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4 BBY
Asajj waited for Ahsoka to finish talking with Vos, hanging back away from any of the rebels here. She didn’t much care for them, or their rebellion, and privately thought they stood no chance against the Empire, but she wouldn’t hinder them. She’d like them to succeed, because that meant an end for most reasons to go after her, but she didn’t have much hope for that. The baby Jedi was convinced that they could though, and she had the irritating ability to usually be right in the end.
It was actually very frustrating; she’d be right in that a population would be hostile, but then Ahsoka would also be right when it would turn out that they were hostile because of mistaken identity or something of the like. Sometimes Asajj just wanted her realism to work as it had for most of her life before crossing paths with the Togruta, because she was not only, not disappointed because she never expected anything in the first place, but didn’t get her hopes up in the first place.
Traveling with Vos and Bly had reminded her of why she’d ditched Ahsoka all those years ago after traveling so long together; normally she hated extended contact with everyone and quite contentedly only spent a few hours with most people at any given time, but she’d gotten used to the baby Jedi and it had stopped bothering her to find the Togruta hiding in her quarters, or leaning into her space, or just being her usual infuriatingly optimistic self with her funny morbid jokes and sassy one-liners.
In all these years, they’d never discussed that she’d ran away instead of confronting Ahsoka with the fact that she’d been starting to consider the younger girl something of a friend, not even when they’d somehow managed to settle into being something a lot like that despite her actions then and during the Wars.
And she never intended to, but here was Ahsoka being all relieved and happy that she was back.
That she was still alive despite that shit-show on Ilum with Vader.
The Togruta was smiling, showing off her sharp teeth as she came closer, “I am so glad you are alive, Asajj. It wouldn’t be the same without you smirking and leaning against walls intimidating everyone within sight, snarking at me.”
It was really quite an attractive look for Ahsoka to not hide how dangerous she was, a born predator acting like one instead of trying to masquerade as prey like she had once been. She’d really grown into those teeth, bone blades that would make anyone who crossed her bleed even as her ‘saber cut cleanly through them.
Asajj mildly regretted sometimes having snapped at her that she should stop hiding that she was a predator so thoroughly, because now every time they meet up in person, the baby Jedi always seemed to be smiling and flashing those teeth.
“Like I would let myself die so easily, I’m not the same woman that would have died fighting Dooku, I can handle myself against Vader if I have to now.”
Not that she particularly wanted to, since she knew she wouldn’t win and walk away, but Skywalker moved slower now, cybernetic limbs slowing him down instead of keeping pace as they should have, but she would make him pay heavily for every hit that he landed.
The teeth glinted in an almost-threat, “I don’t doubt it, but its perhaps no longer necessary.” – tone almost faux-casual – “Considering who Vader was.”
Asajj held her gaze for a long moment, “You figured out his identity. Or did you kill him?”
Maybe she hadn’t seen it – or just didn’t want to – right after Order 66, but Ahsoka could have figured out who Vader was in most of the intervening years since and hadn’t. More than once Asajj had been tempted to just tell her, because the signs had always been there that Skywalker would Fall, but she hadn’t.
At some point, Ahsoka had come to the assumption Skywalker was dead, and she hadn’t been able to say anything. It was in a way, true.
Sure, he could have come back, abandoned the way of the Sith and been just a Darksider like she was, but Skywalker didn’t do things in half – and Asajj had come to the conclusion that Skywalker didn’t want to let go of the Darkness in any capacity. He’d wanted to lash out and hate and kill anyone who stood in his way, and whatever might have reminded him of his humanity, it didn’t exist for him anymore, so he didn’t fight.
“You knew.” It wasn’t a question.
“I strongly suspected. I thought he might Fall during the Wars, that it was only a matter of time before he slipped and didn’t try to stop himself if it meant he got what he wanted. It wasn’t until I had a close call with him a few years after I left you guys that I had it all but confirmed. I didn’t say anything because what good did it do for you to know, there was nothing you could do if he didn’t want it to happen.”
The Togruta didn’t blink once for several long moments, seeming to gauge how truthful she was being.
She didn’t so much cave, as offer an explanation under that stare, “If my Master had Fallen like yours had, I wouldn’t have wanted to know. I would want to remember him as he was, not what he’d become.”
“I would have wanted to know, so I could have ended it one way or another.”
Asajj didn’t have anything to say to that, couldn’t say anything about how she knew that, but also knew that it likely would have just ended in the younger’s death and she didn’t want that. Anything else she might have said, she wouldn’t.
What Ahsoka might have done, dying or surviving that fight, would have been her choice and she wouldn’t take that away. Her own choices had been taken from her too many times for her to be willing to deny her this outright, particularly not when she’d risked similar odds trying to kill Dooku, so she didn’t have a foot to stand on either.
“And I did. I went to Alderaan chasing Obi-Wan, and on the way back, I found Anakin and Darth Vader, the latter being just a shadow of what he once was.”
Very abruptly she was reminded of how fearless, of how reckless, Ahsoka had been, a perfect mirror of her master during the Wars, and how that clone Commander of hers had quickly gone grey trying to keep her alive in the years following. It kept her from asking how she’d ‘stumbled’ across Anakin, because she’d never thought she’d sympathize so much with a clone, but here she was.
“Vader didn’t walk away from there, and Anakin’s chasing after Obi-Wan again.”
Asajj stared dead-eyed at the Togruta for a long moment, because did she just say Vader didn’t walk away? Like she’d seriously defeated Vader, and walked away fine from the encounter. She must have heard wrong; there had only ever been two outcomes to that encounter that she had thought would happen: Skywalker tried to bring her to his side, and she either went with him and Fell, or she died in refusing him. Ahsoka was good, her equal at least, but she’d always known that if the baby Jedi didn’t figure it out before, she’d figure it out during a fight, and that hesitation to give a killing blow to him would kill her.
Or was this some bantha-shit of the Force, and she was back in the Clone Wars again, if Skywalker was chasing after his Master once more.
“What.” She really hoped it wasn’t the former, she didn’t think she could do the last fifteen-plus years again without snapping and making a stupid, suicidal run at Skywalker or Palpatine. Whoever was closest to here whenever she ended up. Because then how would Ahsoka survive Mandalore during Order 66?
“Vader was dying, and succumbed to the Light inside him, but once Anakin was there, I punched him. I didn’t want to leave him, but I had responsibilities here, so I sent him in the direction of Obi-Wan that I’d last heard of. I’ve been tracking his path since, to make sure he didn’t Fall again, and all he’s been doing is wiping out slavers and picking fights with Hutts while chasing after my grandmaster, sometimes yelling about sand and Satine.”
Never in a hundred years did she expect to hear anything about any of that. She didn’t know what to think about Skywalker coming back from the Dark in any manner or any degree, didn’t know what could have convinced him to do so after so long.
So, she left it for the moment, “When you punched him, did you knock him down flat?”
Ahsoka laughed, “I did.”