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Anakin Skywalker wakes up.
This is. Not something that is supposed to happen.
Anakin died, at peace, was burned, was a ghost. Was…
Not here.
Looking - with his own, unbroken eyes, at his hands, still one metal, still one flesh, and…
Oh. Maybe not his .
Anakin’s never particularly cared about gender, personally, but looking down at his form…
He… did not remember ever having noticeable breasts. And… an otherwise female form.
Well, okay. What?
A door opens. Ahsoka, still so young. She’d refused to stop wearing that tub top for over a year, when he met her. Despite Anakin knowing very well they’d have dealings with far too many people who’d like to see even more of his very young Padawan.
“Skyguy?” She asks, and Anakin blinks.
“That’s me,” he says. “Right?”
“What do you mean?” Ahsoka asks. “You look normal to me. Besides, we’re at our location, quit napping, would you?”
Anakin jumps into action.
It’s hard to fight, holding back the Dark Side as he’s gotten used to but no longer used to the overwhelming power he’d had before Obi-Wan burned Anakin Skywalker to ash, completing the transfer to a broken, evil remains of a being who used his own despair to justify worse and worse atrocities.
But he tries to keep to the more loud motions he used to prefer, always lead from the front, even as Vader.
(Ahsoka notices, and he doesn’t know what to do with that, so he doesn’t do anything at all.)
After a fight, Anakin reaches into the Force.
What is this? He asks. Why am I back in a past that is clearly not my own?
This is another chance, for you, is what he receives. It will not go the same.
No duh.
Here’s how his story is supposed to go: he is 23 years old, and his wife is pregnant. He says it’ll be a girl. Padme says he may be right.
The names they most consider are Lukka and Leia.
When he meets his daughter, her name is Lucy.
Lucky’s strong in the Force, looks more like him but somehow has Padme’s bleeding heart. And she tells him Leia, Alderaan Princess Leia who he tortured, is her twin sister.
Not identical.
And so Anakin finds himself watching as he hastily learns how to make a body within the Force, watching another life time.
He watches Lucy get the man she loves.
“Of course I love Leia, kid,” Han says. “But I love you, too.”
“Really?” Lucy asks, and Han nods.
Leia smiling too, in part because Anakin is gone.
And so, he knows his daughters will be happy.
Has anything else changed? Anakin asks. The Force says nothing so probably a no.
Okay, Anakin supposes she can work with this.
Padme is beautiful as ever, still wraps her arms around Anakin as soon as they’re alone.
“Oh Anakin,” she says. “I’m so glad you’re alright.”
Anakin nods.
“Me too,” she says. “It feels like a lifetime.”
It is, for her.
“How long are you staying?” Padme asks.
“Two weeks,” Anakin replies. “I’ll be back tonight, but I have to speak to the Chancellor, first.”
Padme gives her that look, the one that used to upset her, in her last life.
“Anakin, you know—”
“Not this,” Anakin says. “I promise, I know now what is right.”
Padme nods.
“Okay,” she says. “I love you.”
“I love you too.”
The Chancellor, the Emperor. Anakin thinks of the satisfaction she’d felt even as electricity coursed through her. Watching him die at her hands and knowing she had saved her daughters.
Now… she locks that all up in a tiny corner of her mind and thinks about how undeniably creepy he had been, in retrospect. His arm around her shoulders, agreeing whenever she complained about Obi-Wan or the Jedi…
Giving her advice that only served him.
It hurts, a bit, to think about. Because it would be so easy to listen, if she didn’t know, wasn’t using most of her concentration to keep her shields up in a way so they don’t even look like shields.
She leaves, and yes, she goes immediately back to Padme, kissing her senseless and holding her close. A slightly different angle than she remembers, but still, this feels like coming home.
“Can you stay the night?” Padme asks. Anakin nods.
“Of course,” she says. “And isn’t it wonderful?”
Ahsoka didn’t stand a chance against Anakin Skywalker, Jedi Knight. She’s got even less odds against Anakin as she is now. But it’s an odd feeling, to hold back. At least that is something Anakin hasn’t had to do in half a lifetime.
She’s still not entirely sure of what happened to her own Ahsoka, during their fight. Ahsoka just… disappeared, and she didn’t reappear in Anakin’s senses until Anakin had left, and by then, well, she wouldn’t last long, stranded.
(Vader she may have been, but Ahsoka had never earned her ire. So of course Vader wouldn’t kill hill her, if it could be avoided.)
Ahsoka’s still looking at her strangely, though.
“Hey, Skyguy,” she says. “Are you okay? You’ve been acting weird since the battle of Zoral.”
“I am fine, Snips,” Anakin says, only realizing her more formal Vader speech is coming in after she says it.
Ahsoka shrugs, accepting it.
“So how did I do?” She asks instead.
“You’re doing well,” Anakin allows, and she is. She has excellent senses for combat. “Though we might need to drill the…”
More training, now with Anakin just guiding. Ahsoka was always naturally gifted in similar areas to Anakin himself. This still holds true.
She’ll go far, in a work which, hopefully, will not break her.
Anakin needs to figure out a way to kill Sidious soon, she realizes. And then to retire, because she will accept a punishment, but the thought of causing the others suffering… still hurts.
After all she’d done and let occur as Vader, she’s full of very conflicting emotions.
So she goes to Obi-Wan.
“Anakin?” Obi-Wan asks. “Strange to find you in my quarters during the evening. Is something wrong?”
“What would you do?” Anakin asks. “If I had to leave the Order?”
Obi-Wan pauses, looking thoughtful.
“I don’t know,” he says. “Has something happened?”
Anakin shakes her head.
“I might do something I can’t come back from,” she says. “I need to know if you’ll be okay.”
“Anakin…” Obi-Wan says. “I don’t know how to answer you. I hope you don’t speak of Falling.”
Anakin resists the urge to laugh.
“I don’t,” she says. “Obviously.” She’d crossed that bridge a lifetime ago. “Just an idle wondering. Just… whatever comes next, know I had only the good of all in mind. And I’m happy to say I think of you as a brother.”
Obi-Wan smiles, despite himself. Good.
Breaking News! The Hero With No Fear Has Killed The Chancellor???