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“I thought we had a meeting with the Council this morning,” Ahsoka remarked as she clung to the seat of their speeder while Anakin zoomed through the traffic of Coruscant.
“You must be thinking of Obi-Wan,” Anakin said as he casually shifted out of the way to avoid hitting someone at the absolute last minute. Ahsoka was beginning to understand why Master Kenobi had been nervous the first few times she’d flown with him while she was the pilot.
“Well, I know he had a meeting,” Ahsoka agreed. “But I thought we were supposed to be there too.”
“Nope.” Ahsoka did not miss the way Anakin removed a hand from the controls to silence an incoming call on his comm that she had a sneaking suspicion was Obi-Wan.
“Uh huh.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “You’re going to get me in trouble, aren’t you?”
“No, of course not.” He smiled. “I used to do this all the time.”
“What? Sneak out instead of go to very important meetings?”
“Yeah.”
“Master…”
“What?” Anakin laughed. “I had the Chancellor’s approval and everything.”
Ahsoka chose not to voice the fact that she neither liked nor trusted the Chancellor and didn’t think he had Anakin’s best interest in mind. She didn’t think her master would take too well to that, especially considering Chancellor Palpatine was probably the closest thing to a friend Anakin had had growing up alone on Coruscant as the Chosen One.
Which reminded her…
“Master,” she began. “I’ve been having these dreams…I was hoping we could talk about them.”
“Of course, Snips, you can talk to me about anything,” Anakin assured. “What’s on your mind?”
“Have you…” Senselessly slaughtered the Jedi just because some faceless person told you it was the only way to save the love of your life and your unborn child who you’ve been keeping secret from even Obi-Wan who loves you so much that he would do anything for you, including leaving the Order, even if you break the code in such a way as forming an attachment that so clearly is going to drive you to the Dark Side? “Ever been to Mustafar?”
Anakin frowned and for a moment, Ahsoka feared she’d accidentally projected her thoughts through their bond. But after a moment, he merely replied with a casual,
“I don’t think so. Why? Have you?”
In a sense. “No. But I’ve…been dreaming about it.”
“Hang on, let’s find somewhere quieter to talk so I can give you my full attention,” Anakin said, dipping out of traffic.
Good. Ahsoka thought. You barely pay enough attention to piloting as it is, I can’t imagine how little you’d give it if you were trying to listen to me at the same time.
They somehow made it to a landing spot safely—somehow being the correct word here, because Anakin had made several risky moves that had her closing her eyes and just hoping that she didn’t open them dead .
But they made it safely and as soon as he turned the engine off, Anakin was turning to face her.
“So what’s going on, Snips?” He asked with such concern that it made Ahsoka wonder how he could possibly become the broken Sith in her dream.
She hadn’t meant to ask but the words had slipped out without her own conscious awareness.
“Are you and Senator Amidala married?”
Anakin choked. “I-wh-of course not , Snips.” He gave an uneasy laugh and honestly, Ahsoka was surprised no one else had figured out what he was hiding.
Or maybe they had but they were too polite to say anything. The Jedi were like that, after all.
No, actually, Obi-Wan was like that. Oh, he definitely knew about Anakin’s marriage then, so it was a little less of a surprise that he hadn’t outed the Knight yet.
“I had a dream,” Ahsoka told him. “You told me.” It wasn’t technically a lie—at least, not if you considered Anakin and Vader to be the same person.
“Wh-I don’t-” he laughed and honestly, how much more obvious could he get? “We’re just friends, Snips.” Yeah. Sure. “And anyway, I thought you had a dream about Mustafar, not Senator Amidala and I.”
“I did,” Ahsoka confirmed. “It was…we were both there.”
“Alright.” Anakin shifted. “And did I say something about Senator Amidala?”
He was teasing, obviously, but in light of the dream she’d had, Ahsoka didn’t feel like teasing.
“You said she was pregnant and that some unknown figure, who you refused to give me the name of, told you that they were the only one who could help and that you couldn’t trust the Jedi to do so.”
Anakin stared at her. Ahsoka stared right back. Neither of them spoke for a long time until Anakin finally managed a weak,
“Not all dreams mean something.”
Ahsoka was speaking before she could stop herself. “So does that mean your dreams about Senator Amidala dying in childbirth aren’t real and that you shouldn’t listen to the very shady person who is going to lead you down a very dangerous path?”
Anakin was very clearly at a loss for words. Ahsoka wasn’t, but she at least wasn’t going to voice any of them.
Yet.
“That’s…different.”
“So you’re confirming that you’re having dreams about Senator Amidala being pregnant?”
“She can be pregnant and not-”
“Your wife?”
Anakin scowled, clearly not pleased with her interrupting. “Who told you any of this?”
“You did.”
“I did not.”
“If your dream about Senator Amidala is real then so is my dream about you.” Oh Force, please don’t let it be.
“Why are you being so snippy?”
“Why won’t you just be honest with me?” Ahsoka crossed her arms over her chest. “You know you can trust me with this. I won’t tell anyone.”
“I-”
“Not even Master Kenobi .”
Anakin snapped his mouth shut and stared at her for a long time before his shoulders fell.
“You’re really not going to tell anyone?”
If it means being able to stop you from becoming what I saw in my dream, yes. “I swear on the Force.”
Anakin slumped down in his seat, sighing. “I…I’m handling it.”
You’re really really not though. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
“No. This is something I have to…handle on my own.”
“At least promise me that you won’t get anyone else’s help,” Ahsoka requested. “Anyone other than Obi-Wan , I mean. He won’t judge you, Anakin , I’m sure of it. You mean something to him.”
“I was his padawan.”
“You’re his friend ,” Ahsoka stressed. “He cares about you. He wouldn’t want to see you…to see you lose yourself to darkness because you were too afraid to ask for help.”
Anakin opened his mouth to reply but went tense at the sight of something behind Ahsoka. The young Togruta whipped around quickly, only to find—
—nothing there.
“Master?” She asked, turning back to him as one hand shifted towards her sabers.
But Anakin just shook his head and replied, “It’s nothing, Snips. Just…something from my Vision on Ilum. I still catch a glimpse of it every now and then. It doesn’t matter though, it’s harmless.”
“Some Jedi, like yourself, get visions of glistening waters and rolling hills,” Obi-Wan began. “But other Jedi, like Anakin, get something worse.”
Ahsoka had a very strong idea that she knew exactly what her master had been seeing.
“Maybe we should have gone to that Council meeting after all.”
That seemed to knock Anakin out of whatever state he’d fallen into because he laughed loudly and seemed to revert right back to his usual self.
“Yeah, maybe.”
But Ahsoka could still sense a rising darkness inside of him. And she was beginning to worry that she wasn’t going to be enough to stop it.