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Tatooine was far more peaceful than Ahsoka had expected.
She slid her white cloak from her montrals, turning her face up to the twin suns. Though she knew the light and heat must be an irritation to the citizens, she closed her eyes and savored the feel of it on her face.
Anakin hadn’t spoken much about his past, but when he’d mentioned Tatooine Ahsoka had pictured a blistering, scorching, colorless planet with despair in every grain of sand. And maybe it was hot, but it wasn’t dull.
Ahsoka felt the grit of the sand between her toes as she walked down into the abandoned homestead she had come to find. It was smaller than she’d pictured, the vaporators stretching high in the center of the space. She glanced into an open room with a table and smiled to think of the generations of Skywalkers who had sat at its benches.
Ahsoka ran her hand over the curved dome of the doorway, closing her eyes. All her years and all the places she’d traveled and she’d never come here. But she knew in her bones that now was the right time. The only time.
Ahsoka had given up the Jedi Order long ago, but she hadn’t forsaken the Force. And she knew, reaching through it, that change was coming. An awakening that would include more Skywalkers rising, a path that would alter the course of the galaxy. It was a story, she knew, that would begin and end on this burning planet.
Ahsoka had done a great deal with her life. The friends she’d loved and lost, the promises she’d broken and had broken, the lovers she’d reunited after so long. The role she played in the Clone Wars and then the war after that, the enemies she’d faced, the laws she’d disobeyed to live.
It was a great relief to be free of the responsibility of the title of the last Jedi.
If Ahsoka looked out far enough across the sands, she could just make out the shape of Obi-Wan’s old dwelling. It had been burned long ago, and she could guess by who, but she’d still felt the presence of the wisest Jedi she’d ever known.
Ahsoka had always wondered, since her days at the temple, if seeing the Force ghost of a Jedi who’d passed on was a gift only given to those most talented. She’d wondered, for years, if she was only unskilled in her inability to find her dead master.
Then she’d discovered he was neither dead nor her master anymore, and a wild hope had sprouted that there was another reason Obi-Wan had never appeared to her, aside from her own connection to the Force.
Even years after that, even after her connection with the children of Anakin, his Force ghost had eluded her. And though his son was confused, as he could see his father, Ahsoka knew why.
It was the feeling she sensed when, in the years after Vader’s death, she would praise Anakin’s name or use a skill he’d taught her or even think back on their history together. Whenever she did, an aura clouded the air. Guilt, so sickening in its cloying smoke that it was almost a comfort. It was in those moments the most, even more than the pride that spilled on her in strong moments, that she knew she had never been alone since the second Death Star had been destroyed.
Occasionally Ahsoka would speak with Obi-Wan, but the person she yearned for the most stayed hidden to her.
Ahsoka closed her eyes, her hand still brushing the home, and gasped at the memory that flashed to her. It wasn’t hers, but it should’ve been. She should’ve known that blond child who ran, swooping a toy starfighter in his hands and staring at the stars. When Ahsoka had visited the ruins of a destroyed planet days before, she’d seen a dark eyed, defiant child that she regretted she hadn’t met until after her father’s true death.
Ahsoka was proud of the hands she was leaving the galaxy in, but she wished she could’ve been there sooner.
Names flashed through her mind faster than she could keep track of them. There were the ones she was leaving behind, fighting strong - Leia, Luke, Hera, Mon Mothma, brave Artoo who’d been there since the beginning. And Threepio, always following.
Then there were the names she’d failed. Hevy, Jesse, Kanan, Barriss. Even Obi-Wan and Anakin fit that label.
But, in all that she’d done, there were names that she’d saved and raised up. Ezra, and Sabine. Rex. Hunter and Omega. Din Djarin. Little Grogu.
It was easily enough, more than enough, for one lifetime.
Ahsoka climbed back up the sandy hill, looking down on the dwelling. The day was still bright, so Ahsoka examined the area until she came across five gravestones. Two of them were linked to histories she’d never know, but she ran a regretful hand over the third. This was the last resting place of the woman who’d been the forebear of every Skywalker - a dead slave woman whose name was all but forgotten. Ahsoka had learned it from Obi-Wan, once, but she’d never told Anakin. Leaning over the grave, Ahsoka whispered the name as if promising this woman that she was not truly gone.
The other two graves were newer than the first, clearly dug by an unskilled hand who’d never thought he’d have to perform such a task alone. Ahsoka traced the names of the married couple who’d raised the only son of Anakin Skywalker.
The sky wasn’t entirely dark by the time Ahsoka returned to stand behind the dwellings, but it had turned a pale, purple shade that illuminated the suns in orange circles as they set.
Ahsoka lowered herself slowly onto the sand, crossing her legs and closing her eyes in the meditation she’d learned so many years ago but had never been able to give up with the rest.
She’d had a dream, once, of a vision that Master Yoda had seen after she’d left. The Jedi temple, full of bodies, including her own. When Master Yoda had ran to her, she’d begged him to tell her what would happen when she died. If she had any connection left to the Force.
Even in all his centuries, he hadn’t had an answer for her.
And for years, neither had Ahsoka. She was connected to the Force, devotedly, but she was no Jedi.
But now, giving her last breath at the end of her long life, Ahsoka knew the answer. She knew the path that the Force had led her on had always meant to end here. Not in terrible battle with her former master, but in peace in her final moments.
And for what would happen after, she would trust the Force.
For a moment, all Ahsoka felt was nothingness. Then everything.
Light. Dark. Joy. Grief. Pain. Love. Death. Life.
The Force.
Ahsoka smiled.
A white cloak fluttered to the ground on an empty desert amid the setting suns.
Another story ended to make way for the next, and the Force sighed.
Ahsoka opened her eyes.
It was wrong to call her surroundings whiteness, or even light. They were something else entirely, but they glowed like the Force.
Her first instinct was to reach for her lightsabers, even though she’d given them away long ago. But she gasped when she saw her body. She looked as young as she had when she left for Mandalore in the final act of her old life. And although she was unashamed of the years she’d collected in her travels, she knew there was a reason for her appearance.
Ahsoka didn’t know how, but she knew she had to move forward. She took a step, and then another, when she heard the combining voices. It took her a moment to differentiate them, but she recognized many, some in story if not in person.
The boy is the Chosen One.
You were my brother, Anakin.
Not to me.
Because I have nothing left to fear.
Judge me by my size, do you?
Are you an angel?
We will see each other again; I promise.
I can’t wait to come home.
The voices joined together in Ahsoka’s mind, a heartbreaking melody forming of the lost Jedi she knew throughout all the years. She knew she was hearing more than the words they had spoken in life - every line was directed at her.
Ahsoka stopped walking, closing her eyes. The voices continued to rise until they culminated in one final declaration that she’d heard a thousand times and never once doubted.
The Force will be with you, always.
And then they were gone.
Ahsoka opened her eyes, darting around for a frantic moment at the sudden silence.
But while the sounds were gone, her sight wasn’t blank anymore. There was something there, waiting before her.
When Ahsoka approached, so many names and titles flashed through her mind, years of war and siblinghood and trust singing until she spoke the only name she needed to say. “Anakin.”
He smiled down at her, so much the same as he had in life, as he had that final day. She knew his thoughts were the same as hers, the names he’d given her, the titles she’d carried. But all he said was “Ahsoka.”
And Ahsoka leapt up to throw her arms around his neck, and Anakin reciprocated. She didn’t know if she was laughing or crying when he lifted her as if she was still a Padawan, but she didn’t care. She never could, not when she was finally receiving what she’d waited so long for all her life.
It wasn’t until Anakin finally set her down, still holding her shoulders, that she caught the guilt and pain in his eyes. “Snips - I’m so sorry.”
“No, Skyguy - Anakin.” She reached up to his face. “You’ve done terrible things. But never to me. You’ve always believed in me, and I’ve always believed in you.”
It was true. Force help her, it had always been true. She’d never given up on him. Not once.
“I did so much, Ahsoka.” He broke her gaze. “I killed - ”
“Vader killed.” Ahsoka ran her thumb across his cheek. “And you killed Vader in the end, didn’t you?”
It was so much more than that, the intricacies of where Anakin had ended and Vader began. But Anakin, in the end, had passed into the living Force. And Ahsoka knew there was no more redemption needed.
“Padme’s here.” Anakin smiled faintly. “She’s been waiting for you, you know. Keeps talking about how she knew you’d come, eventually. She never stopped believing in you either.”
The way Anakin spoke, as if he and Padme were two halves of the same soul. “You and her - why didn’t you tell me?”
Anakin laughed. “I wanted to, Sn - Ahsoka. But it never felt like the right time. And you trusted me. I didn’t want to tell you that I’d broken the code when I told you to follow it.”
“But I broke the code too. Don’t you see?” Ahsoka traced his scar. “I loved you. I loved Padme. And Rex, and Obi-Wan. Even Barriss.” She was surprised how easily she passed over that final name now. “The code was flawed, Anakin. We all knew that. But we loved anyway. We made our own path.”
“She’s certainly your Padawan, isn’t she?”
It was the only voice that could make Ahsoka turn from Anakin, throwing herself into his arms with the Force singing in her and through her as she felt the second embrace she’d waited so many years for.
In all of her time with Anakin, his initial paternal role with her had faded into a siblinghood that raised them to equal ground. But this person, these arms - he’d always been a father to her.
“Obi-Wan.” Ahsoka barely choked out the name, closing her eyes and sinking into the calmness of his touch - the touch that said, above all else, that her journey was finally over and she could rest.
“Ahsoka.” When Obi-Wan broke away, the look of his smile felt as familiar as the one he’d given her that last meeting.
“You’ve done so much, child.” Obi-Wan’s happiness was as pure as she’d ever sensed from him, when he’d lost everyone he loved.
For a moment, Ahsoka wondered why they were the ones to be welcoming her, not Plo Koon or Qui-Gon or Master Yoda. But she knew, when Anakin approached her, that this was the way it had always meant to end, the way it had begun that first day of war.
“I didn’t - ” Ahsoka reached out to take Obi-Wan’s hand, just as Anakin brushed her shoulder. “I didn’t realize - after the war, after Order 66 - we were all alive, weren’t we - but we thought the rest of us were dead.”
Ahsoka had believed Anakin and Obi-Wan both died. Anakin, drowned in Vader, assumed her own death and hoped for Obi-Wan’s. And Obi-Wan, who had seen Ahsoka in a flickering hologram for the last time, had never known any pain such as when he discovered that his former Padawan had fallen to the dark.
“We’re all here now.” Anakin exhaled, as if reflecting on past hurt. “You’re here, Ahsoka. And you know what’s to come.”
“This isn’t our galaxy anymore.” Ahsoka nodded, turning to Obi-Wan. “Not the Jedi council’s, not the Sith’s - not ours. There will be heroes.”
“And villains.” Ahsoka knew she wasn’t imagining the pain that flickered across Anakin’s face as he spoke. “Terrible ones.”
Obi-Wan’s free hand closed around Anakin’s. “We do not have a place in this story anymore. A new dawn is beginning. Let us watch it rise.”
Anakin nodded, then looked back to Ahsoka in near wonder. “We’ve waited for you for so long.”
Ahsoka surged back against him, taking him protectively into her arms. “I’m sorry it took so long. But I’m here now.”
The sleeves of Anakin’s cloak brushed her back as she felt Obi-Wan’s left hand fall onto her shoulder, his right on Anakin’s. Ahsoka sank into the Force, and she didn’t know when she was there, when she was light, when she was the Force, and when she was, at long last, gone.
And if a scavenger-turned-Jedi bearing two old lightsabers would find a white cloak lying on the sand one distant day, Ahsoka would never know.