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"Vader."
Ahsoka's voice was heavy. She stood in one of the stark white hallways of the imperial fleet, surrounded on both sides by storm troopers. Her solitary pistol wouldn't be enough to save her.
Perhaps if she'd had her lightsaber. But she'd given that up a decade ago.
Vader gestured. When he spoke, his voice was low and heavy, like he spoke through a metal tunnel. "Surrender."
Surrender. Maybe, after all this time, she should. How many years had she been fighting? First the separatists, and then the empire. There was a deep kind of exhaustion that came after so many years of fear and adrenaline; the kind that sleep and rest never quite helped.
"Fine." Of course, he knew she was lying. They'd take her prisoner, and eventually she'd escape. This kind of "surrender" was nothing like the real thing. She threw down her pistol and held her arms up, waiting for capture.
*
They took her to a black, stone cell. There was bench that appeared carved out of the wall; she sat there to wait for what would happen.
It didn't take long. Maybe an hour, maybe three. She felt him long before he arrived; a cold, withering presence, silently demanding. He was nothing like the man she remembered.
Anakin, for all his faults, had been warm. Even hot. He'd been a blazing presence, a supernova of flame and passion. She remembered how he'd cared for Padme; she'd heard how his bright love had urged him into the depths of the darkness, how he'd danced with the deep night.
How he'd given up everything to save her.
But the darkness had been cruel. For all its promises, it spread like a cancer; through him to everything he'd loved. To the Jedi. To Padme.
Perhaps it was her age, but Ahsoka almost felt that he was as much a victim as anyone else; that once exposed to that vile dark, anyone could have fallen. And Anakin, she was beginning to realize, had been infinitely young.
The door to her cell opened, interrupting her thoughts. She looked up, and Anakin stepped inside.
*
The cold was like nothing she'd ever felt. This close to him, it felt like standing on the mountains of Hoth. Her fingers were losing feeling.
"It was wise for you to surrender," Vader said. "Your resistance has been futile since the beginning, little padawan."
"I'm no longer little, Vader." Ahsoka looked past him, at the metal doors. "It's been over a decade since we were Jedi."
Vader didn't reply. She couldn't read his face through the metal of his mask.
"Do you remember how young we were?" She asked. "I didn't think we were. I didn't realize. You were my master, and so brave. A warrior, just coming into his own. You were nineteen when the war started. And I-" she paused before closing her fist over her heart. "I was fourteen. A child."
The old pain seemed to bubble up as she spoke. She closed her eyes against it. It was like her throat was filled with needles; a deep ache that had clung to her for her entire life.
"I was not young." Vader's voice reminded her of Grievous; it had the same kind of robotic edge. The kind that seemed to get harder with anger. "I was a general. A Jedi knight!"
"You were a fool!" Ahsoka leaned forwards. The pain seemed to grow as she spoke, creeping from her throat to her ribs. "And you were young! You were barely a man when the war started, and not much more when it ended! You should never have been a general!"
Vader stepped back, like she'd slapped him. "How dare you!" His voice was hard with anger; he slammed the side of the wall with a fist. "You overstep! I had won hundreds of battles, padawan- I was the savior of the Republic! I brought the jedi to their knees!"
"The Jedi were fools too!" Ahsoka was beginning to cry. She rubbed at her face and continued. "They expected too much from you, Anakin! They broke you! They broke all of us." She looked down at her hands. "Poor, sweet Barriss was just the first."
Darth Vader was silent. Ahsoka looked up at him. "I used to be furious at you, you know. The anger I felt was like its own kind of madness. A living thing that ate my ribs. But now..." she paused. "Anakin, you were scared. And the Jedi let you be scared. They wanted you to be. They felt you deserved it, for allowing yourself the emotions of personhood. And when the Sith offered you a way out- a route away from the pain, and the fear, towards the woman you loved..."
The silence grew between them. She could feel the deep anger flowing from Vader's body; she knew she was a touch away from death.
She also knew she was a moment away from something else. She could feel him, like he was still on the blade's edge, like he was hovering in the dusk, between the dark and the light. Like a fool- like she was fourteen and reckless again- she continued.
"I ask myself sometimes. If it had been Barriss's life at stake, would I have done the same? If I'd been promised that she would live, and that I could keep her safe?" She lowered her head. "As an adult, I could say no. But as a child... Anakin, why were our lives decided, before we were old enough to be strong?"
"SILENCE!" The rage was like a brick wall. He grabbed her throat with the force and yanked her up, choking her. She gasped for breath; it was immensely painful to hang from her neck, to feel her skin stretch, her spine pop. She couldn't breathe. "SILENCE! YOU NEVER SHOULD HAVE COME- I DIDN'T WANT YOU TO COME!"
The darkness and the cold were overwhelming. The lack of air was physically painful; the world around her spun into black.
The last thing she saw was Vader, slamming his fist into the wall.
*
She woke up a little later, lying on the ground of the cell.
She was alive, and she was alone. Without wanting to, she began crying; deep, ugly gasps from the depths of her body. The pain was paralyzing, like her whole body had seized up with it.
The Jedi were gone. The Republic was gone. Padme, Bariss, Obi-wan- it was such a terrible feeling, to realize that her whole life had ended decades ago, before she'd really begun to live.
Anakin's dead, and nothing's the same.