them crept past the sleeping kids into the kitchen. “Sorry,” Anakin whispered as Ahsoka set about gathering up the rest of the stuff into bags. “The Council meeting ran late and Padme’s busy with the Senate.”
“It’s no problem,” Ahsoka said, waving off his concerns. “You know how much I adore them.”
He accepted the cup of tea she held out to him. Ahsoka leaned back against the counter and took a sip of her own tea, already much cooler than his. The mug warmed her cold fingers. She'd come to accept the chill of her body, a constant reminder of a horror she faced long ago. She accepted it, but that didn't mean she didn't feel it.
Anakin mimicked her position next to her, blowing on his drink. “Still, teaching my kids isn’t your only job,” he said.
Ahsoka sighed. “It is right now.”
From across the kitchen, Anakin eyed her and she stared back at him. He was considering something, likely something borderline mischievous. “What?” she said after a long quiet moment, his stare starting to feel more like an interrogation.
“I might have a job for you,” he said. “If you want a break from babysitting.”
Ahsoka considered his words as she stared down at her swirling drink. “What is it?”
“The Sith Killer," Anakin said and Ahsoka nearly choked on her tea. Her gaze snapped up to her former Master's face. "They’ve become more active. Yoda thinks that it may be pertinent that we find them.”
“Why?”
There seemed to be no reason to take them down. If anything, they were helping the Jedi, not hindering them, even if their methods were... Unorthodox. Although murder was murder, even in the murder of Sith.
“Some of the Council members think they might have more information on the Sith and Sidious than we do.”
She raised an incredulous eyebrow at him. “Some of the Council?”
“Most of the Council. Including me," Anakin sighed and put his drink down. "There has to be more to them than someone just stumbling upon Sith and killing them.”
Ahsoka shrugged. “Fair point. Where do I come in?”
“We need someone to track them down and bring them in," he paused. "Or try to at least.”
“Anakin, I haven’t been in the field in years.”
They both knew of the last time she’d been in the field, over three years ago. A last ditch effort, a last attempt to find her , to bring her home. Like all the other leads, this one led nowhere, to some small nowhere planet where the red headed woman spotted had been little more than a merchant passing through. After that, Ahsoka was finally forced to accept the fact that her closest friend was gone.
“That’s why you’re perfect for it, Snips. You’ve pretty much faded from the public eye. The Sith Killer won’t know that you’re a Jedi tailing them.”
“Anakin...”
“Please.”
Ahsoka turned her gaze to the ground, biting down on the inside of her cheek. “I don’t want to go anywhere near the Sith, especially Sidious. I’m perfectly content to stay here and teach the twins.”
That was a lie. A blatant lie. As much as Ahsoka loved Luke and Leia, she was growing bored. And both she and Anakin knew it. He looked at her incredulously, but she didn’t budge. A moment later, he sighed. “Just- Just think about it, okay?” he said. He paused, a thought on his tongue before he shook his head. “Opheia wouldn’t want you to waste the rest of your life in this Temple.”
Ahsoka’s grip tightened on her mug. It wasn’t often that Anakin brought up Opheia. It wasn’t often that anyone brought up the girl that pretty much ended the war. That was probably the way that her dearest friend would’ve wanted it. Forgotten, left in the shadows as she'd always been. The sound of her name still made Ahsoka’s chest tighten though. She turned away to hide her distress. “Opheia isn’t here.”