Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Please, can’t we get just one competent government?” a man sighed as he received his fifth funding request back, unopened.

There was nothing special about this man. His name was Irdo Gyrk, originally hailing from Chandrila before his need to “see the galaxy” sent him rushing off to the nearest spaceport, and then his need to eat sent him into the arms of the first steady job he could find. In all, Irdo Gyrk was a plain, unassuming, and altogether unimportant man, who worked as a minor assistant to some equally unimportant bureaucrat.

This man was just like any other man, this day just like any other day, and his words just like any other low-level government employee frustrated with the slow-turning cogs of bureaucracy. The difference, of course, is that this time, someone was listening.

That someone was the Force, and it was an asshole.

________________

Ahsoka Tano was falling.

As far as she could tell, she was dead. Ahsoka Tano was dead, and she was falling in a darkness so complete it felt as if she was the only thing in existence.

She frowned. This isn’t how she remembered the Force being last time she joined it. She remembered Mortis, even after all these years. Her memories were vague, confusing and more like a dream than anything else, but, unlike what she told Anakin and Master Obi-Wan, she knew what it felt like to die. It had been distinctly more peaceful than this.

Still at Malachor, then. Hmm… she had been sure she was dead. Being cut in half with a lightsaber didn’t seem good for one’s health. Was she falling from the temple? She must have succeeded in bringing it down. Good. It was tacky.

(There was a small voice in the back of her mind that whispered of golden eyes, of a damaged respirator and a voice she knew better than her own, even after all these years, that she promptly ignored. Not now. Later.)

The ground was getting closer. Force knows how she could tell, in this place of nothing, but she could all the same.

Death wouldn’t be so bad. She had been prepared to die at fourteen as a Jedi padawan thrust into a warzone, and again at seventeen not as a Jedi, but as a General. She had been prepared to die at nineteen when she joined the Rebellion. At thirty-two, she was no less ready. She did not, necessarily, want to die. She still had responsibilities. Still had people she couldn’t leave behind, as few as that number was these days. She supposed she didn’t really have much of a choice. She just hoped Rex would forgive her, and maybe take down some Imps in her name. That would be nice.

The ground rose to meet her faster than she expected, and she braced for pain that never came.

Ahsoka Tano woke up. That, itself, should have been a sign. As Ahsoka understood it, once one joined the Force, you no longer experienced such things. There was a face above hers, one that looked vaguely familiar, but Ahsoka couldn’t place where, exactly, she’d seen it before.

“Youngling, are you alright?” the face asked.

Ahsoka stared. Youngling? It had been years since someone had called her that. A decade, at least.

“Youngling?”

Master Hen’nona, her mind supplied. She was… she was a crèchemaster, wasn’t she? Er— had been, that is. A bothan, kind and more lax than most when it came to staying up past lights out. Why was she here?

A hand brushed against her forehead, and Ahsoka jerked away at the touch. What— why was she able to touch her? That wasn’t— that wasn’t supposed to happen. Anakin had— she shut off that train of thought. The fall. The fall, if nothing else, had killed her. She was supposed to be one with the Force now, wasn’t she?

She vaguely registered Master Hen’nona asking her something. She sounded worried. Ahsoka should reassure her, tell her everything was fine. But it wasn’t, was it? Because Master Hen’nona shouldn’t be here, and she shouldn’t be able to touch her.

Ahsoka reached out to the Force for some sort of answer, and froze. There were so many lights surrounding her, each one burning bright and unique and alive. No. No. That wasn’t possible. She was dead. No, now she was finally allowed to rest. To put down her ‘sabers, let the next person take up the fight. She had done it for countless others, had stepped up among the ashes of a pyre and continued on, shoving the grief down until she had enough was time to acknowledge it, to grieve for those lost to her.

There had never been enough time.

But the Force was very clear, and the Force hadn’t felt this light since… since she was twelve years old and war had been a distant thing, just a concept they were taught in class. And then there hadn’t been nearly any light left under the Empire, when the Jedi’s blood had long dried on the walls of the Temple.

The Temple. She knew its signature like she knew her own. It was a part of her, even if it had ceased being her home long before it was destroyed. That same signature curled around her now, as if trying to offer comfort.

She was in the Temple. She finally tore her gaze from the near-frantic face above her and cast her gaze around. There was the soft tickle of grass against her back, grounding in a way. The sun shone bright above— but, no, that wasn’t real sunshine, just a very clever imitation.

She was in the Room of a Thousand Fountains.

Ahsoka Tano was in the Room of a Thousand Fountains, in the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, with crèchemaster Hen’nona standing over her, and she was not dead.

No. No. Nonononono. It was supposed to be over. She was— had she not earned the right to peace? Hadn’t she done enough? Had she not fought hard enough, lost enough people? There was an aching grief in her chest that she wasn't entirely sure was her own.

Ahsoka sat up slowly and dared to look at her hands. Hands that were too small, that had never wielded a lightsaber, that had never known what it felt like to take a life. Had never clawed their way back to life with nothing except determination and the wild, desperate fear of death to drive her. Even if she had been prepared to die, there was always some part of her that fought desperately to live. Funny, that death would choose now to abandon her, when she no longer fought it.

She touched a hand to her face, just to see if she could, really, and was startled to feel the moisture there. She was crying. Not really surprising, all things considered. She vaguely registered a person coming to crouch beside her, but couldn't find it in herself to care much.

“Little ‘Soka?” a very familiar voice asked.

No, not him. Not him, please, Ahsoka begged. There was a limit to how much she could take at once, and he was it.

If anyone was listening, they didn’t care, and so Ahsoka forced herself to turn her head and meet Plo Koon’s worried gaze.

“Master Plo,” Ahsoka forced out from a throat that felt like sandpaper.

Her chest ached, as if someone had run her through and left her to bleed. Which, she supposed, they had. She couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled out of her throat, the hysterical edge apparent even to her own ears, which were filled with a strange rushing noise.

“Little one, what’s wrong?” Master Plo asked gently, two clawed hands coming to rest gently on her shoulders.

What wasn’t? She wanted to answer him, to tell him everything that had happened, about the ache in her chest and the pounding in her head. The rushing in her ears grew louder. Someone was shaking her, saying her name with an urgency that she ached to soothe, but the darkness keeping over her vision had other plans.

Ahsoka Tano fell back into the welcoming folds of unconsciousness.

________________

Bail Organa was not Force-sensitive. As a boy, he had briefly fantasized about becoming a Jedi when he was older, but the reality of his position as the future head of the House of Organa and a midichlorian count of 2,839 made it little more than that: a brief fantasy.

However, one did not need to be Force-sensitive to recognize the signs of—as one clone trooper had once so eloquently put it—”Jedi Force-bullshit”.

And waking up in the middle of a Senate session that was decidedly not Imperial, with Senator Tikkes in the middle of a proposal about trade route regulations, was decidedly a large sign.

Senator Tikkes hadn’t been a part of the Republic since just before the Clone Wars. (Former) Senator of the Mon Calamari star system, a bit of an asshole when drunk, more than a little corrupt, and—most importantly—dead. Killed by Skywalker along with the rest of the Separatist Council on Mustafar. But here he was, alive and well, talking about trade routes. Tikkes had rarely talked about anything else, so it was not much of a surprise that, even dead, he was determined to squeeze out the most money as possible from the venture.

Bail hadn’t even been on Coruscant. He’d been on Alderaan, desperately trying to contact any allies that could lend assistance to—

Oh, Force.

Leia. Leia was captured, in more danger than she could possibly know, and he couldn’t do anything. Not without compromising the Rebellion. Duty came first, even if it broke his heart. (The part of him that was not the Viceroy of Alderaan nor the leader of the Rebellion, but Bail Organa, the man who had raised Leia through her teenage rebellion phase that was less a phase and more a state of being, quietly wondered if it was really Leia he should worry about the safety of.)

But he wasn’t on Alderaan. He was on Coruscant. Senator Tikkes was speaking. And, now that he looked closer, he could see several faces that either died during the Clone Wars on one side or another, or disappeared under the Empire. Faces that shouldn’t be here.

But Bail was nothing if not a practical man, so shoved everything, all thirty-plus years that screamed notrightnotrightnotright, into a small box and imagined drop-kicking it out of an airlock.

He tried his best to focus on what was being debated, but that was easier said than done, so he mostly just tried to keep his face neutral and look as if he was paying attention. As a politician, he was practically an expert at it.

He couldn’t tell if it was years or mere seconds before the Senate session was called to an end, and he was able to flee back to his office with a few vague excuses to his colleagues.

Once there, he tried to ignore all the little things that had changed—that chair had been ruined nearly two decades ago by one over-eager Senator who had forgotten to mind their claws, the vase Breha’s mother had given him one Life Day was missing, he had replaced that bookshelf once he realized just how horrendous the color was—and did what he always did when he didn’t know what to do: he commed Breha.

He couldn’t help but pace as the dial tone rang. She might be in the middle of something. It appeared to be in the middle of the day, and the Queen was in high demand. Hell, he had no idea what time it was on Alderaan right now—a sign of just how shaken he was.

But the comm connected, and Bail almost felt his legs give out as Breha’s face came into view.

“Breha,” he breathed, stepping closer, eyes fixed on his wife’s face. “This is going to sound mad—”

“We were on Alderaan,” she interrupted, and Bail felt his eyes widen. “How secure is this comm?”

Bail opened his mouth to assure her that it was his personal comm, not the Senate-issued, before he suddenly recalled just who, exactly, was in this very building. Even as a mere Senator, Palpatine must have had ears everywhere. Intercepting a personal comm, even one as encrypted as the Viceroy of Alderaan’s, would be child’s play.

He sighed. “Not secure enough.”

Breha nodded, expecting no different. “Comm me again in an hour. Use code E.”

Bail felt the corner of his mouth twitch. It was a code from the Clone Wars, a standard one, developed for communications between Alderaanian ships involved in the War and Queen Breha herself. Obi-Wan had been there when he’d finalized it and, a bit drunk, the man had insisted on naming it after his commander.

“It’s the perfect retribution,” he had claimed, still somehow standing upright despite the sixth glass of wine in his hand. Bail was only on his second. Damn Jedi metabolisms. “He’d hate it, but there’s absolutely no reason he should ever discover it. Thus, I get to continue living, and have my petty revenge, all at once.”

Bail never did discover what, exactly, the good Commander Cody had done to earn Obi-Wan’s ire, but he suspected it had to do with sedative laced tea. He counted his lucky stars that Obi-Wan never discovered who gave the Commander the idea in the first place.

“Breha,” Bail said, desperate to know he wasn’t alone, that this was real, that she was here. But what to say? There were plenty of things to ask, but only one really mattered. “Leia. Do you—”

“A spitfire of a young woman. Takes after her mother,” Breha said with a smile. “Both of them.”

Something in his chest eased. Yes, the two of them would figure it out. They would adapt. It was what they did.

“Thank you, my dear.”

Breha’s eyes shone with amusement. “That hardly required thanking.”

Bail resisted the urge to roll his eyes, because Viceroys and Senators didn’t do such things, and Breha would undoubtedly use it to tease him. “I know.”

“One hour. Code E,” Breha reminded him sternly.

He nodded, and watched the image of his wife flicker out. 

“I’m too old for this,” Bail lamented, sitting down in the nearest chair and resting his face in his palms.

The empty room did not offer any response.

Chapter Text

“Your little insurrection is at an end, Your Highness. Time for you to sign the treaty and end this pointless debate in the Senate.”

Padmé stared at Nute Gunray. Behind him stood a squad of B1 battle droids, the sight familiar as it was completely surreal.

No. Absolutely not. Anakin had, to her knowledge, killed the Separatist Council on that damn planet of fire. So, why in all Sith hells was Nute Gunray here and talking about the Senate? If Anakin had killed her, he better not have spared the fucking Viceroy of the Trade Federation.

Still, he was standing in front of her. Calling her “Your Highness”. In the Theed palace throne room. On Naboo. With Captain Panaka at her side.

“Viceroy!” an achingly familiar, but surprisingly young voice called. “Your occupation here has ended.”

Padmé turned to see Sabé just outside the door, her face painted in full Amidala splendor, blaster already raised and firing on the two closest droids.

Oh. Oh.

“After her!” Gunray shouted at the remaining droids. “This one’s a decoy.”

Well, Padmé knew this script. She dove for the throne and input the code that had been drilled into her head so many times she still remembered just as well as she did when she was actually a fourteen-year-old Queen facing her first military engagement. The arm of the throne slid back to reveal a cache of blasters, and Padmé allowed herself a victorious grin as she grabbed two and spun around, already pulling the trigger. If this was some sort of afterlife, this was a good spot to start. Her day had been very, very long, and shooting at the Trade Federation always improved her mood.

["All I want is your love."]

Yes, well, now all she wanted was use a few droids as target practice, and then shoot Nute Gunray in the face, shortly followed by Sheev Palpatine and Maas Amedda. Not Chancellor Palpatine. Not Emperor Palpatine. Sheev. The man who had been her mentor, who she had handed the Chancellorship to on a silver platter while their home burned, and who had killed the democracy she so dearly loved. He’d been killing it for years and she had only noticed when it was too late. The Delegation of 2000 never stood a chance, and now it was gone. The Republic was gone. Anakin was gone. Padmé wasn’t entirely sure how she felt about him right now. Her lifeforce had drained out of her slowly and taken all her sorrow with it, leaving nothing but a bone-deep anger. She meant her last words. Anakin still had good in him, she believed that. But, if presented with him now (the scrunched faces of Luke and Leia fresh in her mind) she wasn’t sure she could be persuaded to let him live long enough to find it.

She vaguely registered the last of the droids go down, and Captain Panaka shouting about sealing the doors, but all she had eyes for was Gunray. One blaster was trained on him, and Padmé figured she didn’t have any more use for the second one, and so tossed it to Panaka, who was clearly staring and trying not to.

“Now, Viceroy,” Padmé said, her grin razor sharp and her voice colder than she remembered, “we will discuss a new treaty.”

Organizing the aftermath of the liberation of an entire planet at fourteen years old was difficult at best, impossible at worst, but she had done it. As a twenty-seven year old Senator on her second run-through, Padmé was considering jumping off the nearest tower if one more old man tried to tell her how to do her job. Or maybe shoot someone. Who knows. Her emotional state was still a little unstable. She was sure Captain Panaka had noticed. Sabé certainly had, if the glances she kept sending her were any indication. Padmé was resolutely avoiding meeting her eye, which only seemed to incense her further.

It wasn’t until someone notified her that the Jedi High Council was on their way that Padmé remembered her other, decidedly more stressful problem.

A problem that took the form of a dead Jedi Master, the Padawan he’d left behind, and the child version of her homicidal (ex?) husband.

“If you’ll excuse me, gentlebeings,” Padmé said to the gathered advisors. “I have some matters that require my personal attention.”

No one protested her leaving, but Sabé did send her a murderous look when she waved off accompaniment. Were they in private, she no doubt would have smacked her upside the head and tagged along anyway, but they weren’t, so Sabé allowed her to slip out of the room with only a glare that clearly said we’ll be discussing this later. Padmé made a mental note to avoid her for the next few days.

The halls were flooded with people, each one greeting her with a smile or a cheer, and she tried her best to respond in kind. She wished she was Amidala right now. Amidala could hide behind her facepaint and ornate regalia, and she hadn’t been Amidala for long enough that the mask was a poor fit without them. But she didn’t have any of that, so she would make do as Padmé until she could relearn to be the Queen.

Locating Obi-Wan was incredibly easy. She just checked every garden until she caught the bright spot of cream-colored robes among the greenery. She was unsurprised to find him in the north gardens. It was the wildest of the five—less rigid and more natural in its design. Obi-Wan was sat on one of the stone lips, hunched over with his face pressed into his palms. He had yet to change out of his singed tunic and tabards.

“Hello,” Padmé greeted quietly.

His head shot up. He stared up at her with reddened eyes. She could see the moment he registered her identity. “Your Highness!”

There was nothing more than a passing recognition in his gaze. To him, she was simply the Queen of Naboo. A brief acquaintance, perhaps, as handmaiden Padmé, but not the old friend she saw in him. She swallowed a sudden lump in her throat. It hurt more than she had anticipated.

But she still remembered his face as he held her children up for her, so she could see them just the once. The sorrow in his eyes that almost matched her own, how he’d stayed with her. Padmé found she did regret her last words, in the end. She should have thanked him. Should have told him how grateful she was. How much she cared.

She hadn’t.

This wasn’t her Obi-Wan—he probably never would be, if this wasn’t some grand hallucination—but he was still one of her dearest friends, and he was in pain.

She gave him a gentle smile. “Just Padmé.”

He still seemed as if he didn’t know what to make of her presence, but nodded slowly. “Padmé. I must insist you call me Obi-Wan, then.”

She almost laughed. So polite, her friend, even in the worst of times. He gestured in a silent invitation to sit with him, and she complied with a quiet thanks. The silence dragged on for a long moment.

“I thought I would check up on how you’re feeling, though I can guess rather well and I’m assuming you don’t wish to talk about it with a near stranger,” Padmé finally said.

Obi-Wan sighed. “I’m alright, Your Hi—” she shot him a look “—Padmé,” he amended.

“No, you’re not,” Padmé said. “You won’t be, for a while, and that’s to be expected.”

He shifted uncomfortably, and she just knew he was biting back some Jedi platitude about how emotions are the root of all evil.

“I also came to offer my help.”

He furrowed his brow in a silent question.

“You have done Naboo a great service,” Padmé explained. “I only wish to see that service honored.”

“The Jedi don’t accept any recompense…” he trailed off uncertainly.

“It’s not,” she said. “It’s an act of a friend.” If anything, this just served to confuse him further. Padmé sighed, and relented. “You plan to take on Anakin, don’t you?”

“As my Padawan learner, yes.”

“Taking care of a child is difficult for the best of us. I am… aware of the animosity between your High Council and Qui-Gon in regards to Anakin’s training, and I doubt you would see much support there.” He flinched at the mention of Qui-Gon, and Padmé's heart twinged, but she continued. “And you have just gone through a great personal loss. Anyone would find a task such as raising a child in such circumstances near impossible.”

She took a deep breath and pulled a comm from her belt. She hadn’t planned quite this far ahead, but the comm wasn’t in use anymore (she refused to think about just why that was) and was one of the few that could reach her personal one without interference.

“Here.” She held the comm out to him, and when he did nothing but stare blankly at it, pressed it into his palm. “It has my personal comm number on it. If you ever need anything, anything at all, I want you to contact me. Even if you just need someone to talk to.”

Obi-Wan’s eyes were wide. “Your Hi— Padmé, I couldn’t possibly—”

“Oh, I think you could,” she said with a smile. “In fact, I insist you do.”

Even this young Obi-Wan seemed to know not to try and argue with her, and took the comm without further protest.

Padmé hummed, pleased. Yes, perhaps this afterlife wasn’t so bad after all.

________________

Waking up the second time—still not dead—was markedly less traumatic, and a great deal more annoying. A pounding headache greeted her, as if to say yes, you’re alive, and it only gets worse from here. Ahsoka grimaced and pressed the heels of her palms to her eyes in a futile attempt to dispel some of the pressure in her skull. It didn’t work. 

“Good morning,” a soothing voice said. “How are you feeling?”

Ahsoka huffed and opened her eyes to peer blearily at a familiar blue Twi’lek. Were she either of her Masters, the sight might have sent her back into unconsciousness as a form of self-defense, but most of Ahsoka’s childhood injuries had fallen under the purview of Kix, so she hadn’t gotten the opportunity to develop anything but a very healthy dose of respect for all medical personnel. 

[“Does the General need something?” Rex asked from where he sat, waving off Kix’s attempt to bandage the nasty cut above his eye.

“Oh, no, I just wanted to check on the men, and maybe get someone to look at my hand. Some of the shrapnel clipped me,” Ahsoka explained.

It seemed the entire room froze, and Ahsoka frowned. Was that… not allowed? Was there some rule or protocol in place that she had just broken? She was new, fresh out of the Temple and these men didn’t know her yet, and she didn’t know them. Was she intruding? Oh, Force, she was, wasn’t she. Well, time to turn around and never look anyone in the eye again—

“You—” Kix started, and Ahsoka was horrified to see his eyes held a glassy sheen, “You came for medical care? Of your own free will?”

“Uh… yes?”

Kix abandoned Rex and hauled her to one of the medical beds, which was completely unnecessary and a bit overkill. It was just a bit of shrapnel in her hand. But she still let him carefully undo what was left of her hand wrappings, even though it would have been easier to do it herself, without a word of complaint.

He met her gaze, face completely serious as he jabbed a finger at her and said, “You. You are my favorite.”]

“Master Che,” she greeted, and the shape of the words felt foreign in her mouth. “Terrible.”

Master Che hummed, and a cool hand was placed on her forehead. The ache lessened to a manageable level. “Better?”

“Yes, thank you,” Ahsoka said, sitting up slowly— and wow, was she small. She understood why Crèchemaster Hen’nona called her “youngling” now.

Making the executive decision to ignore that little surprise for now, Ahsoka looked around at the otherwise empty room, slowly soaking in all the details that had blurred in her memory. It was a strange contradiction of warmth in the Force and indifference written in every cold, impersonal line of the walls. The contrast was like a balm for her soul. Force, she never thought she would ever miss the Halls of Healing.

“What happened?” Ahsoka asked, dragging her attention back to the woman standing at her bedside.

“I was hoping you could tell me,” Master Che said. “You collapsed in the Room of a Thousand Fountains.”

Ahsoka’s brow furrowed. Yes, she did remember most of that. She also remembered a voice that still echoed in her dreams, far more often than Anakin’s ever did. And to think she had once felt guilty about that. “Was… Master Plo here?”

Master Che nodded. “Yes, he’s the one who brought you here. He stayed for a little while, but the Council was called away on urgent business.”

Ahsoka’s markings raised without her conscious input. The entire Council? That sounded important, and likely not something Master Che should be telling her. Though, judging from the size of herself, Ahsoka might just look young enough that she thought it wouldn’t matter.

Master Che said something more—it sounded like a question—and Ahsoka tried to listen, she really did, but there was still the sting in her eyes and the hand wrapped around her heart that felt like home, but did not feel like her.

She followed the feeling to a gossamer thread in her mind, which Ahsoka was startled to realize was a bond. There were two of them, in fact, both stretching out in the same direction and both full of pain and grief, though the despair emanating from one of them nearly knocked the breath from her lungs. It was a sorrow she recognized, mirrored in the way her head bowed as she said her remembrances each night, time and a mortal memory ripping names from her just as fast as the Empire added them. 

Who? Ahsoka prodded, desperate for any context. She needed to help them, to shield them and protect them from the desolation battering against her mind. Who did you lose?

Gonegonegonegonegone, the voice chanted in a seemingly unending cacophony of loss.

Oh.

She knew that voice. Knew it in joy, in anger. In sadness and pride and grief. In desperation, in contentment.

Obi-Wan Kenobi.

“Who died?” Ahsoka asked aloud without thought, because she’s always been stupid and impulsive when someone she loved was hurt. Master Che paused in mid-sentence and stared.

“Why would you think someone’s dead?” she asked, each word weighed carefully.

Ahsoka couldn’t very well say because I haven’t felt Obi-Wan Kenobi grieve like this since he left for Mandalore and came back with blood on borrowed armor and so settled for the far more vague, “Because someone is.”

Ah, yes, vague and slightly alarming. Master Yoda would have been proud of her. Probably. He was always weird about that sort of thing.

“I’m not sure—”

“It was Master Jinn, wasn’t it?” Ahsoka interrupted, because that was the only thing that made sense. Well, nothing about this made sense, but it at least fit with the rest of the inanity.

Master Che’s silence was answer enough. Ahsoka met her eyes and almost regretted it, the concern she found there.

“Master Jinn has become one with the Force, yes,” she confirmed slowly. “How did you know?”

Ahsoka shrugged. She liked Master Che and all, but she still wasn’t entirely sure what was going on, and she wasn’t about to give up any more information until she did.

Master Che hummed. “I think you should stay overnight for observation.”

Ahsoka heaved a tired sigh, but agreed.

Chapter Text

Jedi, it should be noted, are terrible gossips. Ahsoka hadn’t been out of the Halls of Healing a full hour yet, and already she’d heard so many different versions of what transpired on Naboo, even she was starting to doubt what was truth and what was rumor. The only thing that everyone could agree on was that the Invasion was over, and Master Qui-Gon Jinn was dead.

She had heard all of this because—contrary to what she’d promised Master Che—she had most certainly not returned straight to the créche. Instead, she had headed to kitchens (door codes courtesy of a version of Master Vos that may no longer exist) and emerged laden with two plates of the finest human-friendly food the Temple could offer—Which is to say it was exactly like everything else. The quality of the food wasn’t important, really. Ahsoka just needed a foot in the door. A durasteel foot (perhaps to the occupant’s face) would have been preferable, but one made of Corellian tubers and the grilled remains of something that probably once had eyes and legs would have to do.

It had taken most of the night, but Ahsoka had narrowed her options down to “incredibly strong Force vision detailing her entire life from this point on” and “time travel”. So far, time travel was winning. She just wished she was more surprised. But, really, time travel wasn’t any weirder than Mortis. In fact, in comparison, finding herself in the past was almost distressingly normal. She supposed it didn’t really matter which one it was, in the end. Either way, she had a lot of work ahead of her. Most of it would probably involving yelling at people.

And so, it was with a rather inordinate amount of glee that Ahsoka Tano halted in front of one Jedi Master Yan Dooku’s quarters and knocked on the door. 

No one answered, though Ahsoka could very clearly sense the presence of a sentient lifeform behind the door. Which was fair, she supposed. The man was probably grieving. The polite thing to do, if one did not know the man would become a power-hungry Sith Lord hell-bent on the destruction of the Republic, would be to turn around and leave. But, unfortunately for Dooku, Ahsoka did know the man would become a power-hungry Sith Lord hell-bent on the destruction of the Republic, and so knocked again, far louder this time. A few moments passed, and Ahsoka had just raised her fist to knock once more when the door swooshed open to reveal a very disheveled Jedi Master. Well, disheveled for Dooku, which meant not a hair was out of place nor a single bit of clothing askew. 

(If Ahsoka squinted very, very hard, she thought she could make out a single wrinkle on his left sleeve. It should not have felt like a victory. It did anyway.)

Disheveled or not, the mere sight of Count Dooku in Jedi robes was almost enough to render Ahsoka speechless. Almost. But she had dealt with a great many shocks in the past two days, and this didn’t even make the top ten. Well, more like top five; the Jedi robes really were quite disconcerting.

“Hello!” Ahsoka chirped, as cheerily as she could, because she felt it would annoy him the most.

It did. His glare might have been frightening, if Ahsoka hadn’t left all her self-preservation instincts on the shuttle to Christophsis.

“What do you want, child,” he asked. Demanded, really, cold and stern as all Masters seemed when you're young—this one more than most.

Ahsoka gave him her best smile and enjoyed the way his eyes briefly flicked down to the rows of razor-sharp teeth on display. She gestured with the hand still holding the two boxes of food, as if that explained everything. He continued to stare at her unblinkingly until she heaved a sigh and relented.

“I brought food.”

If anything, this just seemed to make his eyes narrow further. “I can see that,” Dooku said. “And, why, pray tell, did you bring it here?”

“You’re planning on leaving the Order,” Ahsoka said without preamble. “And I need to talk to you before you do that.”

His lip didn’t quite curl in derision, but it was close. “Is Yoda sending children to do his dirty work, now?" His gaze rose to peer above her head, as if searching for someone else, someone taller and closer to adulthood with who he could lay his vitriol at their feet. "I must say, this is pitiful, even for him.”

“Oh, no, no one’s sent me,” Ahsoka said lightly, loudly, craning her neck to meet his eye again, channeling her best impression of Master Obi-Wan when confronted with any semblance of danger. Her version involved significantly less flirting, which, admittedly, did not leave very much to base it on, but she made do. “I just wanted to have a quick chat.”

“A chat.” Dooku’s voice was almost impressively flat.

“Five minutes of your time is all I ask,” Ahsoka promised, and mostly meant it. “Think of it as a poor Initiate seeking wisdom from one of the most revered Masters of the Order. And you get a meal out of it.”

When he didn’t explicitly object, Ahsoka decided it was as close to a welcome as she would get. Her new height (or lack thereof) turned out to be very useful when ducking under the arms of annoyed would-be Sith Lords. He didn’t try to kill her, or even draw his lightsaber, but Ahsoka supposed not killing younglings was perhaps the bare minimum for a Jedi Master, so didn’t let it count too much in his favor.

Dooku’s quarters were nearly as cold as the man himself, full of sleek edges and dark furniture that was most certainly not standard Jedi-issue. A truly impressive number of holobooks were stacked on the table and the shelves, nearly all of them looking as if they came straight from the Jedi Archives (Ahsoka really didn’t want to think about how close he and Master Nu must be to convince her to let him take that many and— ah, she was thinking about it now). Some of them were mixed with real books that appeared to be made of honest-to-Force paper. Ahsoka would have expected Dooku to be the kind of man who only possessed the highest quality of goods, but these looked… old. Well-loved. The kind of look you only achieved through hundreds of re-readings. It made her uncomfortable for reasons she immediately identified, and ignored with equal speed.

Ahsoka plopped herself down in front of the table. It was a bit of a relief to set the boxes down. They were quite heavy, and she would be the first to admit to cheating a little with the Force. Dooku followed at a much slower pace, his eyes betraying his bewilderment. They were brown, Ahsoka noted. A reddish-brown, sure, but brown all the same. It was an odd moment to realize she had never seen them a sickly yellow.

“Here,” she said, pushing one box closer to his side of the table. “That one’s for you. The finest our honored Refectory has to offer. I don’t really care if you eat it or not, but you look like you could use it.”

Dooku's eyes still held far too much distaste—not quite derision, nothing quite so nasty, but there was an unearned hostility there, a lashing-out that spoke more of grief than anger—but he folded himself down and carefully took the poorly (her hand-to-eye coordination was severely lacking as a four-year-old, Ahsoka had discovered) packaged meal.

“I’m assuming you had something specific in mind?” he drawled after a moment as Ahsoka began to pick at her meat, absently trying to determine what sort of creature it used to be. “Or did you come to harass me on a whim?”

Directing Count Dooku—or Darth Tyrannus, if one felt particularly deferential (which Ahsoka never did)—away from the Dark and towards the Light, or at least a brighter shade of gray, was no small task. She would have to be subtle, take the diplomatic approach.

“There’s a Sith in the Senate,” Ahsoka was what said instead.

A terrible moment of silence followed, as Dooku stared at her, expression unchanging. Still hateful. Still grieving. Still ill-masked. “...Pardon?” he finally asked, voice low.

“There’s a Sith in the Senate,” Ahsoka repeated. Five minutes. “If you turn away from the Jedi, he will approach you and offer you untold power. He will wear a familiar face. If you take his offer, even with the best intentions, you will Fall. Everything you fight for, everything you hold dear, will die by your hand. And then you’ll follow.” She didn’t bother to check his reaction, just looked down at her food again with a frown. “You know, I first thought this might be some kind of bird, but I’m almost positive it’s fish.”

“…And you expect me to believe you.” Dooku looked amused, now. His eyes were... not.

“If I wave my hand and say ‘The Force’ in a funny voice, would that be a sufficient answer?” Ahsoka asked. Dooku leaned back with his arms folded, dark. “No, don’t answer that, because I don’t have another one to give you. You’ll believe me eventually. Probably.”

“Who are you?” he asked, eyes finally, finally catching on her bright look-at-me white Initiate robes, the fields of space above her head.

“I’m Ahsoka Tano." She smiled and offered a hand that went ignored. "Pleasure to meet you.”

“I grow tired of this conversation," Dooku said after a long moment of silence, "and your five minutes are rapidly coming to an end."

“The Jedi Order is flawed,” Ahsoka admitted freely, letting her hand fall. “It’s partly responsible for your former padawan’s death, but your dramatic plans for leaving the Order cheapen your grief. Your lineage did not end with Qui-Gon Jinn.”

[“Dooku’s your grandmaster,” Ahsoka said, and barely heard the words.

Obi-Wan paused in his speech and peered at her. She didn’t know what he saw there, didn’t know what expression she was making, but it was enough that his brows furrowed in concerned confusion. “Well, yes, he is. Did… you not know?”

It was last week that Ahsoka had handed Anakin tools as he hunched over his mechanical arm. An electrical pulse had spared his heart but not the wires. He hadn’t relaxed until the machinery was safely hidden under a black glove she hadn’t put much thought to before. She knew the story, even if he didn’t like to tell it, but she hadn’t—

She had just wanted to know why Count Dooku hunted Master Obi-Wan. Grievous did so out of some sort of misplaced pride, and Ahsoka didn’t want to touch whatever was going on with Ventress with a ten-foot pole, but Dooku seemed weirdly personal on a level that just didn’t make sense to her.

Grandmaster. Her great-great-grandmaster, if that was worth anything. She hadn’t known. It burned at the back of her throat.

“No. No one told me.”]

“Qui-Gon’s padawan—your grandpadwan—is on his way to Coruscant right now, and he is possibly the only person alive who cared for Qui-Gon as you did. He is young, he is grieving, and he is in desperate need of guidance. Your former student saddled him with a padawan he’s not ready for. He needs you, too.” Ahsoka leaned forward, her eyes as hard a flint. “You say the Order is corrupt, that the High Council will not listen to you, but you are the one who willingly gave up your seat on that very same body. The Jedi Order is flawed. Stay and fix it. Fix it for your lineage, and for the years you’ve dedicated to it.”

Dooku didn’t move. He hadn’t even seemed to breathe since Ahsoka first said Master Jinn’s name. It was heavy-handed, and perhaps a bit cruel, but she had millennia of Jedi dogma to punch through before she could reach any semblance of real emotion from him. 

Ahsoka glanced at the chrono on the wall and took a deep breath, releasing it slowly. “My apologies, Master Dooku. I’ve exceeded my time.” She picked up her food, because she hadn’t actually gotten to eat much of any of it, and gave a shallow bow. “Good day, Yan Dooku.”

She turned, and it was a testament to how different this man was from Count Dooku of Serenno that she walked out alive.

________________

Back and forth and back again, Bail could feel his wife’s gaze like a physical weight as he paced along the length of the ship. There wasn’t much length to speak of, just barely big enough to host maybe three people in an emergency. The ship was designed for speed, not comfort, and it showed. The lounge was sparse, made solely of two couches pressed against opposite walls, a holotable in the middle, and if Bail continued, a giant furrow worn into the metal floor.

“You’re spiraling, my love,” Breha said as Bail continued to pace. “Slow down and talk to me.”

“Right, right, of course,” Bail said, stopping in place to rub at his temples. He took a deep breath and released it slowly, the tense line of his shoulders easing as he stepped into the skin of Bail Organa, leader and founder of the Rebel Alliance.

“Palpatine’s just been elected,” Bail said. “I don’t doubt the man has half the galaxy in his pocket by now, but the wider public hasn’t had a chance to form an opinion. Right now, if it weren’t for the election, most people wouldn’t know his name from a hole in the ground. We have the chance to destroy his golden image before it’s even formed.”

Breha hummed, tilting her head as she considered. Her hair was still piled upon her head in the elaborate braids interwoven with beads that she wore for matters of state. Something warm and fond swirled in Bail’s chest as he noted that she must have jumped on the nearest ship without even taking the time to change. “What do you have in mind?”

That was the question, wasn’t it? Palpatine had won last time. Sharp words and a sharper smile had earned him an Empire. The Senate had given him an Empire. Palpatine had handed them the blade and they had driven it through their own hearts and thanked the man for keeping it sharp.

Bail was, at his core, an honest man. Maybe once he had been more than that—when he was young had yet to be trained in empty smiles and empty words, before the years as the heir to House Organa, in the Senate, under the thumb of the Empire—maybe once he had been a truthful man, even an open one, but those traits had long faded. Still, he remained an honest man.

Bail was good at manipulation. He had tried in vain to pass the skill onto a fresh-faced Senator from Naboo who believed far too much in the goodness of people to ever truly hone the skill, but he’d found success in the daughter they shared. Bail was good at manipulation, good at subterfuge, but he was an honest man, and Palpatine was a Sith Lord hiding in plain sight.

Bail was also, it should be noted, a very pissed-off man, and the subject of his ire was an over-confident ass.

“We need to get the names of everyone who supported Finis Valorum, or raised concerns about Palpatine,” Bail decided. “Openly or not. Those will be the easiest to sway at this point.”

As much as Bail hated to admit it, the atrocities of the Empire had made the Alliance’s job exponentially easier. The Empire didn’t hide what it was. Most of their new recruits were former loyalists who had been burned by their own government. But the insidious kind of corruption that ran through the Republic’s veins was easy to ignore, if you weren’t the one directly affected. Swaying public opinion would be a slow, possibly fruitless endeavor, but an important one, nonetheless.

The problem, Bail reflected, was that at this point in time, he was supposed to be a fresh-faced Senator, still wet behind the ears in intergalactic politics. He had yet to acquire the connections and political clout he had gained during his tenure in the Senate. Oh, he still plenty of connections, of course, but not on the scale that he would need. Being the Senator of such a prominent Core planet gave him some influence, and Alderaan’s reputation for peace and humanitarian action would carry onto him to some extent, but it wasn’t enough.

“Isn’t that too risky?” Breha asked, seeming to come to the same conclusion. “You don’t have the backing to be seen possibly going against the new Chancelor. You’d be dead in the water before the day was over.”

“I’ll have to go slow,” Bail conceded. “I’m a new face in the Senate, it’s expected that I scope out possible allies. Talking to new people, even politically dangerous ones, won’t seem too out of place. A mix of Palpatine’s supporters and the others should throw anyone off.”

“Garm’s in the Senate currently, isn’t he?” Breha asked, her finger absently tapping against her chin.

“He is,” Bail confirmed with a smile. “We’ll have to wait a year or two for Mon, though.”

Who they really needed was Padmé Amidala, but she was still the Queen of Naboo, and would be for several years to come. Except—

“Padmé,” Bail blurted.

Breha raised an eyebrow in silent question.

“She’s currently dealing the aftermath of the Naboo Invasion—”

“And you want Alderaan to extend aid,” Breha finished. She tilted her head slightly as she thought it over.

“It would reflect poorly on Palpatine,” she said, a sudden light coming into her gaze. “An unaffiliated system doing more to support the Chancelor’s own planet than him, particularly after the events surrounding his rise to office. I’m sure there are already whispers about his grab for power. All you would have to do is feed the flames. Yes, that could work.”

It would be an excellent distraction from some of their more treasonous activities, as well.

“It can’t just be Naboo,” Bail pointed out. He moved to join Breha on the small couch, leaning towards her as he spoke intently. “It’s a good place to start, with the Invasion, but a one-off will look like a piss-poor attempt to garner favor with the new Chancellor.”

Breha sighed. “Why am I not surprised you’ve found your way to a humanitarian force?” she asked, eyes shining with warmth and exasperation in equal measure.

“You did agree to marry me,” he reminded her with a smile and a wink.

“Mama always did say I had terrible judgment,” Breha said dryly.

He narrowed his eyes. “Your mother adores me, I’ll have you know.”

“Ah, is that why you refuse to drink the wine she gifts you until it’s checked for poison?”

“It’s only ever minor poisons. That’s how I know I’ve grown on her.”

“Like a stubborn strain of fungus,” Breha agreed.

Bail grinned, breathing in the lightened air before it recycled through the ship’s ducts to be piped in staler and darker.

“We need to involve the Jedi somehow,” Bail said after a moment. “We can’t allow them to become scapegoats for Palpatine’s rise to power again. It’s too convenient.”

“My love, the Jedi are not about to involve themselves further in the mess on Naboo. They’re on shaky ground as it is. They did not technically go against the Senate with their stunt, but enough people are annoyed at how easily they bypassed the proper protocols. It’s only Valorum’s direct request for aid that is shielding them, and poorly, at that. It’s in their best interest to keep their heads down, and they know it.”

“Yes, but there’s more to the Order than the Jedi Knights,” Bail reminded her. “The Service Corps help the galaxy every day, but barely anyone remembers they exist. If we slowly acclimate people to the Service Corps, by the time the Senate realizes they’re Jedi…”

“…It will be too late,” Breha said. “It’s not a bad plan. If we can convince the Order to claim the Service Corps more publically, it will be a large step in improving their image across the wider galaxy. Palpatine will have a harder time villainizing them.”

“It would be a good showing in the Senate,” Bail added. “If we intend to nip the Separatist movement in the bud, we need to fix the underlying issues. An active humanitarian force not focused on the Core will lend credibility to any legislation we wish to pass supporting planets typically ignored by the Republic.”

“It’s certainly a start,” Breha agreed.

There was silence for a moment, as Bail met his wife’s gaze with a face thirty-two years younger than his memories.

“Thirteen years,” Bail finally sighed, giving in to the urge to rub his temples. “That will be enough, won’t it? It has to be.”

“It’s possible.” Breha reached out and tugged his hands from his head to gently clasp them in hers. “That’s all we need.”

Chapter Text

Clawmouse Clan had always been strange. It wasn’t particularly big, nor particularly small, and neither was it particularly well-known, but it did stand out as odd. Clans were supposed to be comprised of younglings with similar traits, in order to better tailor the teachings to their needs. A poor choice, in Ahsoka’s opinion, to group children by similarities and expect them to learn tolerance, but, well, it did sort of work. Mostly. The problem with Clawmouse Clan is that absolutely none of the younglings shared any traits that counted. 

“Why are you not playing with the other children, Ahsoka?” Master Ciiirtharr asked gently—carefully—like she was scared she’d break down again.

It wasn’t entirely unjustified. Ahsoka hadn’t been back in the crèche five minutes before coming face-to-face with a chubby-cheeked version of Zel Nufnar and immediately bursting into tears. Which was ridiculous, because Zel had been sort of an ass. She hadn’t even seen the boy much after they were both shipped off to the war front, just a word or two exchanged the few times they were both at Temple. His name had never been on any of the official casualty lists, but whatever remained of their silk-thin crèchebond had been gone by the time the rubble of the Tribunal had settled.

“They were worried about you,” Master Ciiirtharr continued when Ahsoka had been silent too long.

Ahsoka fought back a wince. A group of younglings seeing their crèchemate collapse right in front of them wasn’t anything Ahsoka would have wanted for them. But they were four, so she gave it a week before they forgot about it completely. “I’m alright,” Ahsoka said, attempting to be assuring, and almost succeeding.

Master Ciiirtharr gave her an indecipherable look, which was unfortunately very decipherable. “Of course, little one. Why don’t you go tell them that?”

The hand on her back and the gentle nudge forward gave her no room to argue. She stumbled a little, a curse of a body she was no longer familiar with. The other younglings were quick to notice her, and even quicker to swarm. Gor Du'resa, Eltegil Tivarrel, Aduk'luwin, Theen Vanuk, Cik Eeyoa—each face achingly, painfully familiar and far too young. Zel still hovered at the edges of the room, having retreated earlier in the face of her tears, still determinedly avoiding meeting her eyes. Ahsoka couldn’t really blame him. 

“‘Soka!” Aduk’luwin cried, the ‘s’ a little slurred, courtesy of a missing front tooth. Ahsoka couldn’t help but match the blinding grin he gave her. “You’re back!”

His lekku barely reached his shoulders and his Initiate robes were rumpled as only a four-year-old could accomplish. His grin revealed more missing teeth—more than one would normally expect from one so young, but Ahsoka knew that while his teeth were almost comically large for his mouth now, he would grow into them in time. She hadn’t realized how much she missed him. She hadn’t even thought of him in years, but as he stood before her now, bouncing on his toes with poorly concealed excitement, homesickness struck her like a punch to the gut. 

“Hi, Aduk,” Ahsoka greeted through the lump in her throat.

“What happened?” Aduk’luwin demanded. “You just starting crying and then you were gone for ages and none of the Masters would tell us anything and—”

“What did Master Ciiirtharr say?” Cik hissed, cutting off the boy with a glare.

“Right, sorry,” Aduk’luwin said, deflating a little. 

“It’s okay,” Ahsoka assured him gently. “I was in the Halls of Healing. Master Che said I probably got caught up in some backlash in the Force.”

Which was a very polite way of saying that Master Che had no idea what happened, but didn’t want to scare her. Ahsoka unfortunately wasn’t much inclined to shed light on the situation.

“You’re okay now?” Cik asked, studying her intently as if searching for any injuries Ahsoka had miraculously managed to hide from the Head Healer. Alas, as numerous as her abilities were, hiding anything from Vokara Che was decidedly not one of them.

Ahsoka hummed. “Master Che cleared me.”

Hmm. An evasion worthy of Master Obi-Wan himself. He, at least, would be proud.

“Well,” Eltegil announced loudly, “happy you’re back, ‘Soka, but I’m bored. ”

[“And how is that my problem?” Ahsoka asked, tracking Eltegil with her eyes as she tumbled off the bench with a frustrated huff.

“Your Master is a terrible influence on you,”  Eltegil whined.

Ahsoka’s brow furrowed. She agreed, but— “Master Skywalker?”

Eltegil raised her head to peer at her. “What? No. Master Kenobi. Your Master.”

Ahsoka pressed her lips together in an attempt to keep her face neutral. Oh, she was so using this against Anakin.

“I can feel you laughing at me,” Eltegil complained.

Ahsoka strengthened her shields. “Sorry.”

“Ugh.” Eltegil rolled onto her stomach and glared. “Duel me.”

“What, right now?”

“Yes.”

Ahsoka sighed. She had just gotten back from the Mid Rim, but she really didn’t want to go back to her quarters. Master Skywalker had destroyed another lightsaber (it was apparently a regular occurrence, according to the men) and Master Kenobi was giving him the patented I’m not mad I’m just disappointed Jedi Master look. It was painful to witness. 

“Bet I can beat you three out of five,” Ahsoka said.

Eltegil grinned viciously. “We’ll see.”]

Ahsoka laughed, even as Cik looked to be asking the Force for patience.

“Ok, Eltegil. Let’s go bother Zel! He looks lonely,” Aduk’luwin said, ever cheerful, grabbing Eltegil and Cik’s arms and pulling them along. Cik allowed herself to be towed even as she huffed exasperatedly.

Ahsoka made the mistake of catching Gor’s eye as she turned to watch the three fondly, and she wasn’t sure she liked the curious glint she found there. No, scratch that, she absolutely did not like that glint. But Gor was five. Ahsoka didn’t really remember much of five-year-old Gor, but surely she didn’t have anything to worry about, at least for a few years. Right? Five-year-olds were typically not masters of observation.

“Hey, Ahsoka,” Theen said, tugging on the corner of her sleeve, “Master Tlustieg visited while you were gone and he brought us an ivy plant from the Outer Rim! Want to see?”

“Sure, Theen,” Ahsoka said.

How anyone had been surprised when Theen chose the Service Corps, Ahsoka would never know. They had been maybe eleven, and Theen had fretted for weeks, nearly driving the rest of them mad, trying to decide between the AgriCorps and the MediCorps. At the time, she couldn’t fathom anyone choosing not to be a Knight, but, well, that particular dream had lost its glamor long ago. She hadn’t kept in contact with them (Jedi don’t have attachments) but if their crèchebond survived, who was to know?

She had seen them once, briefly, as Fulcrum. They grew and supplied food for the Rebellion, no one suspecting the unassuming Theen Vaunk had ever once been considered Jedi. Not many people knew Anx could even possess the Force at all, let alone enough to join the Order.

Had they felt when she died? She’d always kept her bonds muted, shielded almost to nonexistence—a necessity as a spy and surviving as a Force-sensitive under the Empire—would they have even noticed its absence?

“Master Tlustieg says it’s part of a mirror species! There’s another type that looks almost exactly like it, but it’s poisonous—don’t worry, Master Tlustieg made sure this isn’t the bad one—but the leaves from this one have the antidote to the other’s toxins,” Theen was saying, their crest turning color as they gestured wildly. “He won’t tell me what planet he got it from, I think he wants us to figure it out ourselves, but that could take ages even if mirror species aren’t really all that common…”

Ahsoka let the words fade to the background, smiling contentedly as Theen’s excitement and joy washed over her in the Force. They weren’t particularly strong, just enough to get accepted into the crèche, really, but so bright it almost hurt to look at. They all were. Untouched by war and pain and loss, just beings alight with the simple joy of living. It felt an awful lot like grief. Grief and dangerous, painful hope that wrapped itself around her throat.

It wouldn’t happen this time. Ahsoka wouldn’t let it. No, the Jedi would not be Generals and Commanders, ordering good men, innocent men—slaves—to die. There would be no GAR. The Empire would not rise. And if it did, Ahsoka would fight it again. She’d do it, for her lost family, for Rex and Jesse and the 501st. For Bail, for Master Obi-Wan. For Master Plo, for these children that did not know her, even for Anakin.

________________

The Gungans had already appointed their temporary intermediary. Padmé had known who it would be, of course, but her Advisors were not so lucky. 

Jar Jar Binks was… an acquired taste, one that she’d had years to develop. Jar Jar, in turn, had mellowed out with time. Slightly. From a certain point of view. But this Jar Jar was not the one she’d served with in the Senate, the one who had learned just a modicum of responsibility. This Jar Jar was thirteen years younger, barely older than a teenager (not that Padmé at fourteen the first time had any ground to stand on), and absolutely Boss Nass’s personal revenge for the initial use of Sabè as her decoy in their initial meeting. Or maybe just his way of getting rid of the man. The Royal Advisory Council was… less than pleased, but Padmé was adamant that the Naboo would respect the Gungans’ choice. Besides, Jar Jar was her friend, even if he was a foolish one (they would be having a talk, the two of them, about the consequences of consolidating power in what was supposed to be a democratic system, especially the dangers of proposing said consolidation upon the request of the one man who stood to benefit from it— yes, fine, the emergency powers thing hit just a little too close to home), and he deserved the chance to prove himself, as Padmé knew he would.

Horace Vancil was particularly against Jar Jar’s appointment. The poor man was practically tearing his hair out at the potential diplomatic incidents. Padmé had to admit that Jar Jar was… very good at those. But Horace would be Senator in two years' time—even sooner, if she could somehow remove Janus Greejatus from the office early and into a position better suited for him—perhaps a prison cell—and so he wouldn’t have to worry about it for long. Padmé knew this, because she had the benefit of having lived through it all before. Horace, unfortunately, did not.

“Ser Vancil.” Padmé did not sigh, because she was Amidala right now, and the dress didn’t allow it. The cold, even tones she was very much regretting ever implementing would have to do. “You have already voiced your concerns to the Council, and in private, several times. I understand your apprehension, but it is neither your place nor mine to object to the Gungans’ choice.”

“Your Majesty—”

“I will not hear this again. Am I understood?” Padmé said. Shiraya save her, she hadn’t spoken like this in years.

Horace still looked disgruntled, but understood the command for what it was, and acquiesced with a half-bow, the dark robes he favored swaying with the movement. Having once opposed her appointment as Queen, only to then become her mentor and, eventually, her staunchest supporter, Horace was used to having his voice heard. Unfortunately, Padmé had heard his voice one too many times in the past three days. “Of course, Your Majesty.”

Padmé gave him a slow blink, the equivalent of a nod when burdened by the elaborate headdresses of Amidala. “It is late, and I must retire. I bid you a good night, Ser Vancil,” Padmé said, inclining her head, the degree calculated to be the exact proper amount for a Queen to her Advisor. What can she say, she was tired, and a bit annoyed, and her back was killing her faster than her (ex)husband ever could.

“Of course, my Queen. Rest well.” Horace gave another bow, this one deeper, a bit lower than he normally gave her, as something of a personal acquaintance, if not friend, but it seemed he knew he was being annoying. Good. He turned to leave, down the hallway in the opposite direction of the Queen’s quarters, even though Padmé was sure it was the longer route to his destination. Hmm… maybe he was forgiven. But, well, Padmé was dead, so she wasn’t about to pass up the opportunity to mess with him just a little further.

“Oh, and Horace,” she called, letting more of Padmé bleed into her voice, waiting for him to pause and half-turn back to face her before continuing. “The Council will reconvene at noon tomorrow. Do try not to bring up Ser Binks, else I might think you eager to be the Advisor assigned to him.”

A short, huffed laugh that carried the slightest hint of an echo. “Yes, my Queen.”

She watched him go for a moment, waiting until Horace turned out of sight before setting down her own path. It was quiet for a moment, the clack of boots on polished marble the only sound to be heard.

“Sergeant Perosei.” The man, one of the four Captain Panaka had forced upon her (he no doubt would have tried assigning her the entirety of the Palace Guard, but they were, thankfully, far too short of men for that to be even close to feasible, and so he had begrudgingly settled for four of the best), snapped to attention, his spine somehow straightening impossibly further. “Do you know the whereabouts of my handmaidens?”

It had been bothering her since her last meeting two hours ago. Saché and Yané, having remained behind while Padmé fled to plead Naboo’s case before the Senate, had insisted on keeping her within their sights at all times and ushered (bullied) the others to take some well-earned rest. That was not what concerned her. It had happened the first time, for all that Sabé had groused about it. Saché and Yané, however, had decidedly not slipped out mid-way through the meeting with the Minister of Housing and Shelter, for reasons apparent to no one but them. They had yet to reappear. Padmé was not… worried, per se, at least not in the way most would be in the face of recent betrayals—she trusted every last one her handmaidens with her life, both as a twenty-seven-year-old Senator and a fourteen-year-old monarch—and she would certainly never begrudge them any personal time they needed, but. Well. It was unusual. 

Sergeant Perosei shifted slightly, the movement small enough that Padmé nearly missed it. Interesting. “My apologies, Your Majesty, I do not.”

Padmé narrowed her eyes. “I do hope, Sergeant, that there is no quandary that is being hidden from me.”

Sergeant Perosei stiffened. “No, of course not, Your Majesty. All is well,” he hurried to assure her. The other guards seemed to shrink back from him, blending into the background as much as one can when one is wearing the shiniest helmet and the loudest shoes known to man.

Padmé stayed silent for a long moment as the man very carefully avoided fidgeting. “Good.”

They did not speak again until they reached her quarters, which the Sergeant seemed disproportionally relieved by. 

Padmé paused with one hand resting on the door handle. “Goodnight, all of you.” She debated for a moment whether to continue, but in the end practicality won out over her trust. “Please inform me if any of my handmaidens return.”

Rabé, at the very least, should be in her quarters to help her undress. Getting her out of the Amidala regalia required several hands and a great deal of patience. Then, at least, Padmé could interrogate her.

It was with one final goodnight that Padmé opened the doors and finally, finally let Amidala melt from her shoulders, leaving just Padmé behind. She blinked in surprise at the sight that met her.

One would think that, being dead, she had earned some sort of break. Sure, the threatening Nute Gunray with bodily harm part had been wonderful, and even overseeing the rebuilding of Naboo was deeply therapeutic. Complicated and painful and frustrating beyond words, yes, but Padmé found herself relishing it. The Senate had been wonderful and terrible (and destroyed) but this was simple in a way the Senate wasn’t. This was not fighting against the centuries of corruption pumping the heart of the Republic as it slowly atrophied. This was helping her people, rebuilding a broken system as something better.

But this, this sight that awaited her in her quarters, was certainly recompense for… well, Padmé could think of a lot of things, but she wasn’t sure any of it quite warranted this.

There were a series of couches in Padmé—Amidala’s—quarters, set in a broken circle, leaving openings at the door and the large set of windows against one wall. It was, in theory, meant for meetings more intimate than the Throne Room could provide, but still separate from the more private rooms beyond. Padmé had typically used it to meet with her mentors and the current Senator, when they were on-planet.

This was not, typically, where she met the entirety of her handmaidens, all sitting in a semi-circle facing the door, waiting for her.

“My Queen,” Sabé greeted, her voice dangerously close to Amidala.

Oh. Could Padmé die a second time? It was a suddenly relevant question that she had never put much thought to before. She regretted that now.

“Sabé,” Padmé said, letting some of her uncertainty bleed into her voice. “Rabé, Eirtaé, Saché, Yané. Is there something wrong?”

Ooh, Sabé did not look impressed, not at all. “I was hoping you would have the answer to that.”

Afterlife or not—which had been looking less and less likely with each dreadfully boring meeting—Padmé didn’t think it was wise to answer honestly. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

“You’re different.”

Well, didn’t that put it neatly. 

“How so?”

Sabé rose, shooting up from her seat like it had burned her. Padmé was very confident that Sabé was not going to be the one burned by the end of this.

“Your stance," she began. "You hold yourself like a fighter, one who’s experienced in battle, more than a singular military engagement. Yet you move like you’re uncomfortable in your own skin.” Sabé stalked closer, slow and predatory and perfectly poised. “You keep anticipating problems long before there’s any sign of them—I’ve noted quite a few, and I’m sure we’ll see more play out as the days go on—with no explanation as to how you came into possession of this knowledge.” Another few steps, tension written in every line of her body. “Your voice, it’s close—almost Amidala, but the intonation, the diction, the word choice, is just slightly off.” 

Padmé let her invade her space, her heart thundering in her ears as sudden tightness to her throat made it hard to swallow. The other handmaidens had all been perfectly quiet, observing with too-sharp eyes. Sabé had evidently been chosen as their spokesperson. 

“I’ve trained to know Amidala’s every movement, every breath, and imitate it perfectly. I do not see Amidala when I look at you.”

The words were not meant to hurt, not really, not in the way that made her heart clench and the back of her eyes sting, but they did. Padmé had thought she was doing fairly well, all things considered, but apparently not. She should have expected this—it was a miracle it had taken them this long to say something. She should have known. 

Sabé let the sentence—the accusation—ring in the air for a long moment. “You… you look as if you’re grieving every time you stop to remember yourself,” she said, gaze softening. “Padmé, what happened to you?”

It was the tone that did it, the gentle one of not-so-hidden steel (never hidden, but for her, for Padmé, it was soft in a way it never was) that had always been able to get her to tell her near anything. The tears Padmé hadn’t been able to make herself shed dripped down her face, no doubt warping her facepaint. Rightfully suspicious or not, Sabé only held out until Padmé’s face crumpled before she was pulling her into an embrace and holding on tight, her eyes betraying the depth of her concern.

Anakin, the man she loved, the man she trusted, her husband, had slaughtered children. Had raised his hand against her, intending to kill her. Kill their children. Luke. Leia. The Republic, the democracy she so loved, had fallen, and no one had cared. They had applauded, even. The Sith had won, had won from the very beginning. Billions and billions of lives a casualty of religious teachings only two men believed in. And Padmé had died and left Luke and Leia to a galaxy full of darkness and violence, to a world where their father would tear down everything that she stood for, all the light and good in the galaxy, and dare to say it was for her. Burden her with the knowledge, the guilt, the aching, gaping hole in her chest, the hand around her throat and the water in her lungs. Shiraya, she couldn’t breathe—

Why had no one cared? Why was she the only one? Screaming, crying into the void until her voice was hoarse, begging just please, someone care. Someone in the galaxy, have compassion. Look and see and know this is wrong and do something about it.

Padmé sobbed into Sabé’s shoulder, her chest and shoulders shuddering with the force of it. A hand left where it cradled the back of her neck, and she felt the tell-tale air displacement of motion, only to return a moment later. There was the sound of cloth rustling, and then other bodies joined them, enveloping Padmé entirely. The position was awkward, her skirts and headdress getting in the way and making it all strange angles and sharp edges, but Padmé was so, so incredibly grateful for it.

“Why did no one care?” The words were choked, broken and half-said through hiccuped breaths.

“I don’t know,” Sabé whispered, sounding young and scared and impossibly sad. “I’m sorry, Padmé, I don’t know.”

Chapter Text

“It’s not just the Invasion, is it?” Sabé said softly, and it wasn’t a question, not really. Padmé felt like choking because no. No, it was not just the Invasion.

Someone’s hand—it felt like Sabé’s, but so did the one on her spine and rib—pressed at the back of her neck, gentle and solid, and the one entrapping her hand rubbed tiny circles into her palm. There was a brief, fleeting moment, where Padmé thought of lying. Stress, she could say. It was the part of her that still gasped for air with her husband’s hand around her throat. It was the part that had gripped Bail’s arm as the Republic fell to cheers and applause. It was the part who’d asked but what about the children only to be rebuffed because they’re only Jedi.

It was the part that still grieved for Cordé. 

[“M'lady, I'm so sorry. I've failed you, Senator.”

“No,” Padmé denied, desperate and frantic, but Cordé had already stopped breathing. It was quick, between one blink and the next. Too fast to say the words that stuck in her throat. Now, Cordé would never hear them. Because it was her, laying here on the duracrete, and not Padmé. That was the point—

“M’lady, you’re still in danger here,” Gregar said urgently, pulling her away, and she tried to not choke on grief and guilt and the smell of burnt flesh.]

Cordé had made her choice, as painful as it was, and Padmé could not deprive her handmaidens of the same. They would be involved. Regardless of if Padmé told them or not, they were not ones to sit back as the world fell apart around them. Even if they did, Padmé could not, and that would put them at risk. They were too close to her, too obvious of a target. Padmé could only make sure they had the best chance of success. Of surviving. 

“Padmé.” Sabé’s voice was quiet, soft.

And maybe there was a selfish part of her that didn’t want to do it on her own. Saving the Republic, stopping Palpatine—stopping the War—was too big for one person. Too important to try. Worlds had collapsed upon the mistakes of men who claimed to need no one but themselves.

[“Do you think Obi-Wan might be able to help us?”

“We don’t need his help.”]

In the end, it wasn’t much of a choice at all.

“Thirteen years ago, I was Queen of Naboo,” Padmé began, and she felt the limbs surrounding her pause, “and the Trade Federation erected an illegal blockade around my home.”

Telling this story—the blockade, the Invasion—was easy. Ryoo and Pooja had often pestered her to recount it, much to Sola’s exasperation. Ryoo had eventually lost interest, but Pooja could never hear it enough times. The young girl must have had it memorized, but that never stopped her. These were well-worn words, one she could recite in her sleep. There were still details she had not told her young nieces—Ryoo hadn’t cared to hear them once she was old enough to, and Padmé had never known a Pooja over the age of four. (It was a different grief, remembering them. Gone. Maybe never to be born, if Padmé changed the timeline enough. A brief moment, just a fraction of a second, in which Padmé questioned if she had the right to even chance erasing them— but no, she loved them as her own, but she could not love them at the cost of the galaxy.) She hadn’t told them of the quiet fear she felt as she gazed out the window to a Theed where battle droids marched through the streets. She hadn’t told them how she’d prepared for the possibility that she might have to watch her people starve, and the even more likely chance that she or Sabé would be dead long before that point. Her handmaidens listened, and did not interrupt, even if they already knew this story.

It wasn’t until she passed the immediate aftermath of the Invasion that they truly reacted. A confused silence, a tightening of a grip here. The soft shift of cloth as they turned their heads to exchange glances where Padmé couldn’t see. Still, they did not speak. Padmé told them of her second term as Queen, the contention between the Naboo who clung to peace and those who wanted to be ready for war, and how she had declined the offer of a third term and stepped down. Being elected Senator upon Queen Réillata’s urging had been something of a shock, even if it shouldn’t have been. She’d had to part ways with many of her handmaidens, then, but she never fell out of touch, never felt as if they loved her any less. Taking on new ones, often by the recommendation of the original five, had been harder than she’d anticipated, but she quickly grew to love them just as fiercely. The Senate had lived up to its less than sparkling reputation—Padmé had often chafed against the slow-moving protocols as she struggled to carve out her own identity, separate from the child Queen and separate from Palpatine. She’d found allies—close friends, even—in Bail, Mon, Mina, Breha. Even, for a time, Clovis.

The Military Creation Act was still a source of frustration for her, and it showed in her voice. Her battle against it had been difficult, surrounded by magnates who viewed war as a lucrative business opportunity, and it had been futile, in the end. Cordé’s death was described through gritted teeth. At the time, she had attributed the attack to Count Dooku, and perhaps that was true, but the true mastermind had been the very man who’d offered his deepest condolences with a kind smile. She would have attempted to destroy Palpatine just for that, Padmé thought, but unfortunately for all involved, most of all him, he’d done much, much worse.

Anakin’s name stuck in her throat when it came time to describe her Jedi protectors, and so she focused on Obi-Wan, on the quiet moments rekindling a brief friendship made on a Naboonian ship some ten years earlier, and the assassination attempt in her bed as she slept. But soon she couldn’t avoid it, and so she told them of the flashbang romance with her Jedi protector—something she still didn’t have an explanation for herself, other than it had felt overwhelmingly right, like a puzzle piece slotting into place. She did not talk of Tatooine. One day, maybe. But that was a shame not entirely her own, and it was with a different sort of pain that she looked back on it.

Her voice faltered as she told of receiving Obi-Wan’s distress signal. Not for the signal itself, but for what it began. Insisting on going to rescue him herself was not something she could ever regret, but she did very much regret how it was handled. Captured themselves, with no plan and no one with any knowledge of where they were, Padmé was prepared to die. She was less prepared to watch Anakin and Obi-Wan join her, but in the end she didn’t have to. Two hundred Jedi, an undeniable declaration of war that made her weak with relief and despair. But it was two hundred against thousands, Jedi or not, and figures clad in brown and beige fell under the never-ending onslaught of battle droids, until they were boxed in, only thirteen Jedi still standing. Dooku had called for their surrender, and instead they prepared to join the bodies littering the arena floor, nearly indistinguishable from the broken machinery surrounding them. LAAT gunships had rescued them, but Padmé met the helmeted gaze of their saviors and knew she had failed. War had finally come to the Republic.

War meant millions of men—slaves—paid for and sacrificed. War meant citizenship bills she and Bail had worked tirelessly on, only to see them fall at the first step. War meant neighbor turning against neighbor. It meant desperate attempts at negotiation, at peace. It meant losing Mina. War meant a Sith Lord always in the background, casting every shadow he hid in—someone worse than Dooku, than Grevious—the name Sidious little more than a fearful whisper of those few privileged enough to know it. Not all of it was bleak. She didn’t regret the opportunity to grow closer with Obi-Wan, as she didn’t regret meeting Ahsoka. She didn’t regret the achingly loyal men in painted armor, even if she wished they’d been afforded the opportunity to make even a single choice for themselves. 

The handmaidens had shifted away from the pile they’d fallen into as Padmé spoke, still keeping close, but giving her room enough to breathe. Sabé remained curled around her, grip a little too tight, and Padmé couldn’t find it within herself to be anything but grateful.

She told them of the Emergency Powers that slowly grew and grew until the Republic was a dictatorship in all but name. Discovering she was pregnant–the elation, the terror of it. How was she to bring a child into a Republic fractured and dying? Who was she to think she could protect a life in a war, when she could barely protect herself?

And then, finally, after three long years, the end of the War had finally been in sight. She wasn’t supposed to know—technically didn’t have the clearance for it—but anyone with half an ear to the ground knew change was on the way. 

Change had, indeed, come, but not from a direction anyone had expected. Perhaps they should have. The Temple was destroyed, the Jedi declared traitors, citing a coup that rang false with even the barest of scrutiny. Padmé had been left in her apartment, wondering frantically if Anakin was alright, if Obi-Wan was still alive, if Ahsoka still counted.

Anakin had come to her apartment. His eyes were the clear blue she’d always known, but the color looked false. R2 beeped an uneasy warning she didn’t understand. Anakin had assured her that everything would be alright, that the Chancellor had given him a special mission, that the War would finally end. Some forgotten part of her mind, belonging to those primitive days of humanity, had screamed danger. Padmé had told him that she was afraid, and he’d thought she meant the Jedi. She had let him. The whole situation had, indeed, been frightening, but it wasn’t the smoke on the horizon that fed the sick coiling of tension in her gut.

Three hours later, and she watched with bitter horror as the Republic crumbled and an Empire rose from the rubble of it. Anakin had pledged his loyalty to the Chancellor just that night, to a Republic that no longer existed, and Padmé had briefly wondered just what that meant now.

“Obi-Wan came to my apartment the next day, asking after Anakin,” Padmé said, her voice nearly gone. “I— I told him I didn’t know where he was, but he—”

[“Padmé, I need your help.” The plea was sharper than he’d probably meant it. There was no apology in his gaze, but his next words were softened somewhat. “He is in grave danger.”

She whirrled around, fear spiking in her heart. A hand twitched with the urge to cradle her stomach. No. Please, no. “From the Sith?”

Obi-Wan’s face was uncharacteristically grave, exhaustion coloring the edges, and he met her eyes as if willing her to understand. What, she didn’t quite know. “From himself.”]

“—He told me Chancellor Palpatine was the Sith Lord. That he was behind the Separatists, the War, the attack on the Temple, everything. It was all just… some big ploy, to get him in power. And we all fell for it.” Padmé took a shaky breath, and it didn’t do much to dispel the rising nausea. “But Anakin… Anakin had joined the Sith—became Palpatine’s apprentice.” She spat the word out with all the venom and hate in her heart that she’d always tried very, very hard to suppress. “I didn’t believe him. I didn’t want to believe him. I knew where Anakin was, he’d told me where he was going, but I—”

[“You’re going to kill him, aren’t you.”

Obi-Wan looked at her with thinned lips and sallow skin, silent for a moment before drawing a breath to speak that rattled in his throat. “He has become a very great threat,” he told her, and she wasn’t sure which one of them the words were for.

Padmé looked into the eyes of one of her dearest friends—blue, like Anakin, but his did not ring false—and felt that sick sort of anxiety curl tighter in her stomach. “I can’t,” she whispered.]

“I couldn’t tell Obi-Wan.” Oh, how she regretted that now. Perhaps, if she had, they could have gone to Anakin together. He hadn’t earned redemption, Padmé wasn’t even sure he could, but… maybe. Maybe some other option would have presented itself. But it didn’t matter, because she’d made her choice, and it hadn’t been that. “I went to Mustafar myself. I thought I could maybe talk him out of it, make him see what he was doing was wrong. And maybe— maybe I hoped that Obi-Wan had been mistaken.” It was not a proud admission, but she made it all the same. “I pleaded with him, asked him to stop, to run away with me and raise our child—anything to get through to him, but he didn’t listen.” Padmé felt that familiar heat of anger, and she spoke through bared teeth and watery eyes. “He just kept talking about how— how powerful he was now, and how we could rule the galaxy together.”

Sabé pressed silent, soothing touches to her neck, her face, her wrist, and Padmé sunk into the comfort gratefully, letting her anger bleed away.

“Obi-Wan had followed me,” Padmé continued after a moment. “Stowed away on my ship. Anakin saw him—”

[“Stop,” she said, the words broken and pleading. “Stop now, come back.” Padmé surged forward, one last desperate attempt to reach the man she had fallen in love with. The man who had slept in her bed in the most innocent of ways, a simple intimacy and trust she had allowed very few men. She had never been more afraid in her life. Terror made her gut churn and her limbs shaky—she was sick with it. “I love you.”

His eyes weren’t focused on her, but on something behind her, and she didn’t need to hear his next words to know she had failed. “Liar!” he roared, and she flinched back, following his gaze to see Obi-Wan standing just before the ship’s entrance ramp. Relief and betrayal and overwhelming fear vied for dominance in her mind.

“You’re with him!” Anakin spat, face twisted into something hateful and ugly and unfamiliar. “You brought him here to kill me.”

“No!” she tried to protest, but there wasn’t any oxygen left in her lungs. She couldn’t speak. She couldn't breathe. No, the baby—]

“—and thought I’d betrayed him. He…” Padmé’s throat closed, as if in remembrance, and she pressed herself further into Sabé’s embrace, letting the word hang as its own ending. Another day, perhaps. “I woke up in a med bay. With everything going on… I had gone into labor.”

Gentle hands covered where her own pressed into her stomach, and Padmé felt like crying all over again. Still, she obeyed the silent request and relaxed the force of it, knowing she had most likely given herself a bruise or two. She hadn’t noticed.

“The babies survived,” Padmé said, and tried to find relief in that. “There were two of them—a boy and a girl. Twins. But I— I could feel myself dying. I wanted to live, I think, if only for Luke and Leia, but I just… couldn’t hold on. Like something was draining the life out of me.” 

She’d tried so hard and it hadn’t mattered. None of it had mattered. 

“I felt my heart stop,” Padmé continued, ignoring the tension in the room ratcheting up. “I was dead, I know I was. And then I woke up in the Throne Room, fourteen again, face-to-face with Nute Gunray. This,” her arms twitched in an aborted gesture, “this all happened thirteen years ago, for me.”

It was silent for a long, long moment. No one spoke. They hardly even dared to breathe. Sabé hadn’t loosened her embrace, if that’s what this strange tangle of limbs could be called. Padmé tried to muster up some sort of anxiety—maybe they didn’t believe her, maybe they thought she was crazy—but she was too tired for anything of the sort.

“I know it’s hard to believe—”

“Padmé,” Sabé’s voice was strangled, the sound barely recognizable as a word. It sounded like the beginning of a sentence, but she didn’t continue.

“Of course we believe you,” Rabé jumped in, when it became clear Sabé might be beyond words at the moment.

“We’re here to help you,” Saché added, a stubborn fire in her suspiciously-bright eyes. “Whatever you need, Padmé, we’re here. You’re not alone.”

Relief and gratitude and hours of talking made Padmé’s head spin, and she barely heard the others voice their agreements, some shakier than others.

“Never alone,” Sabé whispered roughly into her hair. A shaky breath. “I’m so sorry, Padmé.”

She just pressed impossibly further into her in response. Padmé wasn’t naive enough to believe this fixed everything. There was still so much work to be done outside these doors, but just for now, in this moment, a weight lifted off her chest.

“It’s nearly morning,” Rabé said quietly, after a long moment of silence that no one seemed to know how to fill. “We should get some sleep. We can discuss this tomorrow.” She gave a pointed look to where Padmé was collapsed into Sabé that Padmé couldn’t see, but certainly felt. “Yané, if you would assist me with Amidala—”

“Yes, of course,” Yané said, and Padmé turned her head to watch as she darted forward.

Sabé did not so much release her as just begrudgingly relinquish her into Yané’s waiting arms. Padmé let herself be manhandled, vaguely aware of the other handmaidens moving around the room, but too weighed down by a sudden exhaustion to notice much more than that. Her focus was mainly on attempting to stay awake as Rabé and Yané stripped her of the Amidala regalia with equal parts gentleness and startling efficiency. Someone freed her of the elaborate headdress as a hand carefully rubbed away what remained of the facepaint. Her skirts were not removed with anything close to the reverence the Naboo typically afforded their clothing—Padmé was almost sure she’d heard someone rip something in an attempt to get her out sooner, and the thought made her want to laugh and sink into the floor at the same time.

In record time, Padmé stood (leaned heavily against Yané, who made a gracious wall) in nothing more than a light shift and her undergarments. Her handmaidens reappeared, most of them having stripped to the same condition, and too many hands for Padmé to keep count of gently guided her into the bedroom and prodded her into the bed and beneath the covers. There was a moment where she thought they’d leave her alone, and a spike of apprehension drove through the haze of exhaustion, but the dip of the bed on either side quickly assuaged her fear. The royal bed was big. Huge, even—a needlessly opulent remnant of King Veruna’s reign—but Padmé could only be grateful for it as she drifted to sleep to the rhythm of five steady heartbeats.

________________

Aduk’luwin snored. Ahsoka wasn’t sure how she had forgotten that, but she had. One would think, having slept through everything from heavy artillery to her Masters’ shouting matches (did it count as a shouting match if only one of them actually raised their voice?), the snores of a four-year-old would be nothing in comparison. But Ahsoka was not the fifteen-year-old who dozed on Rex’s shoulder as they crouched under the barest of cover in the stretch of no-man’s land between the Republic and the Separatists, nor was she the twenty-year-old curled up between roaring pieces of machinery, the only safe place for a stowaway. She was a four-year-old whose montrals were vibrating with each piercing whistle, the air hissing strangely through Aduk’luwin’s gapped teeth. Even if her mind was used to ignoring the excess sensory input, her body was not, tensing with each of her crèchemates’ soft (or not-so-soft, in Aduk’luwin’s case) exhales.

She gave up after the third hour, sitting up with a huff. Kicking her legs free of the blanket, she scooted until her back hit the wall at the head of the bed. She rested her palms on the knees of her crossed legs and took a deep breath, letting her eyes drift closed as she sunk into a light meditation. Technically, she could do this laying down, but there was something soothing in the familiarity of the position.

Meditation had changed under the Empire. It had to, in a galaxy so dark even the smallest bit of light shone like a beacon. Thinning her shields simply hadn’t been an option. After fifteen years of hiding, snuffing her presence in the Force until it was nearly nonexistent… Ahsoka wasn’t entirely sure she even could lift her shields anymore. Not completely. So figuring out how to use the Force without sending up a flare to whoever cared to look was… quite a task. She could no longer reach out to connect with the Force. So instead she sunk deeper within herself, running gentle fingers over the gossamer bonds as she passed, blinking past the flashes of emotion that came from them, the curiositywonderfear and the griefdeterminationdistantfondness. There were other places in her mind, as well—empty spaces were bonds would one day be. Ahsoka disregarded them all and reached down. 

The Force ran through every living being. It tied them together, connected them. Even those who cut themselves off from the Force were never truly disconnected, they simply rid themselves of their ability to feel it. But, Ahsoka had figured, if the Force ran through everything, it didn’t simply stop just because she put up some mental barriers. Past her memories, past the core of her, to a place that didn’t belong to her mind at all, she reached for the thread that connected her to every other living thing. It appeared to her as an underground river, though to anyone else it would be a tapestry, the roots of a flower, a city’s streets—a million different things, each one unique. She was not the river’s headwater. If there even was a headwater, Ahsoka wasn’t aware of it. The river simply ran through her, stretching out impossibly far in each direction. She sunk into the currents and let them sweep her away. Ahsoka was distantly aware of the way her shoulders relaxed, a deep-seated tension she hadn’t even been aware of bleeding away slowly. The Force danced around her, bright and joyful and alive. 

Now, all she had to do was figure out how to keep it that way. It shouldn’t be too hard, considering a Sith lord was now in control of the entire Republic and Ahsoka was four kriffing years old. A child, and stuck in the Jedi Order.

The destruction of the Jedi had been public, a deafening cry for vengeance from a Sith Lord and the galaxy who followed him. It was personal. Loud. It was not, however, strictly necessary. The Empire would have risen, the Republic would have fallen, even with the Order standing tall. Palpatine did not succeed because the Jedi weren’t there to stop him—he succeeded because the Republic was broken. The Separatist movement was not the result of one man’s machinations. The Republic, in all honesty, had been destroying itself for a long time—crumbling under the weight of corruption and power-hungry corporations and the cries for help that went ignored because listening wasn’t in the budget this year. A system bloated and rotting. Secession was a reasonable course of action. In a truly democratic system, it would be respected. But the Republic had dug their claws in and stumbled across an army, and the Separatists had sunk deeper and deeper into corruption and cruelty themselves, leaving a galaxy of people caught in the middle. 

In short, the Jedi weren’t important. The only way to stop the Empire, to stop the War, was to fix the Republic. Truly fix it, not just the band-aid solutions they’d been slapping on blaster wounds. That meant change in the Senate, in legislation, in laws and laws about enforcing those laws.

But Ahsoka wasn’t in the Senate, wasn’t particularly skilled at politicking on an intergalactic scale in the first place—rubbing elbows with Senators, with businessmen who didn’t have a Seat, but owned twelve of the people who did. She was in the Jedi Order. So, the Jedi Order had to become important.

(There was a part of her, the part that still meditated with her legs crossed and her back straight, the part that ached for Obi-Wan’s too-strong tea and Anakin’s cocky smirk and her crèchemate’s laughter, the part that had vibrated with excitement when Master Windu and Master Yoda came to visit their class and Master Windu smiled at a joke Eltigil made, the part that felt her heart break as she stared down Barris as she spat venom to the Jedi, to the War, Ahsoka’s life just a casualty to her crusade—the part that knew she wasn’t wrong—bared its teeth, equal parts smile and threat, and dug its claws in.)

The Jedi were no longer her people, the Temple no longer her home—hadn’t been since the day they cast her out to die.

But they could be.

A dying people, a dying culture. A code warped beyond recognition. An Order reshaped to serve the Republic and not the people. 

Ahsoka had ten years to prevent a war.

Dooku had been a step—not even a step, a nudge. One that might not work. Changing the Order into a something better, something that helped people—all the people—into something worth saving, would be a long process. Some of it would come from the general population—the children in the crèche, the common Knights and Masters, the administrators and the instructors, the Service Corps and the Watchmen. Some of it would have to come from the Council—those Jedi so disconnected from the rest. They, in particular, would resist any attempts at reform. 

Ahsoka couldn’t help the smile that pulled at the corner of her mouth. This could be fun.

“Ahsoka?” a young voice prodded, the source startling close to her right montral.

Ahsoka’s eyes blinked open and she was met with Gor’s furry face. She must’ve gone deeper into the Force than she’d thought. She hadn’t even heard him approach. His hand hovered uncertainly above her shoulder, like he had intended on shaking her awake. It fell once he saw her eyes.

“Hey, Gor,” Ahsoka greeted, stretching her stiff muscles as she did and silently marveling at the lack of pain in her now-young joints—two wars hadn’t been kind on her. Now that she was aware, she could hear the tell-tale sounds of children getting dressed and ready for the day. “Morning already?”

Gor nodded, his gaze curious as he took in her position. “You didn’t sleep?” he asked.

[Ahsoka jerked up in her seat, blinking rapidly and trying to focus on Gor’s face. “What makes you say that?”

His eyes dragged down her face, lingering on the droop of her eyes and the ashy shade of blue on her headtails. He looked amused. “Ahsoka,” he said. “You just fell asleep in the middle of our conversation.”

“I did not.” Ahsoka shifted in her seat. “I was just… processing, is all.”

“You were sleeping,” Gor said. The transport shook around them, the simple rattle of a ship in hyperspace. Neither one of them took much notice. He paused a moment, his gaze flickering down to her closed hand. “I won’t ask what you saw in there—finding your crystal is sacred—but… if you want anything, you need only ask.”

He always said that—’want’ and not ‘need’, even if Jedi weren’t supposed to want anything. She’d asked him about it once, when they were still in the crèche. 

“You’re allowed to want things you don’t need,” he’d said.

It didn’t strike her as particularly Jedi-like, but Ahsoka herself didn’t really know what that was supposed to be, when the Jedi were peacemakers that lead shackled men to their deaths in a war she didn’t understand.

She gave him a genuine smile. “Thanks, Gor,” she said quietly. “Same goes for you.”

“Go to sleep,” he ordered, not unkindly. “I’ll wake you if Master Haelan comes in.”

She huffed a laugh. “Bossy,” she muttered as she shifted to a more comfortable position, curling into the back of the seat and letting Gor’s soft breathing and the song of crystals—once one, now two, working in near perfect harmony—lull her to sleep.]

Ahsoka shook her head. “Aduk snores. I meditated instead.”

Gor’s eyes narrowed slightly. A terrifying sight, by all accounts, for anyone who wanted their secrets to remain secrets. “You meditated.”

She hummed. “Yes.”

If possible, his eyes narrowed even further. “Alright,” he said after a beat, the word taking longer to say than strictly necessary. “I think Master Ciiirtharr has those muffling hoods, if you want.” 

“No, I’ll be fine,” Ahsoka said, shaking her head. She hopped off the cot, bumping her shoulder against Gor’s. “Thanks for waking me.”

“‘course.” His face dropped the squinty look and adopted a small smile, which looked more like a baring of teeth than anything else. She’d blame it on Bothan physiology, but she’d met dozens of Bothans, and none of them had the same problem—Gor himself having eventually perfected the action—so young Gor was evidently just really, really bad at it. It was strangely endearing, in that way only young children you aren’t directly responsible for can be.

He brushed her arm with his as he retreated to his own cot, giving her privacy to change into the starching Initiate robes. Purportedly, they were less complicated to put on than those traditional to the Padawans and Knights, but Ahsoka had never worn the traditional Padawan robes a day in her life, so she wouldn’t know. If there was any truth to it at all, Ahsoka was intensely grateful she’d never touched the things, if this was ‘simple’. 

She went to follow Theen and Cik out of the room, but an awkward clearing of a throat—a strange thing to hear from a barely-not-a-toddler, but Ahsoka would admit she didn’t have a good grasp of what age children were supposed to do things—made her pause. 

It was Zel, oddly enough. “You forgot shoes,” he said, looking only mildly uncomfortable. Considering she’d cried the last time they’d interacted, it was fairly justified.

Ahsoka looked down. She was, indeed, barefoot. “Ah. Thanks for pointing that out.” There was a moment of silence as the two of them stared at each other. Ahsoka rocked back on her heels and forward again. “Want to walk to the Refectory together?”

“Uh—”

“Great!” Ahsoka turned and resumed her path out of the dormitory. One beat, two, and then hesitant footsteps followed. She didn’t bother to hide her smile.

Master Dhumast was guiding them today—though it would still be Knight Dhumast as of now, if she remembered correctly. Ahsoka—and by association, Zel, too—trailed a little behind the rest of Clawmouse, which she was sort of grateful for, if the snip-bits of conversation she was hearing were any indication.

“Aren’t your feet cold?” Zel asked, his brow furrowed.

Ahsoka shrugged. They certainly weren’t warm, and Ahsoka made a mental note to acquire new wrappings, but it was a distant sensation. Zel didn’t look any less perturbed, but he didn’t move from his spot beside her, either.

Clawmouse made it to the Refectory without incident—quite a feat for them, if she was being honest. The Refectory was designed to serve millions of species, each with different diets and taste receptors, and the result was several classic staples—mostly aimed, unfortunately, at humans and those with similar digestive systems—and a great deal of bland, but nutritional not-quite-mush. Not the best food in the galaxy, but Ahsoka had learned long ago that yes, it could indeed get worse, having subsisted on ration bars and whatever else was most efficient for the last nineteen years.

Ahsoka picked the vaguely-purple glop and tried to ignore how Gor eyed her bowl and her lack of shoes. There was really no reason for her decision. There was plenty of meat available, only some of which was toxic to her, but Ahsoka had long forgotten the exact taste of the Temple’s unique brand of sustenance, and—very much against her will—had been curious. She already sort of regretted it. 

“That’s stupid. Master Yoda’s lightsaber is green,” Eltegil said as she sat down. Ahsoka blinked. Ah. They were still on this, then.

“Have we seen Master Yoda’s lightsaber?” Gor asked.

“No, but I asked him and he told me, and Jedi Masters can’t lie.”

Ahsoka valiantly resisted the urge to snort, and mostly succeeded. All Jedi Masters were dirty liars—their most substantial one being that they claimed to have any idea what they were doing at any given time. It was very possible that Ahsoka was biased—having mostly been exposed to her complete disaster of lineage—but they were also supposedly some of the Order’s finest, so maybe Jedi were just like that.

“I like blue,” Zel offered.

“Blue’s boring,” Eltegil complained. “Everyone has a blue lightsaber. I hope I get a yellow one, like the Temple Guards.”

“You just said Master Yoda had a green one,” Cik, ever the reasonable one—reasonable being a relative term—pointed out. “The Masters said you don’t choose your crystal, anyway, so it doesn’t matter.”

“Why aren’t there more colors?” Theen wondered, poking at their own plate of kajaka root. “I’ve only seen green and blue.”

“Yeah! Like red,” Aduk’luwin said, perking up. He shifted his attention to Ahsoka, who was still trying to decide what the mush tasted like. So far, vaguely muja fruit and Daropan sand was the best she could come up with. “Hey, ‘Soka, what color’s your favorite?”

Ahsoka’s gaze flicked down to Aduk’luwin’s bright red arm and fought off a smile. Red, huh. “I prefer orange.”

Eltegil groaned, like they’d all greatly inconvenienced her. “You can’t match your lightsaber!”

“Padawan Secura does it,” Aduk’luwin said.

Eltegil just glared and stuffed her mouth full of eggs in lieu of a response. A solid rebuttal, by all accounts.

The rest of firstmeal was spent in relative silence, most of them too focused on cleaning their plates, as well as everyone else’s—Aduk’luwin and Theen in particular seemed determined to steal each other’s food, despite the fact that neither could digest it, for the most part. Ahsoka, with her less-than-appetizing purple paste, was safe. It wasn’t until Cik went to throw something at the both of them in exasperation that Master Dhumast interfered, interjecting a quick, “Are you all finished?”

Cik nodded, her face a picture of innocence. It might have been more convincing if her fork wasn’t still raised and prepped. “Yup!”

Master Dhumast looked thoroughly unimpressed, but the expression held far too much amusement to be the precursor to a lecture. “Everyone stack your dishes, then, please.”

They complied, even if the resulting stack was rather haphazardly done. Master Dhumast corralled them out of the Refectory with only minimal difficulty. Morning meditation was next, after all, and it wasn’t exactly the greatest incentive to get moving. The order of things seemed a little mixed compared to Ahsoka’s memories, but she supposed even the Order recognized that hungry children weren’t exactly masters at sitting still and focusing. 

It was just after they emerged from the Refectory that Ahsoka took the opportunity to slip away, melting into the chaos of the early morning halls and wrapping a quiet notice-me-not around her like a well-worn cloak—the kind that was objectively ugly as all Sith Hells but was far too comfortable and broken in to get rid of. She did feel vaguely guilty about leaving Master Dhumast one youngling short, but considering it was the Jedi Order, there was a fairly high chance her absence wouldn’t be noted.

It was strange, being back in the Temple. It had been destroyed last time Ahsoka had seen it, half ash and rubble, stained with far less blood than there should have been. Lightsabers cauterized their wounds, after all. Blasters did not. Over a year after Knightfall, the bodies had long been removed, dragged out and burned on the Temple steps in a mockery of a funeral pyre. She still wasn’t sure why she had gone back in the first place, slipping in through one of the abandoned entrances in the lower levels. Bail had warned her, pleaded with her to leave it alone. Meeting with the informant on Coruscant herself instead of sending someone in her place was risky enough. She should have avoided the Temple entirely, kept to the lower levels and kept her head down. But she had been young, nineteen and grieving for a family that was no longer hers, but could have been. Bail—still newly Bail, not Organa or Viceroy or Senator, but Bail—had met her gaze of bitter grief and relented. There had been a haunted sort of guilt in his face, and Ahsoka didn’t think he was seeing her in that moment at all.

It had, indeed, been a bad idea. Men in white armor (achingly familiar but the shape of the helmet had been wrong, the material too thin and shiny) had nearly caught her several times. The Temple itself had been empty, abandoned to decay slowly, soaked in pain and sorrow and death. The Archives were half-destroyed, lightsaber marks scorched into the floor and shelves, the files wiped completely. She hadn’t— she couldn’t bring herself to visit her old quarters. Didn’t want to know if they were still standing, if there was anything left of her—of either of her Masters. The rooms weren’t even hers anymore—hadn’t been since the day she walked down the Temple steps, her head missing the familiar, comforting weight that had been her constant companion for three years. Ahsoka had left quickly, and two years later the Jedi Temple had become the Imperial Palace. She hadn’t set foot on Coruscant again.

This was not that Temple—never would be, if Ahsoka had anything to say about it. Jedi walked freely here, unburdened and relaxed, content in the safety of the only home they had ever known. Beings of all species, united by their atrocious fashion sense and that feeling in the Force that was uniquely Jedi. There was no disgust in the eyes of the human Knights, no staring for just a beat too long, no fear in their companion’s eyes.

(The Empire had destroyed more than just the Order.)

The Force here felt like a breath of fresh air. In truth, it was more a breath of slightly-less-polluted smog, but Ahsoka would take what she could get. Each Jedi shone in the Force, their light connecting and intertwining freely. There were so many. More than she remembered feeling even during the war, their numbers depleting steadily as more and more Jedi fell under the never-ending onslaught of battle droids. The lights then were dulled, darkened by loss and pain and grief. But these— these were the lights of her childhood. Ahsoka took a deep breath, and it was only slightly shaky. She had gotten used to the dark, to a seemingly endless night with only a few stars to mark the way.

But ruminating on the Temple was not why she had abandoned her Clan. No, that was for a long list of reasons (brooding sitting at number nineteen, if she had time). An embarrassingly large number of those reasons had to do with getting away from Gor’s laser-beam focus, sure, but she did have a mission in mind. Several, in fact, but only one of them promised to be any fun.

The path to the High Council Chambers was absolutely not one she should know by heart. Most Jedi only found themselves there maybe once or twice in their lives, excluding the traditional Claiming and Knighting ceremonies. But Ahsoka came from a long line of troublemakers (the polite word for obstinate bastards)—sure, Dooku was rather orthodox when he was still with the Order, but he had quite literally become a murderous Sith Lord, and Master Obi-Wan—contrary to the most misleading reputation in the galaxy—was probably the worst of them all. Ahsoka herself hadn’t been called before the Council anywhere near as often as either of her Masters (she hadn’t been the Chosen-One-With-No-Fear-But-Extensive-Anger-Issues or the famed Negotiator, after all, just the Padawan they’d sacrificed to the cause of taming Anakin Skywalker and one Commander among many) but enough that she could walk there sightless and Force-blind.

It wasn’t until she was in the lift, only about a floor from the top of the tower, that she registered the cloud of stress and frustration emanating from the approximate direction of the High Council Chambers. It was oddly surprising, even if it really shouldn’t have been. While the Council put up a good facade—held water as well as a fishing net, really—turmoil had been their default state for the entirety of the time she’d known them.

Regardless, something had clearly ruffled the Council’s feathers, leaving their famed Jedi Serenity in tatters. It was rather unfortunate, because Ahsoka fully intended to ruin their day even further.

It was either a result of wonderful timing or pure dumb luck that the lift doors opened just as Council members began pouring out of the Chambers. They emerged in twos and threes, their eyes passing over Ahsoka as if she wasn’t there at all, which was rather the point. Master Yaddle’s gaze did linger just a beat too long, but she didn’t react otherwise, so she counted it as a success. Though Ahsoka had long ago come to peace with her sham of a trial, she couldn’t help the reflexive twinge of resentment at seeing so many of the faces that had towered above her, condemning her to inevitable execution just to appease the Senate. She dismissed it as soon as it popped up. It held no deeper emotion, not anymore, just a knee-jerk reaction. 

Yoda and Mace Windu were the last ones to emerge, engaged in a solemn discussion that seemed rather important, which was really too bad for them. 

Ahsoka shed the notice-me-not from her shoulders and bounded up, weaving through the other Jedi Masters and barely giving either of them time to register her presence before she grabbed Master Windu’s hand and beamed up at him.

“Good morning, Master Windu,” she greeted. “Let’s talk about the Sith on Naboo.” 

Chapter Text

Windu’s shields, bafflingly enough, slipped. A fraction of a fraction of a moment, barely there before it was gone again. Padawan Tano wouldn’t have caught it. Neither would have Knight Tano, had she been allowed to achieve the title. Fulcrum, however, very much did. 

Now, Ahsoka herself didn’t know how she would react to a child seeking her out to discuss a (supposedly) long-dead enemy, but it most certainly was not pain. 

“Master Windu? Alright, are you?” Master Yoda asked as his companion sucked a harsh breath through his teeth.

“I’m fine,” Windu said, sounding very not fine. “Just—” he cut off, squinting down at Ahsoka like he was trying to shove aside an after-image from looking at the sun too long. “Youngling,” he said, his voice an urgent sort of horrified, which was horrifying in itself, coming from a man who might actually be allergic to openly expressing emotion, “are you alright?”

It was puzzling, for a number of reasons. The correct answer to that question would be a resounding no, but Master Windu absolutely should not know enough to ask it. 

It couldn’t be her presence in the Force—her shields had withstood twenty years of two Sith Lords and whatever two-bit Inquisitor they’d thrown her way, and she’d like to think Mace Windu wasn’t going to be her downfall. He was lucky he could feel her at all—

Ah. That might be the problem. 

Noted.

Master Yoda’s gaze was sharp as it snapped to her. “See something, did you?” The question wasn’t directed at her, but he didn’t break his stare.

The reaction had drawn attention, pinpricks of alarmcuriosityconcern drifting closer on soft footsteps. Not ideal, but if she’d wanted this to be private, she wouldn’t have ambushed him here and now. Still, Ahsoka tracked the distinct yellow-green-gray warmth of friendcompassionpatienceoldfirekindkindkind with something approaching anxiety.

“A youngling?”

“Do not say vergence—”

“Vision, perhaps—”

“Little ‘Soka?”

Concern, genuine and warm, reached out for her tentatively, as if the owner of it wasn’t even aware of the action.

Don’t look. Don’t look. Don’t look. Now was not the time. She had a job to do, and she couldn’t do it if she saw his face. Raising her shields as high as they could go, she fervently ignored him.

“I’m fine,” Ahsoka said, even if she was of the opinion that she really wasn’t the one they should be concerned with right now. “Master Windu, are you alright?”

Windu didn’t look like he quite knew what to do with the small child before him, but Ahsoka had never seen him ever know what to do with children, so it wasn’t really worth noting. “I am fine, youngling.” His voice was still tight around the edges, but had mostly returned to its usual cadence. “I was simply taken off guard.”

By what? Ahsoka wanted to ask, but shoved the urge down. Whatever the answer was, the middle of the hallway full of Councilors wasn’t the place for it. 

“Maybe you need a break,” Ahsoka said instead. “The Room of a Thousand Fountains is lovely this time of day,” she offered, smiling up at him. Windu’s brow furrowed further in pain. “Perfect for walks. I find walks to be very calming, don’t you?”

She took advantage of Windu’s not-so-momentary confusion to tug him forward (Well, she went through the motions of tugging and gave him a hearty shove with the Force, but it was the thought that counted). “Here, I’ll take you there.”

“Have plans for Master Windu, do you?” Master Yoda asked, his eyes sharp and assessing behind an amused glint. He did not, however, make any move to stop her.

Ah, well, that was far easier than she’d anticipated. Ahsoka smiled. “You’ll have him back by midmeal,” she promised, dragging Windu along and sidestepping nosy Jedi Masters who seemed content to let their colleague be abducted by a four-year-old child—or perhaps they were just too confused to react, Ahsoka didn’t really care either way.

It might’ve been a lie. She hadn’t decided yet.

“Mace?” Adi Gallia stepped forward they approached the lift, her eyes flickering down to Ahsoka and back again in silent inquiry.

Windu waved her off, surprisingly enough. “It’s fine,” he said, even if it definitely sounded like more of a question. 

Master Gallia’s lips flattened as she scanned him, gaze lingering on the tension in his face and shoulders, clearly dissatisfied but unwilling to protest further. “I’ll ride down with you.”

He sighed and gestured for her to enter first. “Of course.”

Ahsoka might’ve been annoyed, had Master Windu’s posture not still been tight with a pain she didn’t understand. If he collapsed, she wasn’t nearly big enough in her current state to catch him. As it was, she couldn’t help but find the concern oddly sweet.

Force, was she old.

“Do you need a break, too?” Ahsoka asked as they filed in.

“Perhaps, but I’m afraid I still have work in the Senate, youngling,” Master Gallia said, smiling gently down at her. She’d addressed Ahsoka directly, but her attention was very clearly fixed on her colleague.

[“Master Obi-Wan!” she greeted.

 He turned at the sound of her voice, his hands falling to his sides. He gave her a weary but warm smile. “Ahsoka.”

She hurried to close the remaining distance, nodding a hello to several passing troopers. “When did you get back? How did the mission go?”

He aged several years before her eyes, the lines around his mouth deepening with something too exhausted to be grief. “It was… unsuccessful.”

She recognized it.“…Is Master Gallia alright?” she asked as her stomach sank.

Master Obi-Wan’s eyes closed. Opened, and the sorrow in them had been replaced by a dull, blank thing that made her ache in a way she didn’t know how to articulate. “She is one with the Force.”

She was a Councilor, Ahsoka wanted to say. But that didn’t matter. It never had.

She hadn’t even felt her die.

“Oh.”]

Ahsoka hummed along with the asthmatic whirring of the lift as it started its descent. “Always the Senate, isn’t it?”

Master Gallia’s smile turned a touch confused. She glanced up at Master Windu, who most certainly didn’t have any of the answers she sought. “The Order often works with the Senate, yes.”

It rankled a bit, that easy acceptance. The relationship between the Order and the Senate had not yet deteriorated to what it had been during the War, but the seeds were there, half-grown and choking. Funds fewer with each passing year, the demands greater. The Jedi restricted to whichever worlds could grease enough palms, make enough empty promises. Anything else was done in secret, through loopholes that survived only so long as no one looked close enough to notice them. Even Naboo had only received assistance because they were a friend of the Chancellor. 

How many other worlds weren’t? How many sentients died as kings and ministers requested Jedi as nothing more than a status symbol, a way to prove they had enough power to demand? How many sentients died because the Republic looked to the Jedi for jobs they weren’t equipped to handle? 

Works with the Senate, indeed.

“Ah,” Ahsoka said, and nothing more. 

There was a beat of not-quite silence, the asthmatic whirring of the lift filling the space. Jedi were not particularly known for their acceptance of funds, after all (well, when they were offered any) and the lifts were rarely, if ever, in perfect condition. Ahsoka kept her gaze ahead and waited.

“Are you really alright?” Master Gallia finally asked her colleague softly.

“I’m perfectly well.”

Gallia made a disbelieving noise.

“Do you sense I’m lying?” Windu asked.

“Yes,” Master Gallia said flatly. 

A sigh. “I’m well enough,” he amended. “I just need to meditate.”

“Is that what they’re calling the Healers these days?”

“Adi.”

Master Gallia’s voice quieted even further, barely a step above a murmur. “Was it a vision?”

“No.”

“Did you sense something?” she waited for a response that never came. “What—”

“Leave it alone, Adi,” Windu interrupted, voice sharp.

One beat dragged into two, until the quiet settled in the air like dust. Ahsoka could practically hear their facial expressions.

“You do yourself no favors, Mace,” Master Gallia said finally as the lift slowed. “Perhaps a break will do you some good.”

Windu huffed, the strange tension broken. “You sound like Yoda.”

“He is wise,” Master Gallia said dryly. “You should listen to him.”

The lift doors opened, letting in the wash of sound from the hallway beyond. The three of them stepped off as one, Ahsoka small enough to fit between.

“I notice you haven’t taken a moment to rest yourself,” Windu said. “Maybe you should join—” Ahsoka caught his gaze as it flicked to her “—us.”

The smallest twitch gave away Master Gallia’s startlement. Sith hells, Ahsoka had barely started and already she’d misstepped. It was, all things considered, an understandable misstep, but it was also a very noticeable misstep. “I have the honor of dealing with the Senate,” Master Gallia reminded him.

“The Chancellor?” Windu asked his colleague quietly.

“Fifth time today,” Master Gallia said, her voice weighed down with hidden meaning that wasn’t very hidden at all.

“And the Padawan?”

“Hasn’t spoken of it since, but I sense he will soon.”

Windu’s hum was perfectly neutral in pitch. “We will deal with it when it arises.”

“That’s what Master Yoda said,” Master Gallia agreed. “But I fear it will come faster than we would like.”

“Everything always does.”

“So pessimistic,” she teased. She slowed as they approached an off-shooting hallway, tilting her head in its direction. Ahsoka vaguely recognized it as leading to the hangar. Or the front steps. Or the back? Force, she hadn’t needed to know anything of the Temple in so long. “Enjoy your walk.”

He won’t.

“Enjoy the vultures,” Master Windu said dryly, nodding a farewell.

Ahsoka allowed him the customary two seconds of pause to watch his colleague leave before tugging him gently along by their joined hands—he’d yet to let go, and it made something warm and painful settle in her chest. 

“Do you not like the Chancellor?” she asked.

Windu glanced down at her. “He’s a politician.”

[“The Rebellion, Padawan Tano. I look for people who will fight against the Emperor, the Empire, and everything it stands for.”]

Ahsoka shrugged. “Not all of them are bad.”

His brows drew together at that. “Youngling—has one approached you?”

Windu tried to slow, most likely to address her more directly, but Ahsoka dragged him stubbornly onward. “Of course,” she said. “We were just with Master Yoda.”

“Master Yoda is not a politician," he said, unimpressed, even as a portion of the tension he held bled away. 

Ah, there it was—that special, stubborn brand of Jedi incognizance. She hadn’t missed it. “Why not?”

“Jedi are not politicians.”

“May the Force be with Master Gallia, then.”

Windu’s nose twitched. From amusement or annoyance, it was hard to say. Her four-year-old self was cute enough to maybe score amusement. “Indeed.”

Ahsoka glanced up at Master Windu, idly swinging their joined hands between them, every inch the child she sort-of was. His gaze was once again fixed straight ahead even as his feet moved, like if he ignored her presence long enough, she’d simply disappear, taking with her the mountain of headaches he could probably sense in his immediate future.

“I’m sorry,” she said, the words almost tripping out of her mouth. She didn’t quite mean to say them, but she found she was, just a little bit, “About Master Jinn.”

Windu’s presence in the Force remained serene, but the corner of his mouth tightened, a reminder that for these people, for this Temple, death was still something notable. Still something they had time to grieve. 

“He is one with the Force.”

“We’re always one with the Force, Master Windu,” Ahsoka said, nudging him to turn left when he tried to go right. “Master Jinn’s just also dead.”

A part of Ahsoka thought she shouldn’t be able to speak of it so flippantly, but in all honesty, she had never known a world in which Qui-Gon Jinn wasn’t dead. Her lineage had defined itself by his absence. Any grief she might have felt for him was long ago, and even then it was a distant thing, mourning the idea of a man she never knew.

(Sometimes she’d thought she could see him, in the empty space her Masters danced around. In the words they’d throw at each other, in the ones that struck true, but nothing more. Nothing personal. Nothing hers.)

Qui-Gon Jinn had always been dead, and while Ahsoka regretted that there hadn’t been an opportunity to save him, it seemed only fitting that he should be dead now, too. Still, she squeezed Windu’s hand in something approaching an apology as they stepped into grass and dirt and artificial sunshine.

A Clan of younglings had laid claim to the majority of the garden just off the entrance, and silent agreement saw Ahsoka and Master Windu bypassing them for calmer pastures. She couldn’t help but look to see if she recognized any of them. Didn’t know whether to be disappointed or relieved when she didn’t.

“Do you have a favorite garden, Master Windu?” Ahsoka asked as they walked.

Windu was silent a moment. Not entirely sure she should’ve expected any differently, considering she’d dragged him here partially against his will.

“I like the grasslands,” she offered, as if it meant anything. “There’s a section of it that reminds me of Shili.”

Home, she would’ve said, had she truly been four-year-old Initiate Tano. That’s what home had still been to her, then. Sleeping safely wedged between warm bodies, trills and melodies used intermediately with Basic, a hand affectionately brushing her back headtail as she bounded off. Turu-gass and sun-warmed earth and a woman she thought might be her mother patiently re-doing the wraps on her hands and feet when she’d inevitably destroyed them. Tribe. Family. Home. 

But she wasn’t four-year-old Initiate Tano. Those memories belonged to someone else. A little girl who’d been replaced by the woman she might have grown into.

No guilt arose in her at the thought, it just made her… sad.

Ahsoka almost thought he wouldn’t answer at all, but then his head lifted, angling ever so slightly towards the sky, as if watching something only he could see. He sighed, the noise of it quiet under the trickle of water, of ducts and pipes and artificial rivers.

“Five-stones,” he finally answered.

Ahsoka blinked. That was exactly no one’s favorite garden. Still—it was quiet, if her memory could be trusted, and out of the way. Good enough. She didn’t exactly remember the path, but her feet did, and Windu made up for any gaps in their memory.

It was strange. Everything about this was strange, but here in the Room, with her feet sinking into dirt with each step as it stained the hems of her robes, a Jedi Master by her side, she could almost forget. She expected it to feel like a dream, or a hallucination—which was, perhaps, a foolish notion—but it was indistinguishable from any other day.

“Here,” Ahsoka said after a few minutes, tugging Windu off the worn path. They weren’t there yet, but she’d spotted a familiar thicket, one just large enough to obscure a small clearing, and the call of nostalgia was too tempting a lure to pass by. Of her crechèmates’ quiet laughter and Cik’s stern shhh!, of late nights studying when they should have been in bed. They’d stopped coming here after— Well, after.

She could give herself this. Just this once.

Windu allowed the change with grace. Less so when Ahsoka released his hand and went to plop herself in the circle of soft grass half-hidden from the larger paths by a combination of trees and sparse bushes, looking expectantly up at him. It was with a quiet sigh that he folded himself down across from her, leaving a foot of space between them

Ahsoka resisted the urge to roll her eyes and scooted forward until their knees were pressed together with a huff. Er— until her knees pressed into his shins, to be more precise. Her body was still appallingly small. Likely would be until she was about nine, if her growth followed the same pattern as the first time. 

She took the opportunity the silence gave her to study him. The angle was awkward for it, at her current height, but she managed. She wasn’t entirely sure what she was looking for.

Age aside, Master Windu had remained largely unchanged, which was… rather concerning, actually. The last time Ahsoka had seen him had been as a harried High Jedi General thirteen years in the future, spread so thin as to be nearly transparent, frayed and wrapped in Jedi serenity filled with more holes than substance.

The lines of his face dragged downward, as if gravity itself was more of a burden than usual, even as the actual flesh held even with the promise of youth. Traditional tan robes draped over rigid shoulders, a lighter undershirt peaking out and wrapping high around his throat as if it would hold him together. His features were overlaid now by resignation and still far too much pain—a real, physical pain Ahsoka didn’t know what to do with—but they were tired, in a way that was only half-physical at best.

But this was not High General Windu that gazed down at her. The Republic was at peace, as far as it knew. This was Jedi Master Windu, who’d never been anything else.

Perhaps that was why her next words came out a bit more… well, not gentle, but maybe something to the left of it. To the far, far left of it.

“The Council doesn’t believe the man on Naboo was a Sith, do they?” Windu’s gaze sharpened as they snapped to meet hers, as if he was finally remembering what this was all about. “It’s okay, you don’t have to answer. I know they don’t.”

(She didn’t, really. She could assume, based on Master Obi-Wan’s stories and what she knew of the High Council, but her knowledge of this time was sparse. It had been considered common knowledge in the Temple by the time she’d been old enough to comprehend it, which of course meant no one liked to actually talk about it, and certainly no one had thought to tell the Padawans.

It was not, however, a terribly hard conclusion to come to.)

Master Windu’s mouth pressed together, flattening into one long line. Something flashed from him, but it was difficult to tell what it was. His presence was so tightly coiled in the Force it was a wonder it didn’t choke the breath from him. He stared at her for a long moment. “The Sith have been gone for a millennia.”

It was a rote statement, and not one that either of them believed. Actual four-year-old Ahsoka would have, as much as she could’ve comprehended a concept like Sith. Senior Initiate Ahsoka had certainly believed it, even as excited whispers of Sithslayer echoed in quiet corners of midnight dorm rooms.

The weary war veteran whose chest still throbbed with the phantom blade of a yellow-eyed man very much did not.

“It’s a very large galaxy, Master Windu,” Ahsoka said. “Plenty of space for ideologies to hide and grow. Unless the Order became omniscient when no one was looking, you can’t make that guarantee.”

Ahsoka knew it was fear, more than anything else. Fear of the unknown, fear of what-ifs and could-bes. Fear of the monster they’d been checking underneath their beds for since the crèche, only to realize they’d been lying beside it all along. It was a fear she understood—even shared, to an extent. But that fear had warped itself to look like self-assurance, like arrogance, like pride and ego and serenity.

The Jedi had been the only ones to die quickly for it.

Windu’s eyes closed, a hand coming up to press against his temple. Not moving, not massaging—just pressing, as if to combat some great internal pressure. His chest rose and fell with a breath too deep to be anything but very, very deliberate. Ahsoka was still staring at him when his eyes opened, and they sat in careful silence for a moment. Ahsoka simply enjoyed the artificial breeze and the thrum of lifedeathgrowingalive beating from earth and waited.

“You are a child,” was what Windu finally decided on. Unimaginative, but fair.

Ahsoka hummed. Whether it was in agreement or not was up to him. “And Maul was a Sith.”

Master Windu’s presence went a little funny in the Force. His face tightened with something like resignation, the line of his shoulders echoing the motion. “Maul?”

Darth Maul was still his title as of right now, if she remembered correctly. She’d left it off. Ahsoka couldn’t say whether it was from some strange compassion, or respect, or pity for the rage-filled, vengeful man she’d once known, but something about the word sounded wrong.

[“We were both tools for greater powers.”]

Ahsoka nodded. “That’s his name. Maul, of the planet Dathomir.”

She’d have to address him eventually. Whether that meant changing his path or ending it, she didn’t know. He wouldn’t be an issue for years yet. She had time to figure it out.

“He wasn’t the Master. There’s another Sith out there,” she continued, as if out there didn’t mean three minutes if you broke several traffic laws. Some things had to come in time. “One you can’t fight with brute force.”

There was an emphasis there, a weight on the word you, that had Windu’s eyes flicking back to hers. Ahsoka allowed the scrutiny, allowed him to gather what little information he could, let him to come to whatever conclusion he wished.

She didn’t know the particulars of how he died. All records only spoke of a foiled coup, and nothing more. Four Jedi Masters had entered Chancellor Palpatine’s office. None had emerged. That was enough.

“How do you know?” 

Did you have a vision?

Ahsoka studied him for a long moment, re-tracing the lines of his face, the edges of his Force signature, the dozens of gossamer-thin threads leading to different directions, ties to crèchemates and friends and mentors and colleagues. 

Mace Windu had always been a rather complicated figure in the strange, tangled web of gossip that existed within the Jedi Order. He was, after all, the more well-known of the duo who’d created Vaapad—that form which required a certain flirtation with the Dark, and an iron-clad will to control it—and the only Jedi to ever Master it. That sort of thing tended to draw a few eyes, but it was his other accomplishments that held them there. Youngest Jedi in living memory to be elected to the High Council at age twenty-eight, Master of the Order by age thirty-five, the sole wielder of a purple lightsaber, and perhaps the only Jedi who could consistently tell Master Yoda to kriff off and have it stick for at least five minutes, Master Windu was nearly more myth than man. 

To ask the young Knights would reveal a Jedi completely untouchable, an effigy carved of stone. The Code taken, perfected, and used as a weapon, something cold and hard and unyielding. The pillars that old hero's tales were built on. To ask the Masters, those who had either grown with him or borne witness to it, would perhaps divulge something closer to the truth: a troubled youth who’d shed his anger and become a man of uncompromising discipline. 

To ask his close friends—as small as that number was—Mace Windu was a bit of a bastard who didn’t know how to mind his damn business. Or, at least, that’s how Master Obi-Wan had described him, but Master Obi-Wan had also been very, very drunk at the time, and he absolutely hadn’t intended for Ahsoka to be there to hear it.

It was that last one that Ahsoka was counting on.

She held out her hands, palms up, and smiled. “Would you meditate with me, Master Windu?”

In a better world, she wouldn’t have approached him. Not this soon, not this abruptly. Maybe not at all. Change on the scale the Order—the Republic—needed wasn’t something that could be forced, and that’s exactly what Ahsoka was trying to do: force it. In a better world, she’d be in the crèche, in the halls. In the meditation rooms, in the Archives and Refectory. A slow, steady influence. A nudge here, a whisper there. Planting doubts, sowing ideas. Gathering allies quietly and discreetly. Slow, steady change. In a better world, she wouldn’t be a child in the Jedi Order, with a Sith Lord already in the Chancellor’s office.

In a perfect world, she wouldn’t need to be here at all.

This wasn’t a perfect world, or even a better one, and slow change was for the generations before her. For the days when there was no looming deadline of a galactic war, of an Empire. But peace had made men complacent, and Ahsoka had only thirteen years to fix what those who came before her had failed to do, if they had even tried at all.

They could no longer afford slow, so blunt and slightly ineffective it was.

Master Windu set his hands atop hers, enveloping them entirely. His palms were warm and rough with lightsaber callouses that no longer matched her own. The feeling rose in her chest again, and she recognized it this time. Grief.

Hope.

________________

The Republic was, perhaps, too big to function properly. It was not the first time the thought had occurred to Bail—for all he was a champion of the institution—but never had it been more apparent than when he dragged himself out of the forty-seventh office in twenty-four hours.

Representative Teish was a perfectly lovely, if distant, individual—really, it was a shame Bail hadn’t known anything of them past their name, the first time around—but the Senator they had the great misfortune to be paired with might very well be the thing that finally drove Bail to unmitigated violence. 

Oh, it’s really such a shame I missed the election. I was on leave at the time, just got back yesterday. Lovely little planet, just had to get my hands on one of their properties, not that I really needed it. Eight summer homes, did you hear? I personally would’ve given Bail Antilles my vote—such a shame he stepped down, isn’t it? I’m sure you would’ve done a fine job, too—Noult has always been a friend of Alderaan, didn’t you know?—but it’s simply a matter of bad timing. Bad timing. You’re too new, don’t know your way around yet. I’d be happy to offer my assistance, of course, anytime should you require it. I do have quite a bit of experience, if I do say so myself. Did I mention I have eight summer—

Yes, well, Bail could admit that his temper was perhaps on a finer trigger than usual. Sith Hells, he was so grateful it wasn’t the Empire. Reveled in the empty space where fear (where violence) had hung in the air like smoke, tightening each breath, each conversation. Threat of danger—not only for you, but your associates, your family, your friends—weaved between sharp teeth of a false smile. So very glad that if he fell, someone might care. Someone might be allowed to care. But kark, the Empire wasn’t nearly this annoying. 

Gods, even the damn building made him want to bang his head against the wall. The foundations of it hadn’t changed much after the Republic’s fall, but the interior had been gutted and reshaped into something that one could actually navigate. If there was ever a positive aspect to the Empire, it was their organization—provided, of course, that it wasn’t being used to carry out countless genocides, which really didn’t leave much to go off of. As it was, offices and hallways varied in style, layout, and level of rationality depending on which era they had been constructed as the Republic continually grew too large for the Senate. Bail’s personal favorite was the small section in the lower west quadrant catered entirely to Mon Cala sensibilities, that housed exactly no aquatic species, Mon Cala or not, as the particular mix of duracrete used in its construction happened to contain an ingredient water-dwellers were near universally allergic to. You could only reach it through a far too wide but not nearly tall enough hallway that doubled back on itself and contained several pointless dead-ends. Bail was sure it would’ve been fixed or destroyed entirely, if only someone with the power to do so would notice it existed.

His exhaustion was only exacerbated by the very small part of his mind (shoved to the back for it’s extremely unhelpful nature) that pointed out he’d already done this.

Bail sighed and nodded a greeting to Senator Darashpoma as they passed, not sure he could have smiled even if he wanted to. One more office, he decided. He’d visit Garm, and then take a break. A long break. Maybe comm Breha, if she had the time. Bail was long used to prolonged periods of separation—of going days, weeks, months, a year without seeing his wife in anything but the blue tones of a holocall—but there was grief in his chest, a different, sharper kind than he was used to, and as much as he didn’t wish to think on it (Leia, Leia, captured and alone and in more danger than she could possibly know but she’s gone now, and he’s not sure how to grieve his daughter who has yet to exist), there was peace in their shared memories. In Breha’s steady presence. In her eyes and her hand in his. 

Stars above, he missed his wife.

Sena was strangely absent from her desk, though Bail couldn’t be confident it would’ve been Sena at all. She’d been young at the start of the Clone Wars, and he hadn’t been particularly close to Garm until after she entered his employ. She could very well still be on Corellia. Perhaps he would hasten that particular timeline—Force knew they could use as many loyal bodies as they could find, even if that loyalty was solely through Garm. 

Bail breathed out any lingering annoyance and knocked. There was a pause, nothing more than half a moment, before the soft click of a lock sounded and a familiar voice called, “Come in.”

He pushed open the door (the man had always been partial to the old-fashioned type, the kind that could still be forced open if the power shut off) and met his old friend’s gaze with a smile a shade too real for a first-maybe-second meeting.

Garm Bel Iblis was the kind of man born with a weathered sort of face, harsh and strict, his features arranged as if simply waiting for the day stress and age would carve lines deep and long. He was young yet, in this strange past, hair still brown and face marked by only a few wrinkles around his eyes and mouth. Those same eyes that still held the glow of those few fresh, idealistic Senators.

New. Untested. Shiny.

Sith Hells.

“Senator,” Bail greeted.

[“I’m sorry, Bail. There’s no way to extract her without compromising our security.”

“She’s my daughter—”

“I know. I’ll do everything I can, I promise you. We’re not abandoning her.”

“Aren’t we?”

“You take care of yourself, you hear me? Don’t do anything stupid. Keep your head down. We can’t lose both of you.”]

“Ah, Senator Organa,” Garm said, one side of his mouth turning up in a toothless grin. “I’d been wondering if I might see you. Please,” he gestured to the spartan visitor’s chair, “sit down. I’m afraid I wasn’t expecting company for some time yet, but I do have some tea somewhere here, if you’re interested.”

“No, that’s alright, thank you,” Bail said, taking the offered chair. It was, as he suspected, made to be ever-so-slightly uncomfortable. Too hard, too stiff, an awkward height and in need of just a centimeter more width to the seat. Garm would later switch it out for a plushy, cushioned thing you had to fight not to sink through. It worked better in tandem with his sharper demeanor, but Bail supposed he hadn’t yet worked out all the kinks of his approach. He would learn, in time. Or perhaps Bail would save them all the trouble and point him in the right direction. “I won’t take up too much of your time.”

Not that Garm had anything terribly important scheduled—Bail had it on good authority the man had blocked out the entire evening to celebrate Palpatine's election by getting thoroughly drunk. Bail was half-tempted to stay and ask to join him, but that would raise more questions than he could answer.

“Nonsense, Senator,” Garm said with an easy smile. “Really, I should be thanking you. Gives me another reason to put off all this paperwork.”

Bail huffed the genial laugh of a man who’d heard a joke a thousand and one times, and Garm returned it with the rueful look of a man who’d told it a great deal more than that. “Don’t you have aides to help with that?”

Garm sighed. “I usually do, but Parbent went on leave and Savres just went. I’m on my own for another two weeks.”

Bail winced in sympathy. No Sena yet, then. A shame, but perhaps it was better to rekindle his and Garm’s friendship before she entered the picture. The woman could sniff out ulterior motives eight parsecs away. It’s one of the reasons he liked her. “Have you considered a temp?”

He snorted. “From Corellia? Gods, no. It’d take far longer to vet them than just hiring another permanent aide, and Parbent wouldn’t even bother arranging my assassination if I were to get a new one without him. He’d poison my tea himself.”

The name sparked some vague recognition this time, but Bail couldn’t recall from what. “My condolences.”

He huffed a laugh. “I’ll survive until then, provided Parbent doesn’t decide he prefers Amfar to the city and abandons me entirely.” Bail wisely decided not to tell him that might very well be what happens, seeing as he’d never met the man. “But enough about me. What can I do for you, Senator?”

“Ah, nothing terribly pressing. I was simply passing by and wondered if you might have a moment or two to discuss your Traval-Pacor bill.”

Garm’s eyebrows rose. “The merchant subsidy?”

“You were the one to introduce it, weren’t you?”

“Yes, I suppose I was,” Garm said, leaning back in his chair. “That was years ago.”

“Just the two. Not so long, in the grand scheme of bureaucracy.”

Garm considered him for a moment. “…Alright. Why not.” He shifted to cross his arms over his chest. “What do you want to know?”

“I’m curious as to why it wasn’t successful. It didn’t make it much farther than committee, did it?” Bail asked.

“I suppose not.” He shrugged. “It wasn’t exactly the type of bill to get much support. Not enough immediate fiscal return, not big enough of a system to get by in quid pro quo. Never brought to the floor. You know how it is.”

He did, unfortunately.

“Do you know where it is now?”

Garm’s brow furrowed lightly. “Pardon?”

“I asked Senators Salth and Ikexhe—they’re listed as its authors, you see—and yet neither one of them could tell me if the bill even existed or not, let alone its location.”

Any false cheer had faded from his expression as he frowned, leaving behind a face Bail could almost find his old friend in. “I’m afraid you must be mistaken. Both were far more passionate about the project than I ever was.” He shook his head. “But it wasn’t a particularly large or important proposal, I’m sure it just slipped their minds.”

“It’s missing from the archives, too.”

“That’s not… uncommon,” Garm said carefully.

“For bills proposed by the Senator of Corellia?”

Garm studied him for a long moment. “What are you implying, Senator?”

Bail shrugged. “Nothing at all. I simply noticed some inconsistencies and wished to bring this one to your attention, seeing as your name was attached to it.”

“There are more?”

There were thousands—millions, by the end of the War. It was one of Palpatine's many strategies to weaken the Republic and manipulate events to his benefit. They’d only realized years after the Empire’s founding. Barely caught it even then. A minor intelligence agent had discovered it after being assigned to administrative work as punishment for one too many risks that didn’t pay off. 

It was, comparatively, one of Palpatine’s more minor crimes. Hopefully Garm would connect the dots faster than they did the first time around.

“A couple dozen, so far,” Bail said. “They’re listed in the archives with the author’s name and a vague title, but the contents simply state a proposal existed, not what it was or why it was created. Four of them are authored by Senators who don’t remember a thing.”

His gaze was sharp as it roamed across Bail’s face. 

“You think it’s purposeful?”

“I think there’s enough of a pattern to warrant a closer look,” Bail corrected.

Garm’s fingers drummed against the desk. “…I’d be interested to hear the results of your investigation.”

Bail smiled.

It was with a disproportionate amount of glee that Bail locked the door of his blessedly empty office. His belt was discarded on the nearest chair, and he reveled in the silence that followed. Jammers did not actually produce a sound that could be detected by human ears, but prolonged exposure left an itch in his teeth. His comm flashed with unread messages where it rested on his desk, but seeing as none of them were from Sheltay or Sateen, he ignored it and sank into the padded office chair with a sigh. This body was too young to feel pain so easily, but a phantom ache still plagued the small of his back and the soles of his feet.

It was a little later in the day than he’d intended, but Bail had been reluctant to extract himself from his friend’s presence, even if he didn’t remember him. It was odd, unsettling, but stars did he miss him. Bail had spoken to him face-to-face a month ago, in another time, in another galaxy, but that felt a lifetime away. It was a lifetime away. Certainly, this Garm was not the same man. He hoped maybe he never would be, for as much as he loved his friend, hardship and tragedy had carved away that hopeful idealism that had once so defined him, leaving behind a grim man fueled by righteousness and rampant paranoia.

Paranoia was most likely an unavoidable foundation of his personality, but maybe he could be more, this time.

Bail closed his eyes, resting his elbows on the desk and rubbing his forehead tiredly. That’s all he was these days. Tired. Tired of the Empire, tired of the Republic. Tired of this second chance full of ghosts when all he wanted was his child. He’d done this all before, and it had hurt. It had been pain and grief and hard work and he had to do it again. He was grateful. Stars, was he grateful. Trillions of lives—entire species, entire cultures—saved if they did this right. It filled the space between his ribs, beneath his skin, that dizzying kind of hope it gave him. But— But.

He was grateful, and he was tired.

He was not, however, alone. He’d do well to remember that before he became too maudlin. Bail didn’t have to think before he found himself reaching forward and inputting the one comm code he would always have memorized. It blinked for a moment before connecting far sooner than expected, his wife’s amused smile filling the space above his desk in tones of blue.

“I just sat down to call you,” Breha said.

Bail grinned, the tension easing and warmth seeping helplessly through his chest. “Ah, well, I’m afraid I’m just a little faster, my dear.”

“Finally get sick of stuffy politicians?”

“I think you’re in more danger of that, really.”

“I’m the Queen,” Breha dismissed with a wave. “I can tell them to fuck off.”

“Politely, of course.”

“Oh, yes,” Breha said, the twinkle in her eyes clear even through a holocall. “Politely.”

It bore repeating that Bail missed his wife.

“I envy you. I’m one lunch invite from absconding to wild space.”

Breha huffed. “What a shame, and after all my hard work, too…” she said airily.

He sat up slowly, the warmth sharpening to something lighter. “Do you mean—”

“Naboo has officially accepted Alderaan’s offer of aid,” Breha said. “The Queen has requested a meeting to discuss the details.”

This was wonderful, one of the first steps to fixing things, to preventing the tragedy speeding towards the Republic faster than anyone could have anticipated, but all Bail could think was—

“Padmé,” he breathed, a wild longing for his friend. Dead before her time and missed so fiercely sometimes he could barely look at Leia without grieving an entirely different young Senator. 

“Padmé,” Breha agreed, her eyes light with joy.

Chapter Text

Master Windu had shoved Ahsoka at the nearest Crèchemaster with strict instruction not to leave her unsupervised—possibly ever—and then left with a disproportionate amount of speed, bleeding an agonizing mix of painpainpeaceresignationfear down the gossamer-thin protobond still connecting them. 

Protobonds (common enough, usually seen in caretakers of children too young to maintain a shield, not that Ahsoka expected to be on this side of the equation again until she was significantly taller) dissipated in mere hours, but Ahsoka’d just needed the one—or the half, if she felt generous—to memorize the precise way Master Windu’s signature interacted with the eddies of the Temple’s own, the shape it took as it curled around him like comfort, like claw.

It was an admittedly a crude way of tracking, requiring the area to be spiritually uniform and the tracker intimately familiar enough with it to spot irregularities in its flow, but it was—without a proper bond in place—the only viable method for an area so overrun with Force-Sensitives as the Jedi Temple. Master Windu was clearly better at it than her, considering each time she’d gotten so much as three halls from the man, he’d very abruptly switched both direction and floor.

Perhaps she could take notes from him, on avoidance. Learn it from scratch right at this moment, even, with no small amount of desperation.

“Koh-to-yah, Little ‘Soka,” Master Plo greeted, bright and alive and unmistakably there in the Force—yellow-green-gray and warm like the sun of Shili, like a banked fire. Rust and brown robes and peace.

[A strange man with no eyes kneels before her, shining like the grasses and the water just before the sun disappears behind the mountains. 

He reaches out, carefully, gently, with a clawed hand. Four fingers, shaped nothing like her own. Unfamiliar—an altogether different creature, with deformed montrals the color of his skin and extra headtails on his cheeks—and yet she knows him.

(The river knows him, too. That strange river connecting them all, from the grass to the birds to those that hunted them, the waters which seeped into her chest and wetted her throat in the dry season, the current that hurt and shared and soothed—it knows him, too. It knows his name, and the river carries it to her like a offering, a lull of oldgentlehellokindpatience.)

Jedi, Gan called him. She called the woman before him—dull purple and bruised blue and greedimpatiencehungryhungry—the same word, but this time it feels more. Like a promise, like a home, like the space between the stars.

Ahsoka takes the hand. It curles around her palm, gentle and careful of the sharp claws at the end of his fingers. The skin is cool and rough and warm.]

“Koh-to-yah, Master Plo,” Ahsoka said through a burning throat, with a tongue that felt bloated and rotted and clumsy. “What brings you to Clawmouse Clan?”

Master Plo was meant to be off-planet. She hardly remembered if he had done the same the first time, but she had checked the mission records, and it had him slated firmly for the Bryx sector as of yesterday. Not here. Not here, not when he stood so much taller than she remembered, and he remembered so little.

“Your checkup, little one,” he said, skin around his eyes crinkling. “I volunteered to escort you.”

“The Healers cleared me ages ago, Master Plo,” Ahsoka said, sudden, animal dread pinging at the back of her skull—or perhaps it was the large body (muffled, like thick fur) approaching from behind. A soothing, quiet presence in the Force, dry grass and undergrowth.

“It is just a check-in, little one,” Master Ciiirtharr said. Her robes nearly brushed Ahsoka’s own, neatly trapping her between the two. 

Ahsoka’s crèchemates were conveniently distracted, off led by Etilgil and Aduk in half-invented katas none of them had the coordination for, and unfortunately experienced enough in their usual ill-advised ventures to not draw Master Ciiirtharr’s attention away. There would be no escape from that quarter, and slipping past Master Plo had become impossible the moment he’d seen her. 

This was not the conspiracy she had expected to face, immersed in the final years of the Republic. 

The Jedi had betrayed Ahsoka before, as a youngling under their care—when they’d named her Commander with headtails just past her shoulders, when they cast her out, when they died and left her behind—but this was, perhaps, the most egregious instance to date.

“I feel fine,” Ahsoka said slowly. Lied, really, but that was no one’s business but her own.

She should have met with him before now. Arranged a run-in near the Room or his quarters, perhaps. Something short she could brace for, could plan and control away from the other young faces she lost. She’d been complacent, self-indulgent, and now it was biting her in the ass.

“Then this will be a very short trip,” Master Plo said, amusement sparking across her mind, gentle and welcoming. It thrummed like a heart against her skin, against the pads of her fingers and her eyelids. It felt like home. Above all, beyond the Temple and the Jedi and the crèchemates she hadn’t known in so long, it felt like home.

“Well,” Ahsoka said with a confidence she did not entirely feel, sticking her hand out. “Wouldn’t want to keep the Healers waiting.”

The amusement grew, undercut by bright fondness, hidden in the same place Ahsoka always put her own. “No, we certainly wouldn’t. The Healers are quite formidable.” His hands unclasped from behind his back, one moving to rest by his side and the other reaching out to take hers. “I would advise never to get on their bad side, if you can help it.”

[—curled around her palm, gentle and careful of the sharp claws— The skin was— warm.]

“Is that what you did?” Ahsoka asked, widening her eyes, perhaps too far to be innocent.

“I am afraid so,” he told her solemnly, giving a respectful parting nod to Master Ciirtharr as he led the way to the halls beyond the crèche. “I hope you learn from my mistakes, little one.”

 Despite everything, the smile she gave him was real. There was nothing else it could be. “I will.” 

The skin around his eyes crinkled. “I do not doubt it.”

I do, Ahsoka almost said, turning her head to watch the passing Jedi. 

There weren’t many, at this time of day. Anyone who had someplace to be was already there, and would likely remain for a few hours yet. The Jedi were not a very afternoon-inclined people. It left the halls peaceful and empty for the standards of the time. 

Once, or maybe one day, these few passing pinpricks of light had meant a full Temple—dozens or hundreds of Jedi home from the frontline, from whatever few missions they could squeeze in between. The alternative—the default—during the War had been a scattered handful left to roam the halls. A not-insignificant population rendered so by a grander structure of grander times, the sheer number of rooms and floors a looming, aching thing that swallowed its inhabitants whole and left them small. 

“You’ve been gone a lot,” Ahsoka said after a moment, her fingers curling around his. “I didn’t know you were—” in-system, in Temple, home “—here.”

He sighed. “The Council has kept me rather busy these days, yes. I haven’t had much time on my hands. Master Hen’nona kept me apprised of your condition—”

“There isn’t one.”

“—but it is good to see your health for myself,” he continued gently. 

[A strange man with no eyes— the river— knew his name.]

“You should be bugging your Padawan with your free time, not me,” Ahsoka said. “Isn’t that what Masters are for?”

Master Plo’s head tilted, his thumb brushing over the back of her palm. “Bultar has not yet returned from her mission with Master Lo-Jad. I believe she went to say farewell to you before she left.”

Huh.

Ahsoka… did not remember being terribly close to Knight Swan—or Padawan Swan, for that matter. A few brief interactions during those crowded lineage dinners, perhaps—the ones from before the War, before Ahsoka suddenly had a different lineage, one far heavier, isolated and not altogether hers—but nothing much else. Certainly not enough to warrant a personal goodbye. In all fairness, Ahsoka didn’t remember much about being a youngling in general. She hadn’t been this age for twenty-eight years. Perhaps Bultar had once bonded with the strange child her Master towed home. Perhaps they had both grown out of it. She— 

Well. She wouldn’t know.

“Ah. Right,” Ahsoka said, pushing every bit of childhood sheepishness she could conjure into her voice. Some of it wasn’t fake, even. “Sorry, Master Plo. I forgot.”

“Nothing to apologize for, Little ‘Soka. I am certain she would agree with you, were she here.” He chuckled, the sound like water, like safety. “I believe her parting word for me was—” he paused, fond. “Yes, I do believe it was ‘Finally.’”

“Did you earn it?” Ahsoka asked, genuinely curious.

"As temping as the thought can be, no one is infallible." He hummed. “I suppose I felt… apprehension, at the idea of Bultar leaving for an extended mission so soon after she entered my care. I believe she picked up on it.”

Ahsoka nodded, biting back the reflexive smile. “You nagged.”

Master Plo sighed, exaggerated slightly for a child’s entertainment. “It is likely.”

Though Ahsoka had admittedly not known Bultar terribly well, she, like most of Plo’s circle, had looked to her Master like he hung the stars and only dropped half of them during the process. Little doubt he had been forgiven before her ship had left its bay. 

“She’ll be happy to see you when you’re back,” she said, patting the back of his hand with her free one. It was the only thing she could reach. 

“Perhaps,” Master Plo said.

Ahsoka hummed, perhaps in agreement, perhaps in comfort—what he took from it was his own, and, frankly, none of her business. 

She had nothing else to offer—and, it seemed, neither did he—and so it was a peaceful, lulling kind of silence left to fall between them. It was familiar. Soothing. Not quite what she recalled it to be. 

He wasn’t quite what she recalled him to be, either. No older or younger than her memory—twelve years little more than a blink to such a long-lived species—but there was something more relaxed to him, now. His presence was simpler, clearer. Not brighter, no—Plo Koon’s colors had never dimmed, not in war or grief or a choking galaxy—but smooth, even, like stillwater. Not entirely the Master Plo she left behind. He never quite would be again. She tried not to mourn it. Fourteen years had made greater strangers of smaller men. This version of him was, perhaps, the kindest she would find after so long.

 “Are you my escort back, as well?” Ahsoka asked at the Halls’ door.

He looked down at her, warm and reassuring. "Of course, Little ‘Soka,” he said. “I will be here when you emerge.”

“Not handing me off directly?” she asked. Too-old, like usual, but he wouldn’t call her on it.

“I am afraid not.”

Ahsoka blinked. “Why not?”

Don’t leave, she wanted to say. I need a moment, a day, to breathe before I see your face again. I will avoid you again, if you leave, and I don’t wish to.

“Master Che is not terribly eager to see me at the moment,” he said carefully.

She held his gaze for a long moment. “Not very good at taking your own advice?” 

He gently squeezed her hand before releasing it. That loss, she most certainly mourned. “You will make a very wise Jedi one day, Little ‘Soka.”

She demonstrably would not. “Thank you for braving the gundark nest, then.”

“It was my honor,” he said, fond, and unceremoniously ushered her through those widely-dreaded doors.

The Halls were just as seeped in health and hope and sickness as they always were—centuries of countless pains soothed and eased leaving countless echos, layered until it all became one physic bleed. It was not the most comfortable feeling, but Ahsoka didn’t have much chance to stew in it before a towering Human Padawan met her with a smile and a very firm guiding hand to a private room Ahsoka recognized from the second awakening in this second past.

Master Che was waiting for her, for a given sense of the word, absorbed in about three datapads, all closed-circuit models.

“Hi, Master,” Ahsoka chirped before the Padawan could announce her, letting the small thread of relief from the poor soul wash past her shields with no small amount of amusement.

“Initiate Tano. Good to see you looking so chipper,” Master Che greeted, the pads quickly disappearing somewhere below the medical cot. She gave a short nod to Ahsoka’s temporary companion. “Thank you, Padawan, you may return.”

They did. At great speed. Really, had any dust been allowed to exist within the Halls, it would have plumed up behind them. It seemed a healthy fear of Master Che was universal, even—especially—in her apprentices.

“Heard there’s something still wrong with me,” Ahsoka said, after the door had closed once more.

Master Che lifted up a scanner from the nearby table of medical tools—all, thankfully, noninvasive and mild—and quickly ran an estimating eye over Ahsoka’s admittedly rather sad form, punching in a few numbers Ahsoka was at no vantage point to see. 

“Nothing so harsh,” she said with the stiff warmness of a medical professional who liked children just fine but rarely had the opportunity to prove it. She patted the cot. “Just a check. You had Master Plo quite worried.”

Ahsoka obeyed the silent instruction and clambered up, nearly tripping at the awkward height of the in-built stepstool. 

“Is that why you’re mad at him? He nags, apparently.”

“One of them,” Master Che said dryly. She angled the scanner to point firmly in Ahsoka’s direction and peered carefully at the screen. “How have you been feeling lately? Any fatigue? Dizziness? Fluctuating crèchebonds or fever?”

“No to all,” Ahsoka said. “I feel just fine.”

“Have you had any difficulty keeping pace with your crèchemates? Running, meditating, playing push-feather?”

Well, yes, vaguely, but not in the direction Master Che was angling for. “No.”

“Good,” Master Che said. 

Ahsoka sat patiently as Master Che poked and prodded, systematically making her way through a checklist only she was privy to. Some of the questions she didn’t have the answer to, the timeline spanning farther than the she’d been here, but if Master Che found issue with any of it, she didn’t let on. By the time she finally set the last of the only half-familiar equipment back on the table, the only thing keeping Ahsoka on the cot was the twenty-eight extra years crammed into her skull that insisted she could sit still. 

“Have you ever been examined by a Mind Healer?” Master Che asked, holding out a hand, clearly expecting Ahsoka to take it. 

Having the vaguest sense of self-preservation, Ahsoka did. 

“I don’t know,” she answered honestly. “Shouldn’t it say in my file?”

Master Che hummed. “It should.”

Ahsoka stared at her, waiting for… something. A datapad to be pulled out, presumably. An elaboration of some kind, at the very least. Master Che had not always been the most coddling Healer, but she usually reserved the full breadth of her brisk personality for the Knights, or particularly unruly Padawans.

“Yes,” Ahsoka answered eventually, more honest and a bit bewildered, when it became clear Master Che had nothing better to do than stand in silence. “I have.”

“Perfect, so you’re familiar with the process.”

“You are not a Mind Healer,” Ahsoka said, eyes drawn to the hand clasping hers, suddenly struck by why the hold seemed so familiar. All five pads touching her skin, palm flat against palm. A physical connection to aid a mental one.

“No,” Master Che agreed. “Surface-level examinations are well within my expertise, however, I assure you.”

Ahsoka was missing something, to put it bluntly. The feeling was rather unpleasant. “Why are you doing an examination? You didn’t, before.”

Master Che’s lips pursed, her palm cold against Ahsoka’s. “Sometimes—”

 Her eyes flicked up to meet Ahsoka’s, and she sighed, visibly softening. 

“My apologies, Initiate Tano,” she began again. “As far as I can tell, there’s nothing wrong with you. You are, for all appearances, in perfect health. Sometimes Force-Sensitive children encounter ripples in the Force from larger events and do not have the experience to process it. I suspect that is what happened to you. My prescribed treatment would usually be good company and lots of rest, both of which I’ve been told you are receiving.”

Ahsoka’s brow raised, her head tilting. A reasonable guess. Certainly more plausible than the truth. It still explained very little.

“It is my professional opinion that you are a perfectly healthy Togruta for your age bracket,” Master Che said, deliberate. “That was true enough the last time you were here. However, some… concerns about delayed symptoms were raised. Most children don’t particularly like the Halls. I hoped to make sure the next time you came in here was because you walked yourself.”

Jedi really were the worst gossips. Her money would be firmly on Master Windu, if she thought he was willing to interact with anything involving her again.

Ahsoka traced the back of Master Che’s hand, overlaid upon her own, callused blue fingertips gently pressing halfway up her forearm. And if she returned the gesture, let the pads of her own fingers—too small, too soft, too new—press into Master Che’s skin? Invited someone else into her mind, beyond meditation, beyond the face of her?

If Ahsoka really had been an Initiate, Master Che would have been met with the wild grasslands of Shili. Wind to buffer any invaders and tall stalks of grass to hide her memories, her thoughts, melting into the turu-grass as effectively as any Tribe hunter. Homeworlds were common visualizations for first defenses—something familiar and safe and easy to individualize. Shili had shielded Ahsoka up until Christophsis, when the deaths of thousands reverberated like a war drum, the Force itself a bleeding thing, crying out for thousands of men who shared a face and a history and a family but little else. The grasslands were for hiding, evading, hunting, and Ahsoka had been unprepared to block out the echoing hurtpainanguish. She had built durasteel walls, then, strong and tall and unyielding, repairing them each time they dented and bent from the sheer pressure attempting to crush her. Impressive enough for a fresh Padawan thrown into war, but they had been too rigid, unable to flex without buckling. Eventually, Ahsoka had learned, and her mind no longer rang with each hit, the learning curve slow and painful. It didn’t save her during Knightfall, when the blows had been too many too fast, shattering her shields completely. 

Ahsoka had rebuilt them from the jagged pieces she was left with, layered and weaved together like the armor of Jedi long past. Even those had been temporary, better, more adaptable, but not enough. Not in a galaxy that hunted her—for being Jedi, for being Togruta, for being loud and trouble—and not in a galaxy that liked its people hungry and hurting. Ahsoka had wrapped herself in her durasteel weave, on a cramped smuggling ship with too many bodies crammed on a too-hot metal floor above the engine room, and hid. She had hidden in the waters of Mon Cala, the lower levels of Coruscant, between the branches of Kashyyyk’s forests, the sands of Tatooine, the fog of Duroon—in the marshes of Lothal and the mountains of Alderaan, and once again in the grasslands of Shili. She hid in places and planets she had never visited and never would—places long destroyed, places she’d never known, places that never existed and never would. Weaved herself into the ground and air and water. She borrowed from stories whispered on refugee ships and written on alley walls and built until not even the Emperor himself could find her.

What would Master Che see? A Jedi, a Healer, and Ahsoka not herself. What would the combination produce? Would it be Shili? Would it be the sickening fear she had built it all with? Would there be anything at all?

“It is not required,” Master Che said evenly, direct and steady, staring at Ahsoka’s face like it had done something odd, and perhaps it had.

“Don’t, then. Please,” Ahsoka finally managed through a throat far too tight.

Master Che’s eyes were perfectly, professionally blank and dark with something like compassion. The hand on hers released, retreated back to Master Che’s side.

“Thank you,” she said.

Master Che smiled, small and genuine and without teeth. “Of course.”

That should have been the end it of, the mark of her release, but— but. But there was something owed, something old, something she couldn't fix yet.

“How would you tell?” Ahsoka asked, smaller than she had been. She curled her shoulders, rubbed her fingers together, like a nervous tick. Something borrowed from Theen, but she didn’t think he’d take issue. “If you did the examination, I mean—how would you tell if there was anything wrong?”

[A chance. A whisper. A very loyal man.]

“Well,” Master Che said, considering, still careful handspans away. “Mental trauma typically leaves behind signs—scarring on the shields, an imbalanced connection to the Force or bonds, concentrated emotional turmoil—all of which can, themselves, induce mental trauma. Signs of one usually indicate the presence of the others.”

“What if it’s your brain?” Ahsoka said. “The thing that’s damaged. Can you,” and here she dipped into the all too-real fear lurking in her gut since she was thirteen, threaded it through her vowels, “still tell, if it’s not in the Force?”

Master Che hummed, eyes dark with curiosity, this time, rather than compassion. “Mind Healers deal with the brain, as well as the mind. It’s inevitable, with systems so dependent on each other. The physical connection in the examination helps gain a limited feeling of the patient’s cerebrum. The cerebellum usually requires more in-depth methods. In short: yes.”

“You can feel physical anomalies in the brain?” Ahsoka pressed, widening her eyes. Too-wide, too-far, but nervous children had done worse. “You can tell where it is?”

“You… could,” Master Che said slowly. “The difficult part is not feeling where it is, it’s interpreting the overwhelming amount of data the brain provides when accessed. The body will always tell you exactly where everything is, but it’s up to you to know the language.” The toe of one boot tapped lightly against the steelstone floor. “No physical anomalies showed up in your scans, but I can schedule a comprehensive test, if you would like.”

“No,” she said, ducking her head. “No, sorry, I was just— wondering.”

Master Che hummed. “Well, if you don’t have any other questions, I think your crèchemates would rather I let you wonder in their company.”

Ahsoka took the dismissal with grace and no little relief, shimmying off the edge of the cot and thanking Master Che one last time, for more than she would likely ever know. She sent a mental ping down the bond she shared with Master Plo, and received an instant hellogreetingswaitingamherehoware from nearby. Another Padawan waited her on the other side of the door, a far more cheerful Mon Calamari who steered her back to the Halls’ entrance, and eventually into Master Plo’s waiting arms.

A language. Ahsoka was halfway decent with languages.

______________________

Breha smoothed the fabric of her skirts and smiled serenely at her companion, who was doing an impressive job of masking her suspicion behind a blank countenance. Certainly, she was more successful than the Minister who had escorted Breha here, nearly chrome with perspiration as he fidgeted in his seat and visibly refrained from offering yet another eloquent apology. 

“Would you like more tea?” Handmaiden Sabé asked, back straight and hands folded ever-so-slightly in her lap. She’d nearly seethed, in her own quiet way, when Breha insisted she take a seat of her own, and it seemed her form of retaliation was a stubborn refusal to relax. Breha could not help but be endeared by it. “I’m afraid Governor Bibble is still some ways away.”

“Oh, that’s alright,” Breha said. “I’m sure he was under the impression Minister Eckener would be handling this meeting alone, as I was.”

Said Minister looked very much like he would like to be anyplace else, doing anything else. The poor man.

“We would have made grander arrangements for your arrival, Your Majesty, had we known you would be representing Alderaan yourself,” Sabé said, painfully courteous and sharp, sharp, the way she always had been.

There was anger there. More than what was inherent to Sabé’s name. Something deeper, something shallower, something uncertain. Something strange.

Perhaps it was the lingering distrust born of the Invasion, or the unexpected nature of her presence. “There’s no need for grandeur,” Breha said carefully. “I come as a friend, not a Queen.” 

That Naboo did not currently have the available resources for diplomatic curvetting went unsaid, but not unheard. It was what they expected from her. It did not make it any less true.

“Naboo honors our friends as well as Queens, Your Majesty,” Sabé said, like a fox in crosshairs. She had always been a fiercely distrustful woman. It was one of the things Breha admired most about her.

There was no trap to Breha’s words. Plenty of hidden agendas, yes, but the safe kind, the kind that made her want to reach out and take Sabé’s hand in hers, to soothe the imagined burden of imagined slights. 

[“Stop doing that,” she snapped.

Breha paused, and turned her attention more fully to her… well, friend was a strong word. Bail’s friend, perhaps, and hers by association. “…Pardon?”

“Stop with the… the fucking ‘Gentle Queen’ act,” Sabé hissed. There was something like boiling oil beneath her skin, something liquid and burning and compressed into too small a space. “The humming and simpering. This isn’t court, and I am not one of your subjects needing empty reassurance.”

Breha’s hand rested where it fell, on skirts of blue and purple. It was the blue of her grandmother’s house, a gift from a distant cousin of hers, and very close match to Nabooian royal blue. Suddenly, it seemed all too much like a bruise. Like a wound.

She laughed, and it didn’t feel like pity, though Sabé might very well disagree. She rose to her feet with all the grace that had been instilled in her since she could rise on feet at all. “Come, then. I’ve been wanting to yell at you for the Fondor mission, and I can’t do it here.”

“Bail already yelled.”

“He talked to you sternly. I am going to yell.”]

Breha’s hands remained atop her skirt, and Sabé’s pressed into her robe. 

“I’m honored enough,” Breha said pleasantly, “to have Queen Amidala’s own handmaiden to welcome me.”

Sabé’s face did not change. It would be important to note that—for how new she was, for how untried, her face did not change. Neither did her breathing hitch, her posture shift—but something tightened in her, like a skipped beat. Something strange, yes. Breha very carefully did not let her eyes linger on it, glancing out the window to the brilliant blue of Naboo’s sky instead.

“My Queen regretted she could not meet with you herself,” she said.

(The unfortunate truth was that Breha could not be here as Queen of Alderaan. She could be here as a resident of her planet, as a figure of power, as an aristocrat, as a high-ranking diplomatic figure, as a friend. She could sit here as Breha Antilles Organa and trade veiled barbs with a handmaiden—but not a Queen. Not the role that could demand a meeting from a foreign monarch on their own planet.

As tempting as it was to ask, to politely request, to demand Padmé’s presence, this meeting could not be more than it was—an Alderaanian representative extending an offer of aid. Not a meeting of Queens. Not now. Not yet. Not yet, not yet, not yet.

Breha regretted it, too)

“Of course,” Breha said gently. “I can only imagine the burden placed on her shoulders has been immense, as of late. I would never dream of pulling Queen Amidala away from her work for a simple meeting such as this—I come to help, not hinder.”

“Her Majesty does not consider the welfare of her people a burden,” Sabé said, just barely this side of courteous, just barely within the acceptable confines of conversation held on shaky ground, as if she couldn’t help herself. “Naboo is not a burden.”

Young.

That’s what this Sabé was, what she had perhaps never been. Not naive, not unknowledgeable. Nothing so small. But— young. Young to be sitting here facing a planetary monarch on her own, young to be so honed and sharpened. Young to be fresh off an invasion. Young to hold herself as rigidly as she did.

Fourteen, just as Padmé was. Just as Naboo liked their leaders.

“Of course it is,” she said, kindly, because she couldn’t help but want this young girl to like her, one day. Padmé’s companion. Bail’s friend. An angry girl with a sharp tongue. “It’s not a bad thing, to be a burden. I’m sure Queen Amidala loves her people, as I do. I’m sure she willingly takes on the weight because of it. That does not make the job any easier.” Breha smiled, something reserved and honest. “I merely meant I do not begrudge Her Majesty’s choice not to add to it today.”

And there, yes, there it was. Guilt. Just a flash of it, barely there and expertly hidden behind the cool stone mask of the Naboo aristocracy. As skilled as Sabé was at fourteen, Breha had the unfair advantage of knowing exactly what her tells were, having been there—however tangentially—when Sabé stamped out the last of them in the wake of Padmé’s death.

“We are grateful,” Minister Eckener—finally—interjected, a little desperate and wildly uncomfortable, “that you thought of Naboo at all, Queen Organa. You spoke of a relief program of yours, didn’t you?”

“Part of a larger project,” Breha said, breaking eye contact with Sabé—discourteous, but she doubted anyone was of the inclination to point it out—to address him directly, easily slipping back into the role of distant politician. “Alderaan has a few existing support programs that do work off-planet, but I wished to expand their scope, under a new centralized overhead.”

“How fortunate,” Eckener said, and sounded as if he mostly did mean it. “Your program comes at a welcome time, indeed.”

“It’s not quite complete,” Breha admitted, and then lied through her teeth. “It was in its preliminary stages, not intended to be launched in full for several years yet, but in light of recent events… well, it was difficult to justify years of waiting when the foundations already existed.”

“Fortunate indeed,” Sabé agreed, smile just as flat and empty as Breha remembered it.

Breha returned it with the serene geniality she knew would set Sabé’s teeth edge, most of all because it was genuine. “The program may be in its infancy, but I’m proud of it. There’s a limit to what we can give at this time, of course, but Naboo is welcome to our resources.”

“What resources would those be?” Sabé asked as Minister Eckener shifted just a centimeter. It was a rude question, to be certain, but a fair one, and Breha was partial to fair questions.

“No one knows what you need better than you,” she said. “I’m merely here to offer, and to learn where we could be most useful.”

Both Minister Eckener and Sabé went to speak at once—no more than a syllable from each before the Minister deferred, lips pressing together. Sabé wasn’t meant to be here, and it seemed the Minister didn’t know where he stood, now.

A fresh queen, a fresh invasion, and, it seemed, a new shifting of the Naboo hierarchy Breha hadn’t been privy to, before. She’d only known Padmé after Naboo had warped to accommodate whispered words and identical faces. What an odd thing, to see it now, and only know how it turned out.

“Alderaan is known for it’s generosity,” Sabé continued smoothly, as if there had been nothing odd about it at all, behind teeth that creaked with the effort of it. “But this is quite generous, indeed.”

They were giving her too much information, too close a view into their shifting landscape. Breha wanted to shake them both—Minister Eckener most of all, experienced adult that he was—even as she catalogued it all, greedily hoarding any information she could use, and some that she couldn’t quite yet. When they were allies, when Naboo had been brought into the fold in totality, she would have to fix it, but for now— Well, for now, she’d observe.

“I can’t say it’s completely altruistic,” Breha said, painting ruefulness on her face like the finest of masks. She tilted forward, loosening her shoulders, affecting that quiet kind of humanity people were always so desperate to see. It wouldn’t fool Sabé, of course, paranoid woman she was, but Sabé was a happy side benefit, if Breha could manage it. Minister Eckener was were the decisions would start—Sabé had the ear and face of the Queen (PadméPadméPadmé), but the Ministers would be the ones to deal with Alderaan in detail. “Think of it as a… proof of concept. A way to test the waters, so to speak, on a planet with an established governmental rule.”

“A longer discussion would be required,” Minister Eckener said, before Sabé could speak again, “to determine what would benefit Naboo at this time. If—”

He didn’t get out much more than that before muffled shifting and a sharp “I did not ask,” filtered through the door, stilling his throat. Breha glanced curiously at Sabé as she inhaled, drawing herself up almost in a wince as the door slid open and a terribly, horribly, wonderfully familiar figure stepped in to replace it.

Rarely had Breha felt the kind of nerves that left one nauseous. Her sixteenth nameday, maybe, standing at the foot of Appenza Peak. Again on Leia’s, when she returned to that very mountain which had taken her heart and lungs—this time with something infinitely more precious, something Breha could not survive the loss of. Nothing else came to mind, at least. Not her first decree as Queen, not her marriage to Bail, not the whispers of her involvement with the Alliance that plagued Imperial courts, not the Emperor himself, or his dogs. Not her death. Not her husband’s. Most her life, Breha had dealt with stress explosively, loudly, and immediately, usually in private.

“I deeply apologize, Queen Breha Organa, for keeping you waiting. It appears there are some misunderstandings amongst my staff,” Padmé Amidala Naberrie said, cool and calm and alive.

The mother of Breha’s—their—child. One of the dearest friends she’d ever known. A fourteen-year-old Queen who did not know her.

Breha felt so elated she thought she might throw up.

______________________

Padmé barely registered Minister Eckener’s slightly fumbled greetings, barely cared as he rose to his feet in time to pay his respects, perhaps to explain. Sabé’s much more subdued form joined him, lagging behind and small, and the anger towards Padmé’s dear companion that had burned so hot in her hands moments before was— distant. Removed. Unimportant. She cared only for the woman in dusty reds and dussian blue—that very combination Padmé had once, years from now, taught a woman to mean friendnewgreetingaffection—rising gracefully from a settee that suddenly appeared far too shabby to have ever housed her. Cared only for brown hair carefully braided in the only crown it would ever need and brown eyes that looked back at her like a friend. They always had.

“Queen Amidala,” Breha Organa greeted her evenly, a reserved kind of warmth. “There is nothing to apologize for. I am honored to meet you.”

Alderaan had made the barest of contact the first time, expressing empty but well-meaning condolences for the injustices they faced in the Senate, in their home—the message lost beneath the thousands upon thousands of planets and dignitaries doing the same in some paltry attempt to gain goodwill with the new Chancellor. Padmé remembered having to dig it up to personally respond, Alderaan too important, too big a player, to do anything less. She remembered a secretary’s letter signed by the Queen herself. She remembered a little note from Bail Organa tucked inside the envelope.

She did not remember Queen Breha Organa in her fortieth-best reception room.

What changed? What changed?

“It is Naboo who is honored today, Your Majesty,” Padmé said by rote, falling back on Amidala with a desperation not entirely foreign. The words tasted like nothing, like stale air and sea salt.

Breha. Breha.

“My apologies for beginning discussion without you, Queen Amidala,” Minister Eckener rushed to say, forehead already dotted with perspiration, nerves and propriety. He suddenly reminded her, inexplicably, of Threepio, if Threepio felt things like fear. “The westvine room is being prepared, if you wished to relocate—”

Breha’s eyes still bore into Padmé’s own, even as Minister Eckener switched to address her, to apologize and entreat and satisfy. Little words meant to politic and dissolve. Little words that meant nothing, nothing at all, because Queen Breha Organa of Alderaan was here, here in front of her, and— 

And she did not know Padmé.

“Minister Eckener,” Padmé said, cutting the poor man off in his rambling. He was not usually prone to it. Something had happened before she arrived, clearly, and Padmé would bet it had everything to do with “Sabe, I thank you for accompany our honored guest. Queen Breha and I will continue discussion here. Alone.”

Alderaan should not be here, on Naboo. Not now.

“Alone?” Minister Eckener said, like something caught in his throat. He blinked. Glanced at Breha, and dipped his head in oddly differential agreement. “Of course, Your Majesty. I will pass along the change to Governor Bibble.”

Sio was likely already avoiding the entire wing out of self-preservation, being the unlucky soul to have informed her of this meeting. Padmé would need to find a time to apologize, later. She never did believe in killing the messenger—or letting them stay dead, at least. 

“Thank you, Minister,” Padmé said, a polite dismissal he took with eager hands and quick feet. Really, what in the world happened in this room? Eckener was usually much braver than this. 

The likely culprit followed in silence, suddenly the perfect picture of a Handmaiden, and that— “Sabé,” Padmé added under a thin veneer of disinterest, just before the girl had reached the door’s threshold, with her small, proper steps. “Rabé has requested your assistance tonight. Do not forget.”

Be in my quarters, was the message, and Sabé received it with a tense nod of assent and a quiet “Your Majesty” before escaping, leaving Padmé alone with a woman who should not yet know her name. 

Breha, wide-faced and gentle. Breha, thirty-eight and here. Breha, waiting for her to speak. Breha, who could not yet be called an ally.

It discomforted her, on some level, but it was a truth that went hand-in-hand with a title like Queen. Both Breha and Bail counted among the most compassionate people Padmé had the privilege of meeting, in either life—and likely the next—but they were, first and foremost, politicians. Very good politicians, and Padmé was not yet included in the circle of people either considered theirs. When dealing with a planet as powerful—no matter how altruistic—as Alderaan, it was a very dangerous place to be.

“You surround yourself with very loyal people, Queen Amidala,” Breha said, after a few long moments.

You used to be one of them, Padmé felt rising in her throat. I hope you will be again. “Tragedy tends to inspire a sense of patriotism. I hope my people did not let their enthusiasm get in the way of their hospitality.”

“Not at all,” Breha said. Lied, in all likelihood. “They were lovely. I particularly enjoyed Handmaiden Sabé’s conversation.”

Breha had always loved combative opponents—settled in for tense negotiations a little too quickly, a little too smugly. Padmé suspected it served as a form of relaxation. Yes, she had no doubt Breha enjoyed smiling through antagonistic words that never should have left a Handmaiden’s mouth. That did not, surprisingly, reassure her.

“I am glad.” Padmé finally moved to sit, motioning an invitation for Breha to do the same. Neither settee was finely embroidered enough to hold foreign nobility, but Breha wasn’t the type to hold it against her. Yes, that little meeting with Sabé would be loud. “Please, there is no need to stand.”

“Thank you,” Breha said, hands clasped together loosely in her skirts as she settled. A woman born to be a Queen. A stranger. A friend.

Alderaan had to know something. Some change had made its way off-planet. Something had caught the attention of the Queen herself. Something was different than before. Something, or someone. Padmé was not entirely informed on the how or why she found herself at fourteen yet again—the twins being the closest she’d ever come to containing so much as a single midichlorian in her body—and thus could not rule out the presence of another with memories that did not belong to them.

(What if it was her, a little voice whispered. Treacherous little thing, full of hope and grief. What if it was someone she loved.)

“You have come with an offer of aid, as I understand it,” Padmé said.

“Yes,” Breha said, the skin around her eyes crinkling like a smile, even as her face retained the polite distance of diplomacy. “As I was telling the Minister, there is a new program, primarily in name—it is a combination of Alderaan’s existing support organizations, simply with an expanded scope.”

If there had been such a large relief program around this time the first go around, it had not been offered to Naboo. Alderaan should still be finding its footing in the galaxy, with a new Chancellor and Senator Organa still green enough to plant. Big moves—loud, flashy moves, like providing aid to the Chancellor’s own planet when he failed to—should be beyond their comfort. Undermining Palpatine so soon after the election was… foolish. Hasty. 

“And you thought to extend the offer to Naboo, first?” Padmé asked, letting one painted brow twitch upward.

Breha grimaced, painted on her face just as surely as Amidala. There was honesty in it, but Padmé could not determine if she only saw it there because she wanted it to be—because she knew one day it would. “I won’t lie to you, your speech in the Senate was… compelling.”

She had not changed the speech—hadn’t the opportunity to fix the grave mistake she’d made as a young girl. Padmé had only come to at the end of the Invasion, long after contact with the Senate had been severed. No, the pleas of a new Queen hadn’t been enough then—they rarely were, in the Senate—and they were not enough now. 

“A single voice in a sea of them,” Padmé dismissed. “Easily lost beneath thousands of other planets in more dire need of your aid.”

“A single voice tied to a very loud failure of the Senate to protect Republic citizens. An awful many eyes are turned to Naboo now, Your Majesty.”

They would never quite go away, in Padmé’s lifetime. Perhaps if she had simply come before the galaxy with a cause, with a sad little story of a little planet going against something it couldn’t hope to beat. Perhaps if she hadn’t ousted Valorum. Perhaps if Palpatine’s clothing was not so distinctive. Perhaps if Naboo’s young Queen had not, for one awful moment, become important. 

“Including yours?” she asked, cold and sharp for her, but not Amidala.

Breha raised her chin a few degrees in acknowledgement. Her gaze, suddenly, held something more. Something terrible. Something humbling. Something far, far too old for either of them. “Including mine, yes.”

Alderaan should not be here.

Padmé reached to the low table between them for one of the untouched teacups, fingertips painted with white and pearl dust and suddenly so, so foreign. It had likely been poured in anticipation for Sio—the tea Naboo used to welcome guests best served cold and terribly bitter when over-steeped—but she doubted he would begrudge her it. “May I be honest with you, Your Majesty?”

“I usually admire honesty.”

“As do I. I hope you will forgive me being blunt, as well as honest,” Padmé said. Could not chew on her lip in public, as Amidala, even if the nervous urge itched at her teeth, so settled with sipping at her tea slow and careful. A terrible thing, to be fourteen again, full of energy and misfired neurons. “Queen Breha, Naboo is a mid-rim planet with few exportable resources. Our primary goods are art and music—a small selection of fish and grain, on a good year.” 

Padmé set the tea back down on the table. Over-steeped. A pity. “What can we offer Alderaan—you, who give precisely what would expedite Naboo’s recovery? Friendship? Sculptures? Tapestries? Or, perhaps, a tie to the new Chancellor? If it is the latter, I must apologize, for Palpatine quickly washed his hands of us once he gained his coveted office.”

Young Padmé had taken years to feel that acute sense of betrayal, and even she had shoved it down in favor of being grateful he maintained something of a mentor’s role for her still, once she entered the Senate. It was a simple thing to pretend the horrors of war had soured her opinion of him her a bit sooner, this time. Palpatine did not need the gratitude of a naive Queen to polish his image.

Breha’s head tilted just a millimeter to her left—her tell when she found something new to study. “And if I said friendship was all Alderaan sought?”

Alderaan should not be here.

“I would not believe you.”

“A mark of your intelligence, Your Majesty,” she said, almost amused. A familiar expression on a too-familiar face.

Alderaan should not be here.

“What do you hope to gain, then?” Padmé asked.

Breha’s gaze flicked from one of Padmé’s eyes to the other and back again, like she couldn’t decide which one to focus on. “If I said your friendship was all I sought, would you believe me then?”

“Even less so,” Padmé said bluntly. Honestly. Frustration bubbled in her chest, muted. To be offered something so close to what she wanted more than anything, emptied out of true meaning, was a cruel thing indeed. “Do you view me a child, Queen Breha?”

(What changed? What changed? Something moreterriblehumblingnewold. Dusty reds and dussian blue and recognition. A change, a change, a change, a change)

“No,” Breha said, something light and wondrous and terribly cautious in her eyes, even as her face remained even, ever the perfect diplomat. “No, I don’t see a child at all.”

(Cold. That’s what Padmé felt. Like winter gales. Like a breath. Like the agonizing moment before.)

“And yet you insist on these games of yours,” Padmé said, icy, because it was expected of her.

Alderaan should not be here.

“I… apologize, Queen Amidala,” she said, slow. Still staring at her. “I intended no disrespect.”

Intention means little to me, is what Amidala would say, and yet— and yet Padmé did not. She did not say anything at all.

Alderaan should not be here.

“A dear friend,” Breha continued after a pause. Still cautious. Still filled with something altogether strange, “once told me games do not disappear with age, the intentions just grow crueler. Perhaps I should have listened with a closer ear.”

[“Are you at least beating them at it?” Breha asked, smile wide and crooked.

Padmé stared miserably into her glass, the wine somehow too bitter and sweet all at once, an old vintage gifted to her by some colleague years ago she now suspected didn’t like her much at all. “I’m the one drunk over it, so I don’t think so.”

Breha’s laugh was long and unattractive and entirely at her expense. Perhaps she was not the only drunkard here.]

“…Breha?” Padmé asked, carefully. Quietly. Recklessly. Let Amidala fall away completely, until all that was left was the same desperation that named her children, that shoved a comm into Obi-Wan Kenobi’s hands, that stood there as Qui-Gon Jinn’s body burned a second time and tried not to look at what he’d left behind. “Breha?”

[“No,” Bail said, ash smeared on his jaw and regret, terrifying regret, twisting his face. “No, Padmé, I’m afraid she’s not here. It’s just me and Obi-Wan.”

“Please,” Padmé said, and it came out a sob. Agony closed her throat. (Like Anakin had— like he—). “Something’s wrong—”]

Breha breathed a name she should not know, face a terrible thing. Grief and wonder and a crushing emotion with no label.

Padmé.

Padmé’s chest seized, her throat closing, her head swimming as words tumbled out past her lips, frantic and tripping over themselves. “Breha, are you— I— the children— I woke up here, during the Invasion—”

Breha released every bit of air in her lungs, heavy. “Shit. Bail and I, we thought—”

“Bail, too?” Padmé interrupted, voice only half as unsteady as she felt. 

She had them both? Not just the one, but— two. Two. 

Bail and Breha both. Bail and Breha both.

Breha’s fingers brushed the edge of her cheek, the barest of touches, like she wasn’t she if she was allowed, and something broke—Padmé’s chest, her lungs, or maybe the tea set on the table between the two of them as she surged forward into her old friend’s arms. She dug into the priceless fabric of her dress—friendnewgreetingaffection—with hands like claws, suddenly terrified Breha would be gone if she loosened her grip.

Padmé wasn’t alone. She wasn’t alone.

“Yes, dear girl,” Breha whispered fiercely, clutching Padmé to her own chest in turn, the hold uncomfortable with the table still half-between them and the many layers and jewels they both wore, but it was— gods, above, it was Breha. “Bail, too.”