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Chapter Text

Ahsoka knew the truth ever since she sensed Vader in the space battle, but she never wanted to believe it. She couldn’t. Maul’s words were too unreal, too impossible because Anakin could never Fall. But here they are, on Malachor, seeing none other than her former master Fallen, having destroyed the Jedi, her people, her entire way of life.

Her past, her childhood, gone, because of him, and Ahsoka may not have been thinking too clearly when she drew her lightsabers on him, but here they are, spinning through the midst of the Temple of Malachor, lightsabers clashing – until the Force screams.

Ahsoka Force-shoves Vader back a few feet and looks up, shielding herself as some sort of explosion blinds her. When she lowers her arm, lightsabers still in her hands, it’s to see…

A very familiar figure propping himself up from the floor, cheerfully waving at all the onlookers.

“What?” Vader hisses.

“Hi, guys,” Anakin Skywalker himself, just as a padawan, and younger than Ahsoka ever knew him, calls cheerfully, picking himself up from the floor of the Sith Temple on Malachor.

“What?” Ahsoka echoes dumbfounded.

“Hey,” he repeats, looking around. “Uh. Sorry for dropping in on you. What’s going on?”

“How did you get here?” Vader demands, jabbing his lightsaber at him.

“How’d you get here?” Anakin asks. “There weren’t any Sith here a second ago.”

“Anakin,” Ahsoka says very, very slowly. “You can’t be here. Because there’s another you right there.” She points at Vader, who’s helmet whips around to glare at her faster than she thought he could move.

“That is me?” he demands, crossing his arms and pouting. “No way. Nice cape, though.”

“It was my master’s pick,” Vader replies proudly. “He made a good choice.”

Anakin laughs like this is perfectly normal, as if he really ought to be here, as a teenager again, have a padawan braid, and is talking to an old friend instead of the murderous Sith Lord who’s been hunting the Rebellion and her for years. “Yeah, he did. Who is your master? What’s going on here?”

“How did you get here?” Ahsoka asks.

He shrugs. “I don’t know. Obi-Wan and I were on a mission, took an unfortunate detour to Malachor, I think I touched something, and there was an explosion, and I woke up here.”

“How old are you?” Ahsoka asks, slowly lowering her weapons.

He shrugs. “Seventeen.”

“You are approximately twenty-two years in the future,” Vader tells him flatly.

“Well, I guess the future wasn’t nice to… you-me in anything other than fashion sense,” Anakin shrugs.

Ahsoka doesn’t actually know if she’s more inclined to scream or cry right now. It is funny, just a little, but she’s not one to laugh about things in dangerous situations. That was always Anakin’s role.

“Uh, can someone explain what’s going on?” Ezra asks, and all heads turn to him.

***

Anakin looks between the Dark Sider – Him??? – who’s a violent, whirling dark presence in the Force, and whoever the Togruta is, and the strange, orange-clothed, black-haired boy. The Force itself feels dark, like the Dark Side is somehow… drowning everything. He doesn’t like this future.

“Apparently, I’m in the future,” he shrugs, looking around the Temple. He doesn’t – why doesn’t he feel Obi-Wan? His master was just here. “I don’t think I like this future.”

The Togruta sighs. “No, you wouldn’t.”

“You’re not real,” the Sith accuses.

“I’m real in your nightmares,” Anakin snarks back. The Sith stares at him.

“Can you tell me what happened over the last two and a half decades?”

“Uh, I wasn’t born yet,” the other boy protests.

“Oh. Right, sorry.” He’s being so stupid. Or just plain rude. He’s just a little scared and confused right now, not that it’s a good excuse. “Sorry, I never asked your names.”

“I’m Ahsoka Tano,” the Togruta replies.

“Ezra Bridger,” the black-haired boy offers, though he’s still eyeing the Sith warily.

“And, uh, me?” he asks, looking at the towering black cyborg. Really, what happened there?

“Call me Darth Vader.”

“You changed your name?” Anakin asks, slightly accusingly. He doesn’t know if he’s more stunned or outright angry. Their mother gave them their name. How could one of them change it? He knows how sacred that name is to them, the Skywalker name, and how it’s the only tie they have to their mother. This… other-him must know, too.

Yeah, he’s a little bit angry.

“When I embraced the Dark Side, my master gave me a new name.”

“Your master?” Anakin demands, stepping forwards, “You’re Sith master? Or is it your slave master?”

Vader prickles. “I am not –”

“Really?” he demands, crossing his arms. “So you just woke up one day and decided to be evil, to walk all over everything our mother taught us? That Obi-Wan taught us? Qui-Gon didn’t free us from slavery, give us a life, so you could join the Sith.” Maybe he’s being a bit, uh, harsh, but he’s not overly appreciative of another version of himself doing something like this either. He’s got a right to be angry.

“The Jedi are not the good they pretend to be.”

“The Sith killed Qui-Gon. That’s all I need to know,” Anakin retaliates.

“Those were the actions of only one Sith, not all,” Vader objects, but it sounds like a pathetic excuse and Anakin’s pretty sure he knows that too.

“Considering that all Sith are part of the same lineage, that’s not really true.” Anakin crosses his arms, staring up at Vader’s mask. “So are you really going to deny that you’re his slave?”

Vader stares back stubbornly. “Yes.”

Seriously, what happened to him that made him do this? Anakin doesn’t know if this reality is the same as his or not but he can’t imagine how a Sith could get ahold of him and… enslave him again.

Also, this argument is becoming annoying. “You’re spooking the galaxy just because it’s funny, then?”

“I’m bringing order,” he defends.

“All the Empire has done is hurt everyone,” Ahsoka speaks up, arms crossed. She’s radiating a distinct amount of hurt and anger into the Force.

Vader slowly turns to look at her. 

“What Empire?” Anakin nearly yelps.

“The Republic was turned into an Empire. Lead by the Sith Master,” Ahsoka replies bitterly.

“And this Empire is even worse than the Republic?”

Ahsoka’s “yes” rings over Vader’s “no.” They both pause, looking at each other again.

“The corruption of the Empire is merely more visible in some ways,” Vader says grudgingly.

“Then what’s the point of having an Empire?” Anakin objects, “If the Emperor has the power to actually make a difference but is too lazy to do it?”

“I would not describe the emperor as lazy,” Vader says, sounding positively scandalized.

“Does a selfish slaver sound more appropriate then?” Because if the Empire isn’t any better and it’s not out of sheer incompetence, then it’s obviously for some other intentional reason.

Vader is quiet.

“You can come with us,” Ahsoka speaks up, “This is against everything you taught me.”

“I am no longer Anakin Skywalker,” he replies quietly, but he seems more subdued now.

“Thankfully,” Anakin pipes up, “Because I don’t want to be like this when I grow up.”

“I believe you will be far more vexing.”

“That’s good. And we’re also off topic.”

“If you would join me, the Emperor will show you mercy,” Vader says.

Anakin’s only half certain who he’s talking to. He also doesn’t care to consider such an offer. “Why would I want to live on the mercies of a Sith?” He draws his lightsaber, even if he’s only half sure what he’s about to do with it.

“Because if you do not, then you will die.” It’s not worded as a threat. It sounds more like a statement of fact. It also confirms that his older-self is an idiot.

“Why don’t we find out?” Anakin throws back and jumps at him.

He’s only half sure what he’s trying to do anyway because it would be very awkward to actually hurt himself and he doesn’t really want to either but he is Not Happy with him.

Vader swings up his lightsaber to block him and they rapidly exchange blows.

Vader is insanely strong, though. Honestly. He shouldn’t be able to use this much force as he fights.

Not unless –

Anakin thought the fancy armor was some kind of intimidation-something. Not that there might be something more to it.Not that he has the time to think about much of anything other than trying to catch his breath.

He thinks Ahsoka’s saying something in sheer exasperation but he’s not sure.

He doesn’t stop thinking about it either until he suddenly senses a sharp flare of danger in the Force. A purplish rush of energy explodes from the lightning crackling out across the Sith Temple. The floor beneath them shudders suddenly and then the doors to the Temple start closing.

Looking around, he sees Ezra and someone else with a mask over their eyes, making for the exit, holding some kind of holocron.

Vader lifts a hand, trying to yank it away.

Anakin Force-shoves him back and he skids a few steps backwards, dropping his hold, and Force-shoves Anakin towards the opening.

Anakin catches himself, rolling back to his feet. “Thanks for the fast exit. I think we all need to get out before that thing blows.”

The floor rumbles more violently beneath them.

The explosion is imminent now.

Everyone runs.

Anakin didn’t know Vader even could move that fast but they make it outside of the building  right before the entire thing explodes, in a flash of blinding electric energy. The Temple is collapsing on itself now but at least they’re not in there anymore. For a long moment, no one moves or speaks.

A bird crows far overhead and Anakin looks up. It feels of a strange light that he doesn’t really understand.

Vader is staring at it for a long time.

“So are you coming?” Anakin asks.

“Why would you think I would do that?”

“To prove that you can make your own choices?”

“And perhaps I am choosing to stop the spread of this chaos.”

“That’s what we’re trying to do,” Ahsoka argues, “If Sidious was really going to help, he would have done that long ago.”

“The Rebellion is only making masters worse.”

“Well then, if you both worked together, it sounds like we could end this a lot faster and get rid of your master, right?” Anakin asks. “Unless that’s not a choice you can make.”

It’s not hard for Anakin to sense the sheer fear Vader is radiating. He’s obviously considering this. He feels like a black hole in the Force, and he radiates a lot of dark emotions, but fear is unquestionably the strongest.

He doesn’t just fear Sidious. He’s terrified of him.

Anakin’s not sure he wants to know why. He never even feared Watto nearly this much.

If the first slave he ever gets to free in his time as a Jedi is himself, it’s going to be really awkward but at least he’d be able to free someone – even if said someone is very stubborn about it. He’s known of slaves who are like that before too, though. Heard of them, at least.

“And I don’t want to leave you again,” Ahsoka says.

Vader turns to look at her silently.

It hits Anakin then that he actually has a lot of questions about their relationship. They’re clearly family on some level. “I think I forgot to ask who you are.”

“I was… his padawan,” Ahsoka replies.

“I had a padawan?” Anakin asks, a bit incredulous.

She nods, gaze darting between them and Vader.

“I will come,” Vader decides finally, “You may not be wrong – my master hasn’t done as he promised.”

Seriously?

Saying something snippy would probably be at risk of changing his mind. And besides – he can understand on some level, how hard of a decision this would be to make. “Don’t worry,” Anakin offers, “We won’t let your master get to you.”

“I am not worried.”

No, he’s actually terrified.

Anakin chooses not to so bluntly point that out in front of everyone. He can feel their connection vibrating in the back of his mind. It feels like a mirror of himself, except it’s dark.

“Are you sure about this?” the man who’s with Ezra asks, looking to Ahsoka. Why is he wearing that mask over his eyes? Is he blind? Anakin can feel his pain flickering into the Force. He was obviously recently injured, and he doesn’t actually see a visible injury elsewhere. “Taking him to our base?”

“I have no intentions of harming you,” Vader replies.

“That’s reassuring,” Anakin offers cheerfully because he doesn’t think that did anything to ease the other Jedi’s minds. Though he does think Vader is telling the truth.

Vader ignores him entirely.

“So you’re just gonna join the Rebellion? Just like that?” Ezra asks, a bit dubiously.

“I am not joining the Rebellion. I am merely attempting to stop the Emperor.”

“It’ll be fine,” Ahsoka replies slowly, looking between them, “That’s why most of us joined the Rebellion at first. Come on. We should get off this planet.”

***

And that’s how they end up in the back of a small ship called the Phantom. Anakin ends up sitting next to Vader, with Ahsoka across from him and Ezra and Kanan next to them. Ezra seems quiet and broody and he’s leaning a little against Kanan, though he seems a bit too rigid to actually relax.

Not that Anakin blames him.

All anyone is doing is staring at each other, with nothing but Vader’s respirator filling the silence. Why does he wear that thing, anyway? What happened to him? What made him nearly die?

Chopper, the droid that flew them into hyperspace, comes rolling to the back, beeping and swiveling his done wildly.

“Yeah, he’s coming with us back to the Rebellion, Chop,” Ezra says.

The droid beeps, zooming up to Vader and sticking out his electric probe, attempting to shock him.

Vader Force-shoves the droid across the room with barely a flick of his hand. But Anakin feels the way his fear suddenly ups a notch.

He’s jittery about electricity.

Anakin’s not sure he wants to know why.

Chopper tries to fly at him, literally.

Vader catches him midair, shoving back on him.

Chopper tries to push back against him, with all the power of his boosters.

Are they having a push and shove fight mid-air? “Are you having a pushing contest with a droid?” Anakin asks finally.

“Tell your foolish droid to behave,” Vader grumbles.

“Uhh, that’ll just make him do the opposite,” Ezra says.

Vader shoves Chopper the rest of the way cross the hold, dropping him to the floor.

The droid beeps rudely at him but settles into place.

Though Anakin’s not sure if he’s the only one who notices how he keeps very discreetly rolling closer and closer.

 It’s hard to sense intentions on a droid.

But then the droid zips the rest of the way up to Vader, attempting to hit him with its electric prod again.

He actually gets close enough that Vader probably did get zapped. He shoves him back again, a wild rush of panic and anger flickering through the bond they’re rapidly forming.

There’s something about this that his him very touchy and it’s not amusing. Considering he’s a slave and Sith hurt others simply for the sake of it sometimes, it’s not hard to guess.

“That’s enough, Chopper,” Anakin says, leaning forwards.

The droid beeps rudely at him.

“I mean it. Or I will reprogram you.”

The droid lifts its tiny arms in surrender and with a few indignant beeps, it rolls away to the front of the ship.

“Hey, how can you get him to stop zapping everyone and nothing I say ever does?” Ezra whines.

“Maybe you need to be more creative,” Anakin tells him dryly with an evil little smirk.

He might appreciate Chopper’s personality a little more if not for how he was treating Vader.

The rest of the trip passes in a relative, tense silence. Anakin can tell Ahsoka is buzzing with things to say, but she also doesn’t really seem to be ready to talk. Vader’s barely twitched at all. Mostly, Anakin all can feel is his fear.

Ezra just seems miserable, and Kanan seems to be feeling similarly withdrawn. Whatever happened to them on Malachor seems to have shaken them as deeply as Anakin. And he is a bit shaken up, just he’s used to unusual situations. Being dumped into the future really isn’t so bad.

And Anakin… has actually no idea what he’s going to do now. He never really thought about it until right now. Is there a way to get back to his time? That’s what he ought to be doing, right? Being a Jedi means helping whoever he can on the way, though. And honestly, this is a fun adventure that he’s not sure he’s quite ready to be over with yet.

He doesn’t know what happened to Obi-Wan, though. Why wasn’t he transported here? It felt like everything was falling, like his entire time was fading away after whatever he had done when he touched the holocron. He doesn’t know that, though.

It’s not a possibility he’s ready to consider yet. He is not going to think about Obi-Wan being dead. He can’t imagine a life without his master. He’s been the only continual figure in his life for years, aside from Palpatine, who is apparently… evil?

So, maybe it’s a good thing that listening to Vader’s breathing is making it hard for him to think about anything else.

***

“Let me explain the situation before you come off,” Ahsoka requests, as the shuttle lands.

“No one will recognize me,” Vader replies, “But as you wish.”

Chopper streaks off the ramp first, clearly intent on staying as far away from Anakin as possible.

Anakin eagerly follows Ahsoka off the ramp, with Ezra and Kanan close behind.

There’s several people waiting for them. An older man in some kind of armor, a green Twi’lek, and a Mandalorian girl with bright aqua hair. And a Lasat, towering over the others in the very back.

“Commander,” the man greets, speaking to Ahsoka, “You made it back.”

“Did you expect something else?” she asks, smiling lightly at him but it quickly fades to something tight again. “But there’s… something I need to tell you.”

The Twi’lek moves forwards as they’re talking, going over to Kanan and wordlessly pulling him into a hug. “Ezra, are you alright?” she asks.

He nods, expression downcast.

The Twi’lek leads Kanan away as the Mandalorian comes over to them.

“Wow. Where’d you pick up another Jedi from?” she asks, eyeing Anakin.

“The past,” Anakin says cheerfully, waving. “Hi.”

“Very funny,” the girl replies dryly.

“Hey, it’s actually true,” Ezra insists, “We were on Malachor and then he just appeared out of nowhere, saying he was Anakin Skywalker.”

Her eyebrows raise. “The guy who’s holograms you use for lightsaber practice?”

“The one and only – well, there’s actually two of them now.”

“It’s best not to question it,” Anakin snips, “It doesn’t make sense to anyone but the Force.” And wait, Ezra uses a holocron of him for lightsaber practice? He thought he was an evil Sith or something? What in the galaxy happened?

She laughs. “Well, nice to meet you I guess. I’m Sabine Wren.”

He nods, smiling back. “But one question – why would you use a hologram of me for lightsaber training?”

“Well, Kanan looked up to you a lot,” Ezra offers.

Him?

“I’m honored. But I’m not sure I’m qualified for that yet.” Though, this version of him has to be quite old to have trained a padawan who’s so old, so…

“What’s with the braid?” Sabine asks.

Anakin twists to look at it automatically, the braid swinging at his shoulder. “It’s a mark of Jedi padawans.”

“Ooh, I’ve been planning to ask you about it this whole time,” Ezra says, leaning closer to look at it, “Kanan mentioned them, but I never thought I’d get to see what they looked like.”

“Now I’m picturing you with a braid,” Sabine says dryly.

“Why? What would be wrong with that?” Ezra protests.

“Well, for one, it would be very pullable.”

He tries to elbow her and she dodges out of his way, cackling.

“Why don’t you have one?” Anakin asks.

“Empire,” Ezra replies, “We have to hide we’re Jedi. That’s why I made my lightsaber look more like a blaster or – at least I did until it got chopped in half.”

“How’d that happen?”

“I got in a fight with the other you.”

“You – what?” Sabine asks, sounding totally baffled.

As if on cue, Vader appears in the doorway of the ship. Ahsoka and Rex have migrated to the bottom of the ramp, waiting for him.

Sabine freezes. “What’s he doing here?”

“He uhh… kind of switched allegiances?” Ezra offers.

“He came here just to prove me wrong when I said he wouldn’t,” Anakin replies.

Sabine watches, a bit disbelievingly. “Ezra, he’s not the one who hurt Kanan, is he?”

“No,” Ezra replies quietly, and Anakin senses his instant rush of misery and… guilt? “It wasn’t him. It was, uh, this… other guy we ran into on Malachor? We fought a bunch of Inquisitors, too. They’re all dead.”

“General,” Rex greets quietly, as Vader comes down the ramp.

Vader freezes, staring at him. “Rex.” The word comes out faint.

Who is Rex?

Anakin moves closer, listening.

“I didn’t know you were with the Empire,” he says finally.

“I never realized you were with the Rebellion.”

“Wasn’t much other place to go, with how the Empire was treating the clones.”

Clones?

“The Empire gave you a place to settle down in peace,” Vader objects, sounding maybe a little confused.

Rex smiles humorlessly. “That’s what they told everyone. But that isn’t what happened. They were experimenting on us. All those who were allegedly being sent away to live their lives were being imprisoned – I spent so long trying to free them and I was labeled a traitor for it.”

Vader is rigid. “I did not hear of this.”

“Well, that says a lot about what a great job this Sith master has been doing,” Anakin interjects.

“If he knew of this.”

“He knew,” Rex replies, “He was there.”

Anakin feels the first sharp prickle of rage from Vader. And betrayal. Rex clearly means a lot to him.

“My master will not escape with what he has done,” Vader vows.

That’s quite the change in attitude. Anakin’s fairly certain he’s missing a lot of context, though, for why Vader seems more protective over whatever these clones are than he does of the Jedi. He has like so many questions.

“I don’t know if now’s the time to interrupt,” Ahsoka pipes up, “But… Rex, this is the young Anakin I was telling you about.”

Rex turns to look at him.

“Hi,” Anakin chirps, for what has to be the third time today. “I have no idea who you are.”

Ahsoka and Rex both crack up.

“No one’s told you about the Clone Wars yet?” Rex asks.

“A war over cloning?” Anakin guesses.

“No. That’s just what they called them later. Though I can’t say why the war was named after us when we were fighting droids who started the war.”

“They should probably have called it the Droid Wars then.” Honestly, what a stupid name. 

“I agree,” Rex replies, a bit dryly, “But as I was saying, you were my general during the war. I was the captain – Ahsoka was your commander and padawan.”

“Why are you called clones?”

“There are billions of them. All clones of the same genetic donor,” Vader replies.

“…Impressive. Most impressive. How could someone have cared for so many children?” Anakin asks.

“He gave them all up for adoption,” Vader replies seriously, “To die in a war.”

Um. Wow. “Must have been some dad,” Anakin says, looking to Rex.

“I never actually met him,” Rex responds. He doesn’t seem overly bothered, but Anakin can’t tell if that’s genuine or not. He doesn’t know how it couldn’t be. The Jedi in the Temple always acted indifferent about the fact that they never met their parents, but Anakin knows what his own mother meant to him, and he’s never been able to understand how it’s possible. It was so, so hard for him to be without her, especially at first.

“Well… I guess you have a lot of brothers to make up for it,” Anakin offers finally.

“Believe me, it did,” Rex replies, though a certain longing to his expression.

“Maybe we can talk later,” Ahsoka suggests, even if she seems reluctant, “We need to talk to rebel command. You might as well have a look around while we’re here.”

“We can show you around,” Sabine offers, coming over as the others walk away.

“Starting with the sensors,” Ezra says, pointing as they lead him towards the end of the camp, “Don’t go out past those without a sensor.”

Anakin looks out at the desert like landscape beyond, and at the enormous white creatures wandering around. “Are those spiders?”

“Huge ones,” Sabine replies, “And they will try to eat you. They nearly ate Rex.”

“Ever tried connecting with them with the Force?”

“It doesn’t work,” Ezara grumbles.

Anakin lifts a hand, trying to focus on the mind of one o f the creatures. But this has never been something he’s good at and it only ends with the thing hissing at him before walking away. Because apparently, enormous spiders can hiss. Ugh. Add it to the reasons not to like bugs.

“Told you,” Ezra says.

“Well, I’ve never been very good at it,” Anakin offers sheepishly, “But I haven’t seen an animal that didn’t work on before.”

“Well, it might be your first time,” Sabine offers, “Come on. We have a lot more area to cover.” 

Chapter Text

The meeting with rebel command apparently went well, since Vader’s wandering free now. It’s the next day when they’re both outside together that Anakin senses something stirring in the Force. The planet does feel bright in it, but he never realized how much until right now. It feels like something reaching for him from afar, but it doesn’t feel entirely human. It’s something calling to him. A Force-presence. A bright one.

“Do you feel that?” Anakin asks, looking to Vader.

“There is a great disturbance in the Force,” Vader agrees, “It calls for us.”

“I don’t suppose it’s the queen spider hoping to eat us?”

“It might find you tasty. Not me.”

“How reassuring.”

They take a sensor when they get out together, despite Vader’s insistence that the power of a machine is insignificant compared to the power of the Force. Which Anakin agrees with, but they don’t need to deal with that when they’re trying to find the source of the disturbance.

“Stop crowding me,” Anakin grumbles, as they streak across the rocky ground on a speeder who’s engine sounds like it’s about to die. Either because it’s junk or because of Vader’s weight. He still wants to know what happened to him but it doesn’t feel very sensitive to ask.

“You are the one who insisted on driving,” Vader replies from over his shoulder.

“If I sat behind you, I’d probably flip right off.”

“It sounds as if you do not realize you are about to flip off over the front.”

“Thanks to you.”

Vader’s reply is cut off as they fly over another dip in the rocks and then something in front of them moves. For a moment, Anakin half thinks it’s some kind of rockslide, but then he realizes it’s something else entirely. The creature rises to its full height, towering over both of them.

They swing off the speeders together, approaching the creature. It doesn’t feel dangerous. It feels sentient, but also something other. It’s a living being, but also one unlike anything Anakin has ever seen before. And it feels powerful.

“Who are you?” Vader asks.

“I am the Bendu,” he replies, “The one in the middle.”

“Why did you call us?” Anakin asks, frowning. This is a being of the Force, isn’t it? That’s why he feels so strange. Bright in the Force, but gray. Neither Light nor Dark. He’s never felt anything like it before.

“You are two separate people yet you share the same soul. What are you called?” Bendu asks.

“Anakin Skywalker,” he offers.

“Darth Vader, Lord of the Sith,” Vader replies.

“You are the same – one Light and one Dark,” Bendu muses, studying him. “I see the connection now that you are here.”

“Yeah, I guess. It’s kind of weird,” Anakin supplies.

“What are you?” Vader inquires, “You say you are the one in the middle. I met a being of the Force like that once. He was called the Father.”

“The Ones of Mortis,” Bendu agrees like any of these words belong in the same sentence, “I saw back in the days when they still roamed the galaxy, yet. But unlike them, my role has never been to be involved. I simply watch.”

“Why did the Force bring him here?” Vader asks, jabbing a finger at Anakin.

“Why, I cannot say. But with Anakin Skywalker’s reality gone, he had nowhere else to go, Dark Vader, Lord of the Sith.”

Anakin thinks it’s the first time the real enormity of what happened is starting to settle over him. “My reality is gone?”

“It has been destroyed. Now that you are here, I can sense it. There is no other place for you now.”

That means…

He’s not ready to think about what it means.  His mother and Obi-Wan can’t be…gone.

“But so long as you are here, you will be forever in a balance with one another. One light and one dark, unless you meet in the middle as gray.”

“Well, I’m a Jedi, so I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

“And I am a Sith,” Vader agrees fiercely.

“Your paths will be as the Force determines,” Bendu offers cryptically.

“Is there anything else you can tell us about that?” Anakin asks.

“Will we succeed at eliminating my master?” Vader adds. He’s afraid. Anakin can feel it again clearly. He somehow always fails to realize how much. What caused that fear, he still has never gotten answers of, and he knows it’s no doubt too personal for him to be able to explain, or be willing to speak of. Just like their time in slavery on Tatooine. How did he end up right back where he started?

“Time can only be lived forwards. What has not yet been lived cannot be revealed.”

Vader deflates a bit at the answer.

Well, that’s fair, but Anakin still wishes there was something more they could know. But either way, it was interesting meeting a being of the Force.

***

“I think I’m stuck here,” Anakin says, when he runs into Ahsoka back at the base. It still doesn’t feel real or possible. He has to be able to see Obi-Wan and his mom again, right? They can’t just be gone.

“Are you?” Ahsoka asks, looking a little startled. She’s studying him with something wistful in her eyes. “Why do you think that?”

“It’s what a being of the Force told me. He… believes my reality is gone.”

“Oh.” Her gaze softens. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Well, it’s cool meeting my would-be future padawan,” Anakin offers, studying her.

She smiles faintly. “Never thought I would see you as a child, either.”

“When did we meet?”

“You were twenty. I was fourteen and about half your size.” He can feel her longing, flaring into the Force.

“Are you okay?” Anakin asks.

She crosses her arms. “It’s just different seeing you again. And seeing… my own version of you again. I haven’t seen him in so long. And then I found out he was a Sith.”

“I guess that would be hard,” Anakin says quietly. He can’t imagine suddenly running into a version of Obi-Wan who’s a Sith. That isn’t going to happen to him, right? “But… if it means anything, I think he still cares about you. If he doesn’t, then he’s an idiot.” Though he knows that’s not even an if. It’s obvious to see on Vader, even if things seem complicated.

“It’s just… hard. I have to say, I’m glad to have the chance to get to meet you.”

Anakin smiles a bit shyly up at her. “I can tell you the same.” He barely knows her but he still cares about her. Maybe it’s because Vader does. Maybe it’s because he knows what she apparently was to him – that she would have been his family. “But I don’t know what I’m going to do if I am stuck here. Or even if I’m not, can I stay with you?”

“Well, I’m all over the place a lot, often on solo missions. You might want to stay around the Ghost crew, too. Rex spends a lot of time with them also.”

Anakin perks up. “Well, it’s been kinda fun to meet them.”

“I’ll talk to Hera,” Ahsoka offers, “I’m sure she wouldn’t mind giving you a room on the Ghost.”

“Thank you,” Anakin tells her, “But… what about my Jedi training? I think I should at least learn something while I’m here.” There has to be some way back, right? Bendu should know what he’s talking about, though. Anakin’s not ready to think about that.

“There’s not many Jedi left,” Ahsoka says, “Most of those who are have to find their own path.”

“Well, there’s you,” Anakin offers, “Wouldn’t it be weird if my padawan taught me some things?” He doesn’t really want to ask Ahsoka to take over his training, because she’s not Obi-Wan, but it’s not like they have a choice is it? He does need to keep learning. That doesn’t mean she has to be his master the same way.

Ahsoka laughs. “It would be. But I’m not a Jedi anymore.”

“What? You’re not?”

“I… left. It’s a long story.”

“I was gonna leave the Order once, too,” Anakin points out. Years ago, when he thought he’d be able to help that way much better, “What happened?”

“The Jedi fought in the Clone Wars. It… was never what I trained to be or thought I would have to do as a padawan. Instead of helping people, it felt like all we were doing was spreading death and destruction. And then I was framed for bombing the Temple. The Council expelled me, and afterwards I didn’t want to come back. I wanted to find balance on my own and… then I never had the chance.”

That’s… a lot. “They didn’t know you were innocent?” He knows the Council can make mistakes. He just can’t quite imagine them doing something like this. But apparently, they did.

“They didn’t. I would say I really lost faith in people after that.”

“I get that,” Anakin tells her quietly. But then perks up. “But… maybe that’s more a reason you could teach me something. I’ve never been an ordinary Jedi either.”

Ahsoka laughs softly. “Believe me, I know. Why don’t we see?”

Anakin nods.

It’s not like she’s actually taking him as a padawan. He’s Obi-Wan’s and that’s not going to change but… He’d be happy to learn something from Ahsoka if she’s interested in it.

***

The Ghost crew does agree to give Anakin a room on the Ghost. It was really Hera’s idea to give him the other bunk in Sabine’s room –

“I won’t get in your way,” Anakin says cheerfully, as Sabine very grudgingly takes him into my room.

“I’m not sure that’s possible,” Sabine snips back, though she doesn’t seem that annoyed.

Anakin looks around the very colorful room. It’s mostly pink, but with a lot of other brilliant colors, too. “Impressive,” he supplies, “Most impressive.”

“Well, I’ve spent a lot of time on it,” she replies a grin.

She must be quite the painter. Probably why she has bright aqua hair that Anakin keeps staring at though he’s trying not to be rude.

“I’ll try not to get in your way,” Anakin promises.

“Don’t worry,” she assures, “Just don’t mess up my painting supplies and it’ll be fine.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he replies dryly. But really, he gets that because he wouldn’t want people messing around with his mechanical messes either.

They have to make a few adjustments to get him settled in. She’d converted her lower bunk to something else, so they have to change it back.

Sabine has the upper bunk and Anakin takes the lower one.

He’s shared close quarters with others before, mostly on missions, and before that, sometimes with his mother on Tatooine. It’s not that unusual. Though it’s a bit different to be doing that with someone who isn’t a Jedi and who he only met a couple days ago.

He awakens the next morning before dawn, moving around silently to prepare for the day before he settles in the middle of the floor, doing his usual meditation session. The Force here is so dark. It’s starting to feel more real how this isn’t his time and is Bendu really right there’s no way back?

Anakin senses it when Sabine starts moving around behind him so he ends ups meditation session as quickly as he can. Feeling all the chaos and death is a bit hard anyway.

“Didn’t you just do that last night?” Sabine asks, eyeing him.

“Yeah. We normally do it at least twice a day.”

Her eyebrows raise. “Since when? I hardly ever see Ezra meditating.”

“Well, maybe he doesn’t have the patience,” Anakin offers a bit dryly, “I never used too when I was a child, either. My master made me get into the habit.” And honestly, it’s a good way of trying to reacquaint himself with the strange shift in the Force. Everything feels different now, and he hates it, but he has to get used to it somehow.

She laughs. “He doesn’t. But Kanan doesn’t meditate that much either.”

“Maybe things changed after the Order fell.” If the Jedi have to hide what they are and are constantly on the run, it would make sense. It’s hard to imagine the galaxy could even come to this. He definitely doesn’t like this future.

“Seems like a lot of things changed,” Sabine muses, “Back then, I don’t think a Mandalorian would think about living with Jedi.”

Anakin grins back at her. “Probably not.” He’s heard about the rivalry between them, though he doesn’t know much about it personally. Obi-Wan would know more than him, and his master isn’t here for him to ask him about it anymore. Not like he normally would. He tries not to think about that too hard, but he knows Obi-Wan went to Mandalore for a while way back as a padawan with Qui-Gon. He’s still curious about the planet. It sounds like fun.

They leave her room together, to see Hera and Zeb already moving around the ship, preparing for the day. It’s almost weird to be right here in the middle of their family but they don’t seem to mind.

Ezra comes out later. He hardly says anything to the others. He seems… withdrawn.

Subdued.

Something is weighing on him. Anakin doesn’t know what it is but he doesn’t know that now is the time to ask either. Kanan did just get blinded. It’s not hard to see why Ezra would be struggling. Even if he thinks it might be something more. He would ask, but he’s not really sure if it’s considered his business just yet. Though he swears he can feel something dark aboard the ship, something other than Vader, and it has him wary.

***

Anakin finds Kanan seated at the edge of the rebel base, alone. He’s meditating, but Anakin is far more under the impression that he’s straight up brooding considering he’s radiating such darkness into the Force. Probably not a good time, but if he needs help, well, he’s not gonna ask. That’s the one thing he’s learned about the Jedi so far.

He’s survived a lot.

“Mind if I join?” Anakin asks, slowly approaching.

The Jedi Knight sighs. “No.”

He gets a bit of the feeling that that’s not the full truth, but he doesn’t call the Jedi out on it, instead kneeling beside him at the encampment’s edge. He thinks about Bendu again, but the creature is different and it’s best not to tell Kanan about it. He didn’t want to get dragged into this mess.

Kanan lost his sight. Anakin has seen people who are blind before, and you can get mechanicalized eyes, but it’s not the same. A few of the people he’d known have them, and they were never exactly… it was always hard to get them properly wired into someone’s brain, and while technology is more advanced now, but the rebellion has very limited technology and resources here.

Anakin’s never lost a piece of himself, either, so he has no idea what to tell the Jedi.

“Company?” he asks finally.

“Do you need something, kid?” Kanan asks.

“Nope. I just thought I’d hang out here a bit.” He hesitates, fumbling, ridiculously awkward. He doesn’t know what to say to him that could make it better. “You know, as a Jedi, we don’t need our eyes to see.”

Kanan scoffs. “Yeah. Easy to say ‘til you lose them.”

Anakin sighs. He’s so, so awkward with people. “Sorry, I – I’ve never had to deal with anything like this. Yeah, I’ve lost a lot. But I’ve never lost a part of myself before. I don’t know what to do. But I guess we just live with what we have.”

He’s still angry that Maul is alive. Obi-Wan was supposed to have killed him. He doesn’t know what happened. Not that it helps Kanan.

“I mean, my, uh, older self clearly lost like half of himself, and he’s still alive.”

“He’s not what I would use as a role-model.”

“Trust me, I’m not.”

“He might be here now, but that doesn’t mean I trust him.”

“That’s good. You shouldn’t. He is a Sith.” He and Vader are probably never going to stop bickering. Hard not to argue all the time with another, evil version of yourself around. “But I still don’t understand how this happened.”

Kanan sighs. “None of us do. The clones turned on the Jedi. I went in hiding, on the run for years until I met Hera and our crew came together.”

“I don’t even know what the clones are,” Anakin points out, “I’m from a few years before the war even started. I still don’t understand how there could be a war. I thought that’s what the Jedi are supposed to prevent.”

“It was. But we didn’t have much choice,” Kanan replies. “When the Separatists and Count Dooku were mounting for an attack, we had to prepare as well. The clones showed up just on time, and they’re not all bad, though they still…”

Anakin winces at the grief he feels. He doesn’t ask, but he already understands it. Everyone Kanan knew for the most part was killed by the clones. The grief of that would be overwhelming. He lost his entire life. Anakin can’t blame him for being twitchy towards the clones.

He is, too. He really doesn’t understand what happened, how things could’ve fallen to the point they did or what it even means. How can the Jedi be leading an army into battle? It doesn’t make any sense. He certainly never wanted to get dragged into this. He can’t imagine it. They’re not warriors. While he might like some of that action a little more than being a normal Jedi, he can’t imagine actually living in battle. It’s… well, it’d be hard. He and Obi-Wan have dealt with interplanetary civil wars before.

He knows a bit about war, and he’s seen so, so many planets – like Kolara’s – that have been decimated by war. It’s awful to see the aftermath, the numbers who fall in it, everyone who just… died. The death and chaos, it’s hard. It’s hard to feel the smothering death in the air. He can never explain to anyone how much it hurts, how it always feels like he’s burning from the inside out, a sort of pain he can never escape or explain.

But it hurts.

Death always hurts.

He gets numb to it after a while, but…

It’s always like an itching, ever-present wound.

“I’m so sorry,” Anakin murmurs, lowering his head. Whatever’s going on with Kanan and the clones, it’s clearly a really hard, messy thing. Something he can’t really imagine.

Kanan sighs. He feels exhausted in the Force, and looks drained even with Anakin’s own eyes. One thing’s for sure – he’s getting a whole new appreciation for sight. “Yeah, it was really messy. I tried to stay on the run for a long time after the Empire, but eventually I realized with my abilities, I couldn’t hide and let the world burn down around me when I could do something to stop it.”

“That’s what lead you to the rebellion?”

“It’s a little more complicated than that. Hera was the only one who knew about the rebellion at first. She had contact with Ahsoka, who set up this whole thing.” Anakin doesn’t know her, and he’s not the one who trained her, but he’s still proud. He must have done it well. “At first we were just trying to help the poor being hurt by the Empire, but then things started getting out of hand, and we got into a tight spot. Chop called in the rest of the rebellion to pull us out. I wasn’t really happy about it at first. It’s more military than anything else. But we got more a chance against the Empire here than anywhere else. Ezra hasn’t gotten to go back to his home planet for months. “

To have a home, Anakin can’t imagine, but he –

He’s never going to get to go back to the Temple.

That comes at him like a slap in the face, and he sighs tiredly. He’s – if he can’t get home, he’s never going to go home again. He’s never going to get to go back to the Temple or be a normal Jedi. He needs to… figure out where to go form here, and for the first time in his life, he has no one to give him orders.

“How did you know what to do or where to go?” Anakin finally blurts.

“Got used to it after a while. I knew of a planet to lay low my master and I were talking about right before the order came out.”

He knows what the Jedi’s role is, but trying to find –

How many of the people he used to know and remembers are still alive? “Have you heard from Master Kenobi?” He’s terrified to know the answer, but he has to ask.

“No. We know he survived the initial attack, but he disappeared right afterwards, and no one’s heard from him since.”

Either he’s really good at hiding – what a joke – or…

He’s probably gone.

Anakin looks away, quiet. “How many people have been after us? I heard something about Inquisitors.”

“We really don’t know, but we’ve ran into four Inquisitors so far. All of them are dead, and Vader’s been… since taken care of.”

“I was fighting Jedi?” Anakin doesn’t know what to think about Vader at all. He’s angry at him, but he must have had some sort of reason for doing this even if he’s completely off his rocker.

“Yeah, apparently you were.”

“’m sorry.” He rubs at his knee. “I don’t understand what’s happening here. It’s all so confusing.”

“I don’t think it makes a lot of sense for anyone,” Kanan tells him dryly, and he’ll just have to leave it at that.

***

Kanan stays behind with Zeb and Sabine, and Hera drags along Vader, Anakin, and Ezra for their next mission. Chopper too, of course, and the menace is lingering like a menacing shadow. Anakin keeps an eye on him, and the droid luckily behaves himself other than squabbling with Ezra for a ridiculous length of time.

Anakin rolls his eyes at the idiots and keeps his own distance from the droid, trying not to bicker too much, and hang out a bit with Hera and Ezra. They’re both nice. Hera reminds him painfully of his own mother, and her kindness is something he’s been missing a lot. And Ezra is really hard not to like.

He doesn’t honestly remember how they brought up the boy’s parents, but Ezra tells him that his parents are dead, and Anakin suddenly realizes that he has no idea what happened to his mother. He could ask Vader if he knows, but he’s too afraid to. He already knows somewhere deep inside himself that he’s not going to see her again.

Everyone in the crew lost something important to the Empire. They lost… a lot. That’s what kept them together, what is fueling their eternal battle.

Anakin doesn’t know what to think about it all.

He never got a clear answer about Hera yet, but she seems a lot more closed off about it. It was bad, too, no doubt. She never talks about her family.

As for Vader, though, well, he’s and there’s where he is on the Ghost, in hyperspace, when He’s trying to meditate and shaking everything in the room by accident when Vader comes to poke at him. Rude.

“Do you need something other than a lightsaber blade?” Anain asks him sweetly.

“What use would I have for the blade without the hilt?” Vader inquires.

“Precisely.”

“I am fully capable of being a threat without a lightsaber.”

Anakin opens his eyes and looks his Sith-self up and down. He looks ridiculous. The lights on him – that actually hurts – but the ridiculous helmet and why is his visor red? “Then why did you think designing your helmet like a skull was a good idea?”

“My master designed it for intimidation.”

“And you just wear whatever nonsense he throws at you?”

“It is not like I had much choice when I was being assembled after Obi-Wan attempted to kill me,” he replies flatly.

Obi-Wan did that? That doesn’t sound right. “I wonder why he might have done that,” Anakin snarks. Vader’s helmet swivels towards him. “You are a very annoying person.”

“I cannot be as frustrating as you.”

“I take that as my most sincere pleasure.” Anakin smiles sweetly at him.

I don’t doubt that you do,” Vader retaliates.

“Are you serious?” Anakin demands finally, because Vader’s comment form before hasn’t been entirely lost on him even if he’s just confused. But really, he can feel a sudden wild surge of bitterness and anger and betrayal from Vader and that’s not fake. “That you and Obi-Wan fought?”

“He left me to die. Twice,” he replies, almost sharply. “There is nothing of your reality that you lost that you would not have lost regardless.”

Anakin hardly knows what it is. Maybe it’s the sheer intensity of emotion he can feel from Vader. The whispers of flames and lava and something he doesn’t understand, whips of a memory he doesn’t quite see and is glad he doesn’t but he can still feel the gutting emotion.

And all he can feel is an incredulous denial.

Vader has clearly made a lot of bad choices, but Anakin can never imagine Obi-Wan doing what he’s saying.

He swears he doesn’t mean to, but the Force just jumps on him, and a sudden bolt of lightning is suddenly jerking outwards around him in a violent storm, being sucked right into the ship on contact, and they jolt violently. The ship jolts violently, and something smells a little toasty. Uh oh.

Anakin lifts his head, looking up. “What was that?”

“You just used Force-lightning,” Vader points out.

“I can see that. I – I don’t know what happened.”

“I don’t know what just happened,” Hera calls from the cockpit. “We’ve been pulled out of hyperspace. The hyperdrive is damaged, and we’re gonna blow if someone doesn’t go out there to fix it fast.”

“Send him,” Anakin offers, pointing at Vader.

“I am actually capable of surviving in the vacuum of space,” the Sith offers.

“Wait, you are? Is that something else the Dark Side gives?”

“I have a respirator, and a completely sealed suit.”

“Oh.”

“Where did that energy blast come from?” Hera demands, arms crossed, eyeing them suspiciously.

“Him,” Vader offers, pointing at Anakin.

“What? No, it wasn’t –”

“You used Force-lightning.”

Hera facepalms. “You know what? I don’t want to hear it. Vader and Chopper, go outside and get the hyperdrive repaired.” She vanishes to the cockpit amidst the following shrieks.

Chapter Text

“How did you do that?” Ezra gushes, still hung up over whatever happened on the mission they were on. It started simple, and was supposed to be stealth, but then it went haywire and they had to storm an entire Imperial base. Which Anakin alone, somehow, did without being seen.

He doesn’t know what he did. He was trying to be hidden, and then he just… disappeared? “I don’t know. That’s a new one, too. I’m not good at stealth. Maybe the Force works differently here.” Or his Force abilities went wacko after Malachor. It’s hard to say. He did absorb some sort of energy, clearly.

“You accidentally made yourself invisible?” Ezra repeats.

“I swear I didn’t do it intentionally,” Anakin whines, “I honestly don’t know what I did.”

“Can you teach me how to do that?” Ezra asks his master.

“Yeah, from what I’m hearing, it sounds like a just-Anakin thing,” Kanan offers.

“What about Force lightning?” He sounds so excited, like that’s something cool, and Anakin facepalms.

“Force lightning is a Sith thing,” Ahsoka replies with veiled amusement, “That’s not a skill you can learn from us.”

“But… does that mean Anakin’s a Sith?”

“I blame Vader,” he gripes. “It’s his fault. I’m picking up on him, and he’s being very, very –”

The helmet turns to look at him.

“I’m not taking that back.”

***

Anakin doesn’t know why it took until now to truly sink in but it is now. He’s stuck here. There’s no going home. And even if he’s not trapped here forever, he certainly has no idea how to get back home. He doesn’t have his master or his mother anymore. And apparently, Obi-Wan hurt him? He doesn’t understand that. He’s scared to ask about it, truthfully. He doesn’t know that he wants those details.

And his mother…. He has the sinking feeling he’d regret asking about her too.

The ghost crew are friends and Ahsoka is probably going to be family when he actually knows her better but that doesn’t change who he’s lost. And now all he can feel is a gutting emptiness.

He’s outside at the outskirts of the camp, just… thinking really.

He thought this adventure was fun.

Maybe it still is.

But it’s also not the galaxy he wants to spend the rest of his life in.  Even if he doesn’t want to give up everyone he knows here either.

But that’s when Anakin suddenly senses something else.

It’s the Dark Side.

A cold prickling running down his spine, but it’s not his older-self. It’s something else. And it’s rapidly coming closer. 

The giant spiders still moving along the edge of the camp suddenly part and then Maul is stepping out from behind them, approaching the perimeter.

Anakin jerks to his feet instantly, hand going for his lightsaber. “What are you doing here?”

How is he even her? How could he even be here? Their base is secret for a reason. This doesn’t make sense.

“I have been searching for you, Skywalker,” Maul replies smoothly, nearing the fence. “And the Force led me here.”

“Is that supposed to flatter me?” The last time he saw this person was when he attacked Qui-Gon, and that was the last moment Anakin ever saw him. He doesn’t want to know what Maul is here for this time.

“You are lost in this universe, are you not?” he asks, lightly.

How does he know that either? “What makes you think that?” Anakin shoots back, “Maybe I’m Vader’s child.”

“I saw you on Malachor,” Maul replies, unimpressed, “And I know what Anakin Skywalker once felt like in the Force. You forget I remember more of that time than you.I’m here to present you with an offer. ”

“So am I. Tell me how you got here or I’m calling the entire rebellion down on you.” Vader is gone on a mission right now but Anakin actually really wishes he were here.

Maul just laughs, like there’s anything funny about that. “Would you really risk the bloodshed of countless in this base for nothing? I think not. And I must warn you, that if I do not leave this place, the location of your rebel base will be transmitted to the Empire.”

Anakin doesn’t think he’s bluffing. He tenses, eyes narrowing on him. “What do you want here?”

“I’m here for a proposal. If we combine a Jedi and Sith holocron, we will see answers to whatever we want. Think about it, Skywalker. An answer for you on how to get home? On how, perhaps, to win this war you’re fighting?”

Anakin hesitates.

He’s heard of such things being possible but it’s not something Jedi are ever supposed to do. But nothing of this galaxy is how Jedi are supposed to live. And all he wants right now is to get to go home. Or maybe to just – change something of this place. Make it more – he doesn’t even know. But the desperation is burning inside of him ceaselessly and he needs to find answers, but –

This comes with too many risks.

“We don’t even have such holocrons to begin with,” Anakin argues.

“I know Ezra still possesses the Sith holocron he took from Malachor. And I find it unlikely that you’re Jedi friends here don’t have a Jedi one.”

That’s probably true. And he can also guess easily enough that Maul is only making this offer because he needs someone to open the Jedi one.

“Even if that were true, why would I trust you?” Anakin asks, “And why would I ever want to help you like that?”

“It’s a fair exchange,” Maul replies evenly, “For us both to see what we desire most. And I did not come here to bargain on this.”

He’ll reveal the rebel location if Anakin doesn’t go with him, then.

It’s not really much of a choice. Maybe he can find a way to stop Maul while he’s with him. And maybe – maybe he will find some kind of answers for himself.

“Alright,” Anakin concedes, “But I can’t promise no one will find out about this when I go to get the holocrons. Or that I’ll even be able to get them.”

“You have an hour,” he replies casually, “I’m sure you’ll find a way.”

Anakin has never wanted to hit someone in the face with his lightsaber so badly in his life.

Probably.

Also, now would be a good time to remember how to be invisible.

“Make it fast,” Maul calls after him as Anakin turns to go, as though he didn’t already say that, “And I would not recommend scheming to betray me.”

“I can’t really betray you when we aren’t friends in the first place,” Anakin calls over his shoulder as he takes off, though antagonizing him probably isn’t the wisest of ideas right now. 

But he’s going to have to find a way to make this work and fast.

***

It’s not hard to sense the Sith holocron when Anakin’s trying - it leads him to Ezra’s room. He goes to knock on the door and he hears some shuffling around before Ezra opens it.

“Hey, you uhh… need something?” Ezra asks.

“This is going to sound strange but I need that Sith holocron,” Anakin says, glancing around to make sure no one’s listening to them. He’s certain no one else would approve but he doesn’t know of any other way.

“Why? What for?”

“It’s…” Fine. He may as well tell Ezra the truth. “For Maul. He’s here and – ”

“What?”

“And he’ll turn over the location of our base if I don’t go somewhere with him, but don’t worry, I’ll be right back.”

“Maul’s here?! Right now?!” Ezra demands.

“He said the Force showed him a vision. I don’t really have time to explain right now.”

“But what does he want with the holocron? We don’t even know what he could do with it.”

“He says combining a Jedi and Sith holocron will give us both answers on something we want to know. I want to know how we can save our galaxy and maybe how I can get home. I can find a way to stop Maul. I’m just gonna need you to cover for me.”

Ezra hesitates but then he caves. “Alright. I’ll do it. Kanan has a Jedi holocron. I guess you need that one?”

“Can you get it for me?” Anakin asks hopefully.

Ezra smiles conspiratorially at him. “Sure I can.”

It makes his heart ache for a moment, of memories of the fleeting friendships he’s had with other Jedi in the past that always fade in the end. But the same may not be true for Ezra, because he’s not an ordinary Jedi in the slightest. He’ll think on that later – and what it would mean if he did find a way to go home.

Right now, he needs to stop Maul.

***

Ezra does, in fact, get him the other holocron.

And Anakin just makes himself invisible and takes off out of the ship the moment he hears Kanan and Hera start asking questions. Hopefully, he can be gone before the others catch up.

They can’t risk the rebel base getting exposed because of him. 

The long trip through hyperspace in the same ship as Maul is unpleasant, to say the last. Anakin spends most of the time avoiding him, and brooding.

They come out of hyperspace over Dathomir and fly down for the surface. “Why does this place look so empty?” Anakin finally asks,

“Most of the Night sisters were wiped during the Clone Wars by the Separatists,” Maul answers shortly. “Because they would have been a threat to the Empire.” He brings the ship down outside a cave and Anakin follows him inside warily. It feels of darkness and nightsister magick in a way that makes his skin crawl. There’s something wrong here. Something’s not right.

There’s candles and various glowing balls all over the place. It’s unreasonably unsettling.

And beyond that, everything is an absolute mess.

“Nice place you have here,” Anakin says dryly.

“You Jedi are not the only ones Sidious hunts,” Maul retorts sharply.

“I wonder why that would be.” Okay, he knows he’s just being annoying now but he can only imagine the kind of things Maul’s doing. Something crime related, from what he gathered from the ghost crew.

Maul ignores the comment entirely. “These are relics of a time when my power was almost absolute.”

“I guess the thing about having power is that once you get it, you’ll always miss it when you lose it.”

Maul gives him a look. “And isn’t power what your rebellion is really after?”

Anakin shrugs. “I’m not into the politics. But I think you should clean up your home instead of going around invading other people’s.”

Maul ignores him again as he goes to the center of the room. “Don’t touch anything,” he warns, as Anakin scans the small space.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he mutters, coming to join him. Half the things here look spooky and like no one should be touching them.

Anakin and Maul settle on the floor across from each other, and Anakin focuses on the holocron in front of him, opening it as Maul does the same with the Sith holocron. They float together in the center of the room. A surge of energy ripples outwards, and then there’s a blinding flash of light.

For a moment, Anakin’s vision whites out and he tries to focus instantly on his questions.

On how to help this galaxy and how to find a way home.

He sees flashes and flickers of places.

But the one that stands out to him most of all is the brief flash of a far too familiar world, with twin suns and an endless desert.

Tatooine.

His answers are on Tatooine?

He senses Obi-Wan for a heartbeat and then everything is gone.

He can feel people coming suddenly, people who aren’t supposed to be here.

Vader, Ahsoka, and Sabine. They’re close. What are they doing here?

Anakin jerks back to himself, right as Maul is doing the same.

“I should have known,” Maul says, nearly laughing, “That it ends where it all began. On a desert with twin suns.”

What?

Why did he see the same thing?

Energy ripples outward as holocrons fall, and all of a sudden all the lights in the candles in the room go off and the glow in the balls fades. The cave is abruptly plunged into total darkness. Something cold and sinister runs through him. There’s something –

But Maul’s words stick out to him the most. “What do you want there?” Anakin demands, jerking to his feet.

“Kenobi will pay for what he has done to me.”

All this time and Maul was after Obi-Wan? “My master did nothing to you,” Anakin throws back fiercely. Maul’s the one who killed Qui-Gon.

The Sith whips towards him, eyes blazing. “He left me as a cyborg, left me to languish for over a decade. He will not escape with that.”

He’s a cyborg? Anakin can’t tell, though he doubts Maul is lying entirely. Is that what happened? Is that how he survived? Anakin never actually knew what happened in the duel – it’s not like he asked for the details of how it ended. It had never mattered, either, because Maul was dead, and he thought there was nothing to worry about. 

He’s about to throw a then maybe you shouldn’t have killed Qui-Gon but then a warning in the Force surges all around him, and the candles all around the room flicker with a wave of power rushing outwards, the flames flickering off. Something green and glowing surges out of some kind of altar at the front of the room. Three spirits? They don’t feel alive, but they also have a Force presence of sorts.

“What are those?” Anakin demands.

“The nightsisters want their dues for the use of their magick. Flesh and blood,” Maul replies, backing away.

“When were you using their magic?” Anakin demands, backing a few steps away warily. Was this a trap? Or did Maul lure him here to give him to these spirits?

“To ward this place so no one could enter until our use of the holocrons was complete,” Maul retaliates, “Don’t let them touch you.”

…Nice of him to tell him that now.

“Step away from him!” Ahsoka’s voice yells, and Anakin spins around as she, Sabine, and Vader run inside.

“Lady Tano, again?” Maul asks.

She glares at him.

“We meet at last, Maul,” Vader rumbles. He’s angry. A deep-running grief that has long turned to anger. It feels like it’s about more than just Qui-Gon.

“You will die here,” Maul warns, though he seems amused.

The spirits fly at them.

Anakin rolls out of the way, dodging it’s efforts to touch him.

Maul runs for the opening.

One of the spirits goes right at Sabine. Her eyes roll back in her head and she collapses. The spirit vanishes.

And then the other goes at Ahsoka – she tries to slash at it with her lightsaber but it comes at her from behind and then Ahsoka is falling to her knees on the floor, too. Their Force presences feel blurred over suddenly. One of them comes at Vader but he shakes it off. “My mind is too strong for your magick,” Vader says as the spirit straight-up hisses at him.

“Ahsoka!” Anakin calls, fear spiking, “Sabine?”

They slowly rise to their feet, but their heads are drooping and they’re moving zombie like. And then their eyes suddenly open, glowing green.

He sucks in a sharp breath.

He feels Vader stiffen next to them. He can feel his fear for Ahsoka pouring into the Force.

“Ahsoka?” Vader asks.

She suddenly draws her lightsabers, jumping at Vader and Sabine lunges at Anakin. He scrambles out of her way, rapidly retreating towards the cave entrance. He Force-shoves her a few feet back, baking the rest of the way outside.

Maul is just leaving. Anakin sees his retreating form heading for his ship and Anakin bolts after, drawing his lightsaber as he jumps at him. Maul whips around, swinging up a blade to block them. “What did you do to them?” Anakin demands.

“I have done nothing” Maul snaps back, shoving against him. “This is the spirits’ doing.”

“You still caused it. You have to know how to break it.”

“It cannot be broken.”

Their blades clash in a saberlock, Anakin straining against him.

“But you can come with me. Embrace the Dark Side. It will give you the power you seek.”

“You’re insane.”

Is Maul seriously thinking Anakin would ever think of joining him after what he did?

Anakin lashes at him again and then Maul swings downwards. The blade nearly runs right through him and when he dodges, it’s for Maul’s lightsaber to slash his hilt in half, nearly taking off his hand.

“They won’t go beyond the cave opening,” is all Maul says and then he’s taking off for the waiting ship.

Anakin drops the sparking pieces of his lightsaber into the ground.

He can’t believe he’s losing it again.

Anakin spends only a moment debating if he should give chase after Maul or not. He runs back for the cave instead.

To see that Sabine and Ahsoka retreating back into the darkness of the cave and Vader is standing outside. “They will not come out,” he observes.

“Then that’s the way to free them,” Anakin urges, “We have to make them come out. Come on.”

Vader nods to him and they enter together.

“You should not have returned to our dwelling,” Sabine hisses, dropping down from the cave ceiling right in front of them.

“Give me my friend back,” Anakin demands, trying not to show just how afraid he actually is of if he even will be able to get them back. He doesn’t even see Ahsoka right now.

Sabine smiles darkly in a way that is so unlike her, and then she draws some kind of lightsaber. But no, it’s dark and it makes a strange sound as it moves – the Darksaber? What’s that doing out here?

She jumps at Anakin and he dodges her slash, spinning to get behind her and then Force-throws her as hard as he can towards the opening. She rolls outside, jerking to her feet and trying to run back in but Anakin shoves her harder, flinging her the rest of the way out.

“No!” she screams in a voice that sounds entirely unlike Sabine, but then the green misty figure comes flying out of her, floating past him back into the cave.

“Sabine?” Anakin asks anxiously, darting to her side. He needs to get back in there for Ahsoka.

“Whatever information you got from Maul, I hope it was worth it,” Sabine pants shakily.

How does she know why he went with Maul? Did Ezra tell him? He… probably didn’t have much choice, to be fair.

“I’ll tell you later. Just – stay out here where it’s safe.” He turns and runs back for the cave opening.

“Can’t they possess you, too?” Sabine yells after him.

“I don’t think so. But at least they won’t get you!” he yells back, skidding inside, in time to see Vader standing over Ahsoka, who’s kneeling next to the altar, eyes glowing green.

“Leave her alone,” he’s saying, “You can have me instead.”

Anakin skids to a stop, heart lurching.

Vader fought it off last time, but of course he would offer himself up if it meant freeing Ahsoka. Anakin would do the same for any of his family.

Maybe Vader is far more him than he sometimes seems.

The spirit finally flies out of Ahsoka with a snarl, hovering in the air. The spirits are circling around Vader now.

“You belong to us now,” one of them hisses.

“He doesn’t belong to anyone,” Anakin throws back, “Not anymore.”

Vader reaches down to help Ahsoka to her feet. She looks shaken and she leans against him, though only for a moment. They exchange a passing glance that Anakin thinks says more between them than words ever could.

“Why are you both standing there?” Ahsoka asks finally, “Run.”

Anakin looks from her to the shimmering green altar, where the nightsister spirits are swirling around it. It looks like the source of their power, and they can’t leave beyond the cave. No, he needs to destroy that.

He readjusts his grip on his lightsaber and raises it, bringing the blade down on the altar. The nightsister spirits yell in desperate protest, but there’s nothing they can do as the energy binding them here churns and shifts, dissipating into nothing, freeing the spirits from where they were trapped perpetually into a half-life, half-death where they can fade away into the Force.

It makes him feel… a little bit, actually. Anakin hates killing. It always felt wrong that things just fade away and are never seen again when they die.

Not that he has long to think about it before the explosion hurls him across the room. Anakin’s back hits the floor, and he grunts softly on impact, head spinning a little from the unexpected explosion. But when he peels his eyes open, the room looks… dark.

The ceiling is gray, and he’s suddenly seeing the room instead of Maul and the Nightsister. There’s no danger. It’s just… a room. Dull and empty. No danger. They’re safe, but there’s still no reason to stick around.

Anakin picks himself up, pausing to grab the proffered orange hand in his direction , letting his could-have-been padawan drag him to his feet. “Are you okay?” Ahsoka asks him, worry shining in her blue eyes.

He shrugs. “Yeah. Are you? And Sabine?”

Ahsoka and Sabine both nod, though he doubts that’s fully true. But now’s hardly the time to talk about it. They need to get out of here.

“I had a vision. When we used the holocrons,” Anakin adds, a bit breathless. “I saw Obi-Wan.”

Vader’s entire body seizes, both physically and even stronger in the Force, a sort of raw, aching, icy fear. He’s terrified. Of Obi-Wan? Why? Well, he knows what he said, but… it had all seemed so unreal.

“I was trying to find a way to defeat the Sith,” Anakin mumbles in explanation. “And I saw him.”

“There is nothing that he could have to offer us,” Vader snaps.

“Can we fight about that on the way back?” Ahsoka requests.

“Yes, please,” Sabine requests. “We’ve got a long way back to Atallon, and everyone’s probably already missing us.”

Anakin glances at Vader, quietly wary, but heads back for the ship, patting the cyborg’s shoulder as he passes him. Vader looks after, but neither of them speaks. Maul got away, too, and he really wishes he hadn’t. He loathes having to work with the Sith. He killed Qui-Gon, and caused him and Obi-Wan both unimaginable pain.

He’s not going to let him get away with that, Jedi way or no.

Chapter Text

“I guess Dathomir isn’t nearly as nice as I thought it’d be,” Anakin gripes when they get safely in hyperspace, Maul and the witches far behind. Vader and Ahsoka are in the back, talking about something hopefully heartfelt, but knowing them, probably not.

“I still don’t know what you were thinking, going with Maul.”

“I don’t think I had much choice. He was going to cell us out to the Empire. It wasn’t a risk I could take. He’s destroyed enough already.”

Sabine slouches in her chair. “I wish we’d gotten him.”

“Seems like he’s got a habit of getting away. We’ll track him down, though. I won’t let him escape with what he did.” Vengeance? Sure. He doesn’t regret it. Maul killed Qui-Gon.

Sabine looks down at the lightsaber she’d picked up and hands it to Anakin. “I don’t know what to do with this.”

He takes the blade, feeling the way the kyber crystal in it is different. “Is this the Darksaber?” he asks, “The weapon of the rightful ruler of Mandalore?”

Sabine sighs. Her brows are furrowed in a frown, something unhappy. She doesn’t like anything about her past, even though Mandalorians are normally proud of their heritage “Yes, Anakin, it is.”

He’d ask, but he doesn’t know if he should pressure her. He flips it over. “Does holding it make me the rightful ruler of Mandalore?”

“Not unless you win it form the person who used to wield it. That’s the law of Mandalore.”

“Huh.” Anakin looks at the blade again. Sabine’s gloominess is radiating into the Force, over whatever messed up emotions he’s picking up from the back. “Can I ask you something?”

Her head tilts a little and her eyes narrow at him. “Maybe.”

“What happened?” Anakin asks bluntly, “I know a little about Mandalorians. My master spent a while there was a padawan. For over a year. One of the longest missions he’s ever been on. He knows your people. Mandalorains are, traditionally, proud of their heritage. And I know you are, but what happened? Why did you leave?”

She looks away. “Let’s just say Mandalore isn’t exactly the place you’ve heard about anymore.” The hurt frown doesn’t lift. “A lot of things have changed with the Empire.”

“Why’d Mandalore side with the Empire?”

“Many of us didn’t want to. But we’d been fighting already for so long – Duchess Satine tried to keep us out of the Clone Wars, but then she was killed, and we got dragged right in. Then Maul got involved, and after all the infighting, our world was so damaged we were just getting back on our feet when the Empire came. The Jedi actually helped us with that again. Ahsoka, in particular. But things were different already. The Empire came to Mandalore. I thought they were there for good, and…” She trails off. “They had so many of us fooled.”

He senses there’s far more to her story than what she’s saying, a deep seeded grief, something she’s hiding from, something she’s too afraid to confront. Probably even talk about. Most likely, she’s never talked about it before. “I know what it’s like to leave your home” he says finally. “It wasn’t the same, but when I was little, Qui-Gon Jinn came to Tatooine. My home world. He freed me, and brought me to the Jedi. But to do that, I had to leave my mother.”

Anakin sighs, leaning against the back of the chair, staring out the viewport into the swirls of hyperspace in front of them. “And I… don’t know if I’m ever going to see her again. She’s… she’s probably gone now.”

“What was your mother like?” Sabine asks quietly, almost shy.

“She was… kind,” Anakin answers immediately. “She was gentle. With me, with everyone, even though we were slaves, she would always tell me to help people. It was her way. That whatever little we had, no matter how little, we’d try to share with others. Because there were always others who had it even worse than we did. She always said the reason we’d ended up in a situation like this was that no one helps each other. So, we always tried our best to make up for it.”

He looks down at his hands, clasped in his lap, the Darksaber now resting on the dashboard in front of him. “When I had the chance to be a Jedi, I had to take it, even if it meant leaving her. I knew it was the right thing to do. That it was the only path in front of me, but it still hurt to walk away.”

“I’m sorry,” Sabine says softly, “I know what it’s like to leave family behind.”

“I know. That’s why I’m telling you.” She’s the first person who’s ever been sympathetic that he ended up in that position. As he started to get older, he also started to realize how awful it was that he was even put in that position. Obi-Wan felt bad for him, sure, but he never really understood it. It hadn’t meant that much to him, that Anakin had to leave his family, his life in order to be a Jedi. That he understood, more than any of them, the sacrifice it requires to be a Jedi, and how it was something he could never let go of. “All my time at the Temple, no one understood. It’s hard to be away from the jedi. But to be here, to have people who understand this, is more than I have ever had in my life.”

She looks at him, aqua hair still hanging messily across her forehead, uncombed since the recent fight, a small, sad smile on her face.

Anakin smiles back. It hurts, but he means it. He is happy to be with them, even fi it hurts that he’s trapped here forever. He wants to go home. Mostly, he just misses Obi-Wan, and he still can’t believe Palpatine is really what everyone says he is. It’s hard to imagine, but a lot can change in two decades.

It really seems like this entire galaxy basically went to hell and still aren’t back yet, so he’s going to have to…

Wait.

If he’s meant to destroy the Sith, what does that mean about Vader? He’s not going to think about that part right now.

Yeah, Vader drives him nuts, but Anakin doesn’t want him dead. He’s gotta be honest about that. He drives him crazy, but he can’t imagine killing him, not to mention the question of what it’d do if he did die. They’re the same person. Would it kill both of them?

“So, what was it like to be a Jedi way back then?”

“Honestly…” Anakin sighs. “Really… it was hard. I didn’t have friends. I didn’t have… anyone. I was so lonely there sometimes. I had friends on Tatooine. Not many, but I had them. Then when I came to the Jedi, I was alone there. I knew Palpatine. He talked –”

“Wait, hang on,” Sabine interjects, instantly freaked out. “You knew Palpatine? As in Emperor Palpatine?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Wow. I can’t imagine that.”

“I can’t imagine this,” Anakin admits, “It’s so different than what I remember him as. He talked to me sometimes. I saved Naboo. Accidently. It sounds like now we think the whole thing was his fault, but he spent so much time with me. He tried to help me, taught me things that… kept me alive.”

“You knew the Emperor, and he was your friend?” Sabine repeats.

“He wasn’t the Emperor then. He was different. I really can’t explain it.” He’s mostly just confused, and definitely a little bit hurt. “I can’t imagine him hurting anyone. He was Chancellor, so of course he had to sometimes, but it was never… I just really don’t know how he could be what people say he is. Or how I could be.”

“Yeah, you and Vader aren’t exactly the same person.”

“Of course, we are. If I didn’t end up here, I’d be him now.”

“That’s just it – you’re not. You’re not him, even if you could have been. You don’t have to choose the Dark Side. You don’t have to choose the Empire or the Sith. You can choose you, the Jedi, the Rebellion. Whatever you want. And you already have.”

That’s… true.

It also means his entire existence is gone. His world, his life. “That also means my timeline is gone. I can never go home.” He’s just trapped here in the future where everything is dark, and the Jedi are gone. Where he’s literally one of the galaxy’s last hopes.

“At least you got us in the meantime,” Sabine offers.

It’s hard, but Anakin attempts a smile back at her, and he’s starting to realize he means it more and more. “Yeah. I guess that’s good enough.”

***

The Rebellion is holding a Mandalorian prisoner, and after Anakin shares the Darksaber with Kanan, he goes to have a talk with him, and words just spread from there out.

Anakin’s not sure who’s idea it was, but someone suggests Sabien take it and use it to reunite Mandalore, in the hopes they can call on their clans to aid the Rebellion. Ahsoka immediately offers to train her, which surprises Anakin a bit, but it fits well enough. His padawan training a Mandalorian? Yeah. Seems fitting. He’s pretty sure Sabine fits right along into the lineage perfectly anyway.

She borrows a speeder, some comms, and Anakin goes in search of the sticks Ezra and Zeb were supposed to be patching together to mimic lightsabers just to get the forms down right. Sabine’s a little grumpy about the stick thing, but Ahsoka gives her a flat look and tells her it’s safter than the alternative.

No one asks questions.

Anakin would offer, but he’s missing his own lightsaber right now, so…

But when he tracks Ezra down, it’s only to see him with Vader of all people. Just casually chatting with him as if they’re best friends now. It’s honestly a little relieving to know that there’s someone who Vader is close to in the Rebellion despite his time fighting them.

“I finished fixing the sticks while those two chatted,” Zeb gripes, ears flicking as he talks. It’s something that happens when he’s annoyed, Anakin’s gathered. The Lasat is a little different than anyone he knew on Tatooine or at the Temple, and he’s still not quite sure what to think of him yet. But he knows the Lasats are good people, and that Zeb lost most of his to the Empire. Another tragedy he can’t even imagine, and now he’ll never get the chance to go back and prevent it.

“Yeah, I guess they do do that,” Anakin replies, a little amused. “The one downside to having friends is that they have a better chance of annoying you to death.”

Zeb growls faintly, “You can say that again.” He glares at Ezra, who shrugs nonchalantly, completely unperturbed.  Anakin slowly backs out before things get violent.

***

“I still don’t understand why We’re sticking to sticks,”, Sabine says flatly, “I’m good with blasters, explosives, and blades. I already know how to fight.”

“There’s a difference between the training sticks you fight with on Mandalore and lightsabers,” Ahsoka answers, “The Darksaber is the most different of all. Understanding why is part of your lesson.”

Sabine sighs, scowling out the front of the speeder. “That cleared it up.”

“Do you have to be that cryptic?” Anakin asks, picking up way to strongly on his friend’s frustration.

Ahsoka smirks a little at his words. “Why were you to me?” she asks rhetorically.

“I – what was I like as a teacher?” he asks shyly. “I can’t imagine it.”

“I’d say we had a hard relationship,” Ahsoka answers, “He raised me in a war, and he had to teach me how to survive, even if I often didn’t like those lessons. And then, afterwards, after the Jedi fell, I learned why he’d taught me everything he did. I found a way to survive, just like he trained me too. Sabine might not be a Jedi, but I’ll still train her the same way.”

“I’m not a Jedi,” Sabine argues.

“I know. and I’m not teaching you like one. Which is why we need to start with these things. The Darksaber is no ordinary lightsaber. It requires a connection with the blade to wield. A connection that you won’t gain instantly.”

Ahsoka parks the speeder amidst the towering cliffs of Attalon, and they climb out. She has Anakin work through the forms with Sabine, first. He’s gonna admit that at first, they were definitely having fun. It stays pretty fun, and Ahsoka lets them, but he can tell Sabine’s getting irritated. He can see why Ahsoka wanted him to come, not Ezra, considering the chaotic nature of Ezra and Sabine’s relationship. She’d be a lot twitchier if it was him supposed to be helping her.

Well, he’s her younger brother, and she’d only take so long with the implication that he’s stronger than her.

She’s getting twitchy already, and Anakin lets himself lax a bit, because he doesn’t want to irritate her, and he doesn’t want to embarrass her in front of Ahsoka, either. He really doesn’t care how many times he’d been told not to do that at the Temple. He’s not going to hurt her because he doesn’t want to shame himself.

Ahsoka watches the whole time, arms crossed over her chest, face neutral, though she’s obviously upset about something.

Anakin lets himself get knocked over and rolls to his feet again, refusing to condone a defeat, even if he’s not going to outright defeat her, either. He meant to swing back around at her when she straight up grabs the end of his stick and flips him over. Anakin rolls over it with a yelp, landing awkwardly on the ground with a laugh. “That was cheating.”

“That was a win,” she chirps.

“If it’s not a trick you can do in a real lightsaber battle, it’s not a skill you can learn,” Ahsoka replies flatly.

Sabine smirks, readjusting her grip on the stick of hers. “Would you like to go, Master?”

Ahsoka smirks back, though she feels a little frustrated. Whatever she’s aiming at, it’s not working. “You asked,” she replies, Force-jumping snatching the stick from Anakin’s hand with the Force. Ahsoka and Sabine’s not-really duel only lasts have a minute before Ahsoka swipes her legs out from under her and levels the fake weapon at her neck. “And that was your head,” she tells her flippantly.

Wow. Anakin’s not even sure he could beat that level quite yet. Even if he was trying to go easy. Sabine’s teasing expression drops fast into a frustrated frown. She bats the stick away from her and rocks to her feet. “I already know how to use these things!”

“Your knowledge isn’t your commitment,” Ahsoka replies flatly.

“Yeah?” Sabien throws back heatedly, “And maybe I don’t need to learn this.” She spins on her heel, walking away.

Anakin follows Sabine after she stalks off across the dusty landscape, disappearing through the rocks and mountain. Her frustration is radiating loudly through the Force, and Anakin follows her through that, using it to track her easily.

She’s seated on a rock when he finds her, arms crossed, aqua hair hanging into her face as she stairs off towards the sunset.

“Your issues with the blade have nothing to do with knowing how, do they?” Anakin asks, standing a short distance off. “You’re afraid of what follows.”

“And how’d you guess that?” she asks with a sigh. “With the Force?”

“I can’t help feeling you,” Anakin admits, fidgeting, “I feel everything. All the time. It’s overwhelming. And even if I didn’t, I wouldn’t need the Force to know what’s wrong.”

Sabine lowers her head, staring at the ground. “I don’t want to talk about these things,” she admits bluntly, “I left Mandalore because I – I had no choice. I know how to fight. I believe I can learn to use that sword. I just don't want everything that comes with it.”

“You mean, to be the leader of Mandalore? Your people?” No, close, but no. There’s something more, something personal. “Your family?” Anakin guesses quieter.

Sabien sighs tiredly. “I’m a disgrace to them, Anakin. To my clan, my people. A traitor. How can I go back there and face them?”

It’s all about willingness, not knowledge, just like he suspected. And, as a Jedi, he understands how hard it is, and can be, to make “As Jedi,” Anakin offers finally, kicking idly at the ground. “We often make mistakes. We have to do things that we… don’t want a part in. We have to go places we don’t want to. All the time. It’s happened again, and again. But things, somehow, always lead back to my past. To where I never want to be. I know I try to make things better for people. For the other slaves that I’ve found, and even now here with the Rebellion, but… it’s never going to change who I lost. And wherever you go, no matter what happened on Mandalore, you do have a family now who would go with you anywhere.”

***

Sabine comes back a little while later, when the sun has finished setting and the sky is slowly growing dark. Ahsoka has been abnormally quiet but assured him that she knew Sabine would both return and be fine, and that they’d be fine. Anakin tried to just trust that, though he still feels relieved when he senses the girl’s return.

“I owe you an apology,” Sabine confesses, walking up to Ahsoka.

Her smile is slight, but still there. “Accepted,” she says, squeezing her shoulder. “Here.” She lifts the Darksaber from its place, extending it to the Mandalorian.

Sabine twitches. “Uh, I don’t know. Maybe I should train more.”

“Give it a try,” Ahsoka requests with a small smile, “But just in case, you’ll fight against me.”

“Hey,” Anakin protests.

“I’m not risking any more of your limbs to mid-moving lightsaber blades,” Ahsoka teases reaching for her two white sabers.

The two circle each other slowly, until Ahsoka starts working her through the one move at a time.

“You’re still not fully committed,” Ahsoka says after a while of running them through. “You’re afraid. Your fear is unbalancing the crystal.”

“I’m not afraid!” Sabine snaps. She closes her eyes exhaling sharply. “I know what happened on Mandalore. Even if I have this weapon, I know they might never accept me as their leader.”

 “Mandalore follows he who wields the Darksaber,” Ahsoka reminds.

“They didn’t follow Maul.”

“He was no true Mandalorian.”

“I am no true Mandalorian!” Sabine snaps, shoving her back. Ahsoka skids a bit, flickering her sabers around and easily rebalancing herself. She has the agility of a cat. It’s insane.

“You have their heart and their blood,” Ahsoka replies, “What else are you lacking?”

“Their courage. Their loyalty.” Sabine lowers the black blade, something akin to despair ringing into the Force. “I – I left Mandalore to save everyone. My mother, my father, my brother.” She had a brother. Anakin should’ve guessed that Ezra wasn’t her first sibling after seeing them interact. He’d always assumed it was because they’d known each other for so long, but they’re close in a way that’s always given him the feeling she was good at it. At being a sister. He always has to try not to let it hurt when he hears that, because Anakin has always wanted a sibling.

But that’s not something he can just wish them into existence.

“Everything I did was for family, for Mandalore! I built weapons, terrible weapons, but the Empire used them on Mandalore, on friends, on family. People that I knew. They controlled us through fear. Mandalore – fear of weapons that I helped create.” Sabine pulls back, panting, her gutted devastation pouring freely into the Force. The same devastation that drives so many members of the Rebellion, so many people who have lost everything to the Empire, just like Anakin himself.

If he wasn’t here with Vader, seeing that there is a future, where he knows people he should have in the future. He got, even if he lost, too.

“I helped enslave my people! I wanted to stop it. I had to stop it. I spoke out. I spoke out to save them. To save everyone! But when I did, my family didn’t stand with me. They chose the Empire. They left me, gave me no choice. The Empire wanted to destroy worlds. And they did.” Her voice breaks trembling, and in the glimmering of the lanterns set around their little encampment, Anakin can see the tears on her face. “They destroyed mine.”

Her twitchiness, her mistrust makes so much more sense now, aside from the simple she’s a Mandalorian. The fear fits right in with her core, something too great to ignore, too overwhelming to ever not be a core of her life. She lost her life and family to them, and no matter how much she loves them, she can never go home to them. after years of being on the run and in pain, when she should always have a safe place with which to return, she has nothing.

Anakin’s mother is gone forever, but at least his memories of her are nothing but loving, always laced with the promise that she will forever be with him. She would love Vader, too, because that’s simply who she was.

Sabine doesn’t even get that reassurance. And it’s been years. They don’t even know if they’re still alive.

How many families have been torn apart because of the Empire? Because of Palpatine? How could he do this?

“That’s what the Empire does,” Ahsoka tells her softly, gently laying a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “It uses the good in people against them and their worlds. They’ve done the same to so many others. What happened on Mandalore wasn’t all your fault, Sabine. But what you do from here, is your choice.”

Anakin slowly pushes himself up and approaches them, his heart heavy from the weight of the emotions. “I know you can do this,” he tells her, slowly lowering himself to one knee in front of her where she’s dropped to the ground on her knees, the blade extinguished, body trembling. “You can still go home, and when you do, we’ll be with you.”

“But why would they believe me? Why would they follow me?”

“You’ve been stronger than most would in your place,” Ahsoka promises, “You are a true Mandalorian. They’re about honor and family, and I can’t say for your family, but when I was there, I know there are still some who would be willing to stand with you if they knew what you did.”

“We’re gonna figure this out,” Anakin promises, “I know, it’s scary, but your crew, the family you picked up on the way, we will help you. You aren’t alone anymore, Sabine. I promise.”

***

They do talk to the others about it. After a lot of crying and hugging, Sabine has settled into something a little more confident about it. She has a private talk with her parents, and Zeb and Ezra just hug it out with her, which, compared to their usual level of bickering, is adorable.

That’s where they are, now, sitting outside beneath the bright sun over Attalon, Sabine’s face still a little tearstained, but she looks happy, uplifted for the first time. Anakin reaches out to take her hand and squeeze it gently almost without even meaning to.

“Are you sure you wouldn’t be a Mandalorian then a Jedi?” Sabine asks a bit teasingly.

Anakin laughs. “What’s it like?”

“Well, you’re a warrior, but you get to have a family.”

That sounds… “Sounds nice,” he tells her, a bit joking, but also dead serious. 

“And you’d get cool blasters and explosives and other weapons. Instead of just a lightsaber.”

Anakin laughs. “Sounds fun. Though I don’t think Obi-Wan would approve of the blasters.”

“Why not?” Sabine asks, amused.

“He thinks they’re uncivilized weapons.”

“How is shooting someone less civilized than stabbing them?”

“I have no idea either.”

She laughs too.

“But really, I think being a Mandalorian would be… interesting,” Anakin admits, “Sometimes, I don’t think I’ll be what the Jedi want me to be.” It’s jarring to actually admit that out loud to anyone. He can’t just fail. He just - can’t. The mere thought of it, of failing as a Jedi, of being nothing again, is terrifying.

“Well, if you’re going to be here, you don’t have to worry about that anymore, do you?” Sabine asks, “The Jedi are different now. And if Ahsoka’s teaching you, she’s not even a normal Jedi. Maybe you should just be a Mandalorian.”

Anakin grins back at her. “That’s true. Maybe I should.” He’s not sure he’s fully serious about that but he can’t help thinking about it a little either.

“Where do we start?”

“Not with training sticks. Hey, maybe if you come with me to Mandalore, I can get you some armor, and then we can get started?”

He laughs, even if he has no idea what he just agreed to. “Sure.”

Chapter Text

“Need some help?” Anakin asks, going up to where Hera is working on some repairs on the Ghost.  

“You good with ships?” Hera calls back.

Is that a serious question? To be fair, they haven’t interacted much. “I’ve been flying since before I could walk,” Anakin tells her cheerfully.

She smiles down at him. “Well, come on then.”

He comes over to join her and they work together on it surprisingly well.

“I dreamed about flying when I was a child, too,” Hera comments, “I wanted to fly away and see the galaxy.”

“Me too,” Anakin admits, “I lived on Tatooine when I was little. I always wanted to get out of there. Go out to the galaxy, be a Jedi, and then come back to free the slaves.” That’s still something he hasn’t gotten the chance to, but…

“I’ve heard about Tatooine a little. It’s not a pleasant place,” Hera replies, “I grew up in the clone wars. I learned how to fight then – it was a necessity. I saw everyone else flying and I wanted to do the same. My father didn’t want that kind of life for me.” She sighs heavily and Anakin can sense a sharp flicker of longing and a mix of other things from her, “But in the end, it happened anyway. I had to leave Ryloth when I was still a child because of the Empire. And then… I left entirely so I could fight for freedom in the rest of the galaxy.”

“I think you’re doing a good job at it,” Anakin offers.

“Maybe. I always wish there was more we could do. Faster. But… we are working on a plan that might strike a real blow to the Empire.”

Anakin perks up. “Really?”

“Yes. Command will explain the details when we’re ready.”

Now he’s actually really curious. “Have you ever gotten to go back to Ryloth?” Anakin wonders, instead of pressing for details about that.

“Just once.” She blows out a breath and it’s enough for him to tell that it isn’t a very pleasant memory. “And that was only to blow an Imperial cruiser out of the sky over the planet.  It had to be done and it showed our strength against the Empire to the people of Ryloth, but I don’t know how much damage it ended up causing when it crashed. My father was there. It was the first time I’d seen him in years.”

“You… don’t seem very happy about it,” Anakin points out tentatively. He can’t quite imagine not being happy to see someone in his family.

“Things with us were complicated,” she offers, after a pause of silence, “But what about you? Did you ever get to go back to Tatooine? It must have been nice to get to fly around the galaxy before it was at war.”

“I’ve been in the middle of planetary civil wars before,” Anakin admits, “But never like this. But no, I’ve never gone back to Tatooine. I guess what things were like as a Jedi was never quite what I thought they would be.” He tries, he really does, not to linger on it, but it always hurts. He thought he’d just get to help, not get dragged into some sort of political mess. And they definitely helped. It’s not his place to judge the Council, but there’s still more freedom elsewhere, which he’s starting to realize he’s missed. Severely. More like, he’s never gotten a chance to know.

“What do you mean?” she wonders.

“We only get to go on missions the Senate approves of,” Anakin says, “And they would never agree to free the slaves on Tatooine because it would cause too much political chaos with the Hutts. That’s one thing I like better about being here. We don’t have to deal with all of that.”

“Not usually,” Hera agrees, “What we dream for when we’re young isn’t often the reality of the galaxy.”

He’s realized that enough by now. Everything about being here isn’t bad. But that doesn’t mean he’s been able to stop thinking about getting to go back home. Obi-Wan is still alive, though. That’s… something.

“Are you alright?” Hera speaks up again, eyeing him, “You must have lost everyone when you came to this time.”

“I’m getting used to it,” Anakin admits after a pause, “I miss home sometimes. But… I don’t think there’s a way for me to go back.”

“Why not?” she asks.

“My time was destroyed when I was on Malachor and fell through. At least that’s what I was told.”

She reaches out, patting Anakin’s shoulder. “Well, for what it’s worth, not that it will change anything, but for as long as you are here, you’re more than welcome to stay with us.”

“Thank you,” he offers,

It means a lot to actually be given that kind of offer. No one ever really has. If he does have to stay in this time, he’ll be more than happy to stay with them.

***

Anakin’s in the hold alone when Ezra comes to find him. “Uhh… I have a question for you,” Ezra says and he seems to be feeling a bit uncomfortable.

Which is very abnormal for Ezra of all people.

“Yes?”

“Do you still have that Sith holocron?”

Anakin shakes his head. “No. We left it on Dathomir. In a cave haunted by witches. Why?”

“Just wondering,” he says in a what that implies it’s anything but that.

But he’s both curious and a little worried about Ezra at once. He can feel traces of darkness around him, lingering depression that’s been there ever since he came. “Whatever it is, I won’t tell anyone,” Anakin promises dryly.

Ezra sort of laughs. “Okay. It’s just – I guess I was using it.”

Anakin stills. “You opened it?” That means using the Dark Side. He knows how easy that is to happen with anyone, but it’s still unexpected. Those items are forbidden to Jedi, and there’s a reason they’re never supposed to touch them. Forbidden items is what they’re called, and the Council had a vault which no one ever entered to keep all the Dark Side items they didn’t destroy. Anakin has no idea what was in there. Word is, no one does. Not anymore, anyway. And he’s never known a Jedi who was bold enough to use the Dark Side, though he’s starting to get the feeling this isn’t the first time. Like Ezra, especially, has history with it somewhere.

“I know. I know I shouldn’t have but – I need to learn more about the Force if I’m ever going to be able to protect my friends.”

“Is this about Kanan losing his sight?” Anakin asks gently.

Ezra nods sheepishly. “It’s my fault that happened. I’m the one who trusted Maul on Malachor. That’s why Maul ended up alone with him. He split us up, and if I hadn’t, then… Then it wouldn’t have happened.”

“That doesn’t mean it was your fault, Ezra,” Anakin says, even if he can really understand why he feels that way. Anakin would too in his place. “You didn’t know you couldn’t trust him and even if you did, it could have happened anyway. He would have betrayed you regardless. I… get being tempted by the Dark Side. Not like this exactly, but I know what it’s like. It seems easy now. But eventually, you’ll start losing sight of why you went down this path in the first place. At least, I think that’s always happened.”

“I’m not going to go that far,” Ezra objects, “I just – I need to be stronger. And I don’t think that’s something even Kanan can teach me anymore.”

Anakin pauses, considering that. “I don’t know why I fell in thisfuture, but…. I expect it was for something like this. To protect.” He never actually thought about it until right now but when he sees the way Vader acts towards Ahsoka, especially now, he has to wonder. “And then it… went too far. Once you get more attuned with the Force, even the Light, it’ll be easier to see the intentions of people from the start. It’s easier to stop before you risk going… too far, but I know it’s not that simple. I know why you’re so afraid.”

“But what if something else happens, something I could have stopped if I did use the Dark Side?”

“I don’t know,” Anakin admits, “I just know that… my grandmaster, Qui-Gon Jinn, always said that nothing happens without a reason. The Force will direct us. Even if we don’t understand why something had to happen at the time. We don’t need the Dark Side for that.”

Ezra’s quiet for a long time, looking both thoughtful and miserable.

Anakin finally reaches out, patting his arm. “And I don’t think Kanan would want this.”

“That’s why I didn’t tell him.” Ezra sighs. “Can you not tell anyone about it? I don’t really…”

“I won’t,” he promises without hesitation, “Sometimes, these things… I know you need to get your head on straight about alone. But it can also be a lot easier to talk about it with someone, once you are ready.” Palpatine always did that for him. It’s still hard to believe it was all a lie.

Ezra nods again and they sit together in a comfortable silence.

***

“Hey, careful with the paint job!” Anakin calls over his shoulder, as he sits on the bench in the hold, working on a new mechanical project. About the first he’s actually gotten since coming to this time. He’s trying to be careful – he doesn’t want to mess up Sabine’s room too badly with his own junk.

“Oops,” Zeb says loudly and Anakin looks up to see a purple Zeb-shaped footprint in the middle of the floor.

He laughs. “Oh. Well. I wonder if Hera would like that decoration.”

“She would not,” Zeb says, “Why didn’t Sabine at least put up a warning?”

“The paint did look wet,” Anakin points out cheerfully, “With a resident artist, I think you’d get used to paint turning up wet all the time.”

Zeb huffs. “Well, where is she now?

“She said she had some classified project to work on somewhere else.”

“Somewhere else?” Zeb asks, “Wonder who’s making a picture of this time.” He sounds amusingly wary.

“You mean like the one she put in your room?” Anakin asks, amused. He’s seen it the few times he’s gone in there for something.

He shudders, embarrassment radiating into the Force. “Yeahhh.”

“What even happened?”

“Don’t ask that,” Zeb replies flatly.

Anakin laughs. “Alright.”

“It’s interesting having another Jedi on board,” Zeb remarks. “Ezra seems pretty happy about it.”

“It’s been nice meeting all of you. I’ve never seen a Lasatt before now. Well, I think there might have been one I saw at the Temple once.”

Something about his mood seems to fall a little. “Are you… okay?” Anakin asks, uncertainly.

Zeb is momentarily quiet. “The Empire destroyed my planet. I’m probably one of the last Lasatt’s you’re ever gonna see.”

Oh.

Horror flits through him. “I’m so sorry,” Anakin offers quietly. He’d say he can’t imagine it, but he can to a point -the Jedi are gone. They aren’t his family the way the Lasatt definitely are Zeb’s but… he can imagine, at least.

“I’m gonna get something to clean this up,” Zeb decides, pattering across the hold and leaving a long string of painted footprints behind him.

Anakin turns back to his work, trying very hard not to laugh.

***

He’s out of his and Sabine’s room early the next morning, to find Kanan meditating outside the ship. Anakin quietly goes to join him, waiting.

“Do you need something?” the Jedi Knight asks, eyeing him.

Anakin shifts. “I… uhh… Well, not really. How are you doing?” He doesn’t know how to approach this, without indicating directly at what’s going on with Ezra and he’s not going to do that.

He scoffs lightly. Not angry at Anakin, obviously, but there’s still an overwhelming bitterness there. “Getting used to it. Much as I can,” Kanan replies. He carries a lingering depression too, unsurprisingly.

Sympathy mixed with unease churns in Anakin’s gut as he struggles to put to words what he needs to say. “I know you’ve been meditating a lot lately so I don’t know if you’ve really seen, but… Ezra blames himself for what happened to you. I think he needs to hear that you don’t. I mean – I think he knows that, but because you’re hardly around him, it just – isn’t helping?” He expects Kanan needs a bit of time to process what happened to him but bringing it up now seems better than waiting until the problem gets worse.

Kanan turns to look at him, not that he can see him, anyway. “He shouldn’t blame himself. Of course I don’t blame him.”

“I know. But I just think maybe he needs to know that.” And hopefully, Kanan will help him with the rest without Anakin actually having to spell any of it out.

“I’ll talk to him,” Kanan promises.

Anakin nods, realizing a moment later that actually, Kanan’s not going to be able to see that anyway. He’s about to reply when Kanan keeps talking.

“Is it really true that Master Kenobi is still alive?” he queries.

“I think so. It’s what I saw in my vision. We’re… about to leave for Tatooine to find out.” Even if he’s suddenly nervous. He has no idea what he’s going to find when he gets there.

Kanan nods, and Anakin can feel the relief flickering off him. Hope. That maybe there really is a chance at defeating the Empire. Anakin can only hope, too. If he knows his former master, though things have definitely changed a lot since they last met, he’s not gonna be hiding out with no reason. He’s… going to have a plan. He always has a plan, and with that, they have a chance.

***

Rex and Ahsoka come with Anakin when they leave for Tatooine. His heart aches with wild longing when they finally come out of hyperspace, to see the familiar dustball. He’s not ready for this. “Do you know,” Anakin asks hesitantly, “What happened to my mother?”

Rex and Ahsoka exchange a glance and his stomach drops.

“Sorry, kid,” Rex replies sympathetically, “But the General told me she was gone.”

His heart clenches violently. He knew that but that doesn’t mean – “How?” he whispers.

“I never asked,” Ahsoka admits, “All I know is that she was killed by Tuskens. He never wanted to talk about it.” She leans forwards, squeezing his shoulder. Anakin leans into it, breathing out heavily.

The Tuskens killed his mother.

For a moment, he can hardly breathe. Things like that happen all the time on Tatooine. He just never expected it to be to her. He knew she was gone. Hearing it confirmed doesn’t change much but it makes the emptiness inside of him suddenly feel like a bottomless pit. He’s never going to see his mother again, and she was killed. She didn’t just die of old age. She was murdered. Senselessly.

Everyone’s quiet for a longtime after that.

“Do you know where on Tatooine we’re going?” Rex queries, once they’re flying down for the surface.

“I was going to follow the Force,” Anakin admits, closing his eyes and reaching outwards. He has no idea where he’s going if he can’t find him like this. He feels something shift and flicker in the Force – it’s leading him somewhere.

The flight lasts a while. When Anakin opens his eyes again, it’s to see they’re flying somewhere over the dune sea. There’s a small hut buried amidst the sand and rock, hard to notice. He brings the ship down, suddenly torn with both excitement and nervousness.

Obi-Wan comes out of the hut before they reach it. He looks old. Anakin knew he would but he didn’t expect it to be quite this much. He doesn’t feel quite the same in the Force either – older and more like a hurricane that’s slowly dying than just rain. He feels empty and sharper at once.

He pauses, staring at them.

“Master Obi-Wan?” Ahsoka is the first to find her voice. “I didn’t know you survived.”

“Ahsoka?” he asks, a bit incredulous, though his gaze just as quickly shifts back to Anakin. “Who is…?”

“You don’t recognize me, Master?” Anakin asks cheerfully, though there’s a sudden wild ache in his chest he can’t quite push away.

“Anakin?” He sounds disbelieving.

“I know it sounds crazy,” Ahsoka pipes up, “But he time-traveled from the past when he was seventeen.”

Obi-Wan’s staring at him again. “Anakin?” he asks again, disbelief and grief and a lot of other things that are too messy for Anakin to follow, pouring into the Force, “You’re… here?”

He’d still like to know what happened between him and Vader. Even if he’s actually far too afraid to ask about it.

“Yeah,” Anakin offers, “And – your hair is white. It looks so weird.”

Honestly? That’s the only thing he can think about suddenly.

Obi-Wan lets out a strangled half laugh. “Yes. It’s… been a long time.”

He’s almost acting as though he doesn’t know how to talk to him. Maybe it’s not too surprising but Anakin just expected something – different? More like the Obi-Wan he lost.

“Come inside,” Obi-Wan requests finally, “I’d like to know why you’re here and how you knew to come here. And… how this happened.”

“No need to talk about it while we cook ourselves in the sun,” Anakin agrees cheerfully.

They go into the small hut together. It’s weird to see this place and know it’s where his master’s been living for probably years. And he can’t help noticing right off that there’s something nagging at the edge of his senses. Something calling to him. A kyber crystal?

“I’ve wanted to find you ever since I first got stuck here,” Anakin goes for saying finally, “And I sort of – saw it in a vision.” He’s not mentioning the details of how. Obi-Wan would not be happy. But actually – “Did you know Maul’s alive?”

He huffs out a breath. “I knew he was about a decade ago. I never knew what happened to him. Did you run into him?”

“Among other unpleasant things,” Anakin says, waving a hand, “Why are you hiding out here?” That just doesn’t seem very much like him.

Obi-Wan’s expression twitches. “With the Empire hunting the Jedi, I had to go somewhere.”

“So you went to hide? But what about fighting to make it better?” He thinks there’s something more here but he’s just confused.

And he suddenly can’t shake the feeling that Obi-Wan is hiding something. He just doesn’t know what. Or why. “Since the Order fell, everyone has had their own paths. Mine is here.”

“You have a mission here, don’t you?” Ahsoka realizes curiously.

“I do,” he agrees after a pause, but he doesn’t offer further details.

He’s… different.

Of course, he is because it’s been years. Anakin doesn’t know why it hurts so much. Or maybe he does, because he thought he’d be here to reunite with his master, but this isn’t his Obi-Wan, even if Anakin still cares for him simply because of the core of who he is. But he’s not the same. He doesn’t know why he expected something else to be true.

Maybe it’s just that Anakin’s presence here still doesn’t feel real to Obi-Wan. He’s not sure.

“We have a plan against the Empire,” Anakin says, “We could use your help?”

“What is your plan?”

Suddenly, he’s nervous. This isn’t a topic he’s ready to bring up.

“…Well – did you know the old me is still alive?”

Obi-Wan stills, face closing off. “Yes, I know. But he isn’t you. Not anymore.”

“Uhh… well, he kind of is. Just a more annoying version of me. A much more annoying version of me, mind you.”

“The Dark Side destroyed whatever of you was left in him years ago,” Obi-Wan insists, shaking his head, “How did you meet him?”

“We ran into him when Anakin came through,” Ahsoka speaks up, eyes narrowing a little. “And he’s agreed to help us take out the Emperor.”

“What makes you believe it’s not a trap?” He sounds disbelieving.

“Well for one, he’s Sidious’ slave even if he won’t admit it. And he’s terrified of him,” Anakin offers. It’s not like that’s even a secret or something. It’s so obvious, Anakin doesn’t know how no one’s figured that out before.

Obi-Wan stiffens a bit, expression twitching.

“And he still cares for me. If the Dark Side had destroyed him entirely, then… he wouldn’t,” Ahsoka points out quietly.

“You don’t know what he’s done.”

Anakin doesn’t want that answered either. What even happened that could have Obi-Wan this upset with him? What could have happened to make hsi master give up on him entirely, forget who they were? That would make him such a disappointment Obi-Wan just stopped caring about him? He doesn’t want to think about it. He knows it’s not at him but it’s still leaving with a desperate wild ache and emptiness that feels like nothing will fill. He doesn’t want this to have been the future they’d be living in. He wants his Obi-Wan back.

“I’ve been fighting the Empire for years. I know more than I’d like to.”

“What happened?” Anakin demands finally, because the growing pressure in his chest is suddenly too tight for him to think of anything else and he can’t – “What did he do that you’re so angry at him? And why – why is he so… afraid of you?”

He didn’t know his former master’s expression could get any tighter than it already was. “He destroyed the Jedi. We fought and it… didn’t end well. But he told me that he’s the one who destroyed Anakin.”

That doesn’t answer much more than he already knew. All he knows is that he needs air and he – “I’ll be back,” Anakin mutters, pushing himself to his feet and stumbling back outside into the desert sun.

He distantly hears Ahsoka saying something else to Obi-Wan as he goes. This isn’t a conversation he wants to have any more.

He slides into the sand, the sudden rush of tears nearly catching him off-guard. His mother his gone. Obi-Wan is here but he’s not him and he never will be again. Everything of his time really is gone and he thinks now is the first time it’s truly sinking in.

He doesn’t know how long he’s been sitting out there, until he’s finally starting to calm down, when he hears the sand crunching behind him. Looking up, it’s to see Rex approaching.

“You okay, kid?” he asks a little awkwardly, kneeling across from him.

Anakin wipes his face off on his sleeve. He still just feels empty. “I miss home.”

Rex sighs, nodding. “I know. It’s only something you can get used to. It never really goes away.”

He knows that. The ache of missing his mom never stops. “And I just wish things weren’t so different here.”

“You mean about you and General Kenobi?” he guesses and Anakin nods wordlessly.

“I don’t know what to tell you,” he admits, “But I know some of my general is still there, even if many don’t see it anymore.”

He doesn’t see Vader as the same either, but it’s just…

Messy.

“And it if helps any, I don’t think he sees you as the same, simply because of how he sees General Skywalker.”

“I know. But that – doesn’t really seem fair.” Are Vader’s emotions looping with his? Is that why he’s so upset right now? He doesn’t really know.

“If he’s the one who raised you, I can’t imagine that he won’t come to realize that eventually,” Rex points out.

The sound of the hut door opening catches his attention and when he looks up, it’s Obi-Wan.

“Can I have a word with Anakin alone?” he asks, approaching.

Rex glances to Anakin. He just nods at him and the clone heads away, back for the hut, leaving them alone.

There’s a long moment of almost awkward silence, but then Obi-Wan sits next to him in the sand.

“I’ve missed you,” Anakin mumbles, blinking away the tears still stinging his eyes.

His master’s expression softens. “I’ve missed you, too, Anakin. So much. I never thought I would get to see you again. And now that you are here, I… Is this permanent?”

He nods wordlessly.

“I’ll help you,” Obi-Wan promises, “If you’re here, maybe there really is a chance against the Empire. And besides, unless you don’t want it, I… would like us to stay together. And I’m sure you don’t want to stay on Tatooine again.”

Anakin looks up, a tentative hope blooming in his chest. “Of course, I want you to come.” Though, it’ll still take a bit of adjusting to how this isn’t his Obi-Wan. But… he thinks he’d feel far less empty if they could at least form something between them.

“You really think this plan is going to work?”

“You’re actually asking me that?”

He chuckles softly, though it’s pained. “You’re the one who knows the status of the galaxy right now.”

“Well, I lost my lightsaber. That may be a problem.” He grins at him, even if it feels half-forced.

“May be a problem?”

“Uhuh.”

Obi-Wan hesitates. “I have one here that I could give you but only if you won’t lose it again.”

The kyber crystal that’s calling to him. Is that Vader’s old lightsaber? He doesn’t want to think about that right now. “I give you my most sincere promise to try.”

“Very reassuring.” He stands, holding out a hand to Anakin.

Anakin takes it, standing and then tackles him in a hug before he can overthink it. Obi-Wan makes a startled sound of surprise but he catches him, hugging him back tightly.

It’s a bit unusual for his master.

Though he has lived without him for years.

He still doesn’t understand, though, how Obi-Wan could’ve given up on his own version of Anakin so completely. Or is it just something he tells himself to deal with whatever he did? It’s not something he wants to think about further.

He just wants to at least be glad for now that he has some version of his master back.

***

Vader is in a mood when they get back to the base, pacing back and forth ceaselessly.

“Are you okay?” Anakin asks finally, shuffling a little closer. He feels bad about an innumerable number of things he doesn’t know how to identify.

Even if Vader is definitely still annoying.

“Before you brought him here, perhaps,” he replies bitterly, “But that is not even our primary concern. Sidious is searching for me.”

Anakin stills. “How do you know?”

“He keeps reaching for my mind. It is only a matter of time before he locates me.”

Anakin can feel his panic and it’s looping over with his own because that’s not going to mean anything good. “Well then, what if we take the fight right to him?”

Vader slowly turns to look at him. “That may be the shrewdest suggestion you have ever given.”

“Ooh. Should I say thank you?”

“No.”

Anakin grins. “Alright. Let’s go tell everyone our plan.”

Chapter Text

The attack on Coruscant goes – it goes. Quite nicely, Anakin must add. He didn’t exactly mean to make an illusion that distracted all the guards, and he still has no idea what he’s doing, but it works, so off they go, and he and the Ghost Crew walk right into the Imperial Palace.

This is probably a death sentence, but he and Vader were going, and he can’t believe the rest of them decided to stick along for the ride.

It works until they get jumped by a group of some sort of guards wearing red.

Anakin pulls his borrowed lightsaber on them, fighting against their electrostaffs. Sabine has the Darksaber out, and she’s holding off amazingly against another. He loses track of everybody else, but then his lightsaber is ripped from his hands in a move he was too slow to stop, and it sails nicely down a nearby chute.

Anakin freezes, staring wide-eyed at the disappeared weapon, and then the electrostaff is swinging at him again. he gasps, reaching out to try to shove the thing away by hand, but instead of crackling into him on contact, the electricity spins back, coiling backwards and zapping the Red-armored guard.

Uh.

Did he just do that?

Yikes.

“Kid,” Kanan tells him seriously, “You’re scaring me.”

“I’m scaring me,” he complains as they sprint into the throne room, his lightsaber still gone. The Emperor is lounging on his throne, a hood over his head, the Dark Side twisting sickly about the room. It makes his skin crawl, makes him want to disappear, but they came here with a purpose, and no one’s backing out.

“So you have returned, my apprentice,” Sidious drawls, standing, “Destroy them, Lord Vader, and prove yourself loyal to me, or I will have you all destroyed.”

“Ugh,” Sabine grumbles, “Can you say destroyed a few more times?”

“Yes, please,” Ezra requests, “I didn’t hear it enough.”

Vader ignores them both, though Anakin smirks. “I already chose my loyalty, Darth Sidious,” he replies, “And you are not my master.”

Sidious scowls angrily. “Then I will deal with your treachery myself!”

“Uh, how will  you do that, exactly?” Ezra asks sweetly, “You look like a shriveled up old prune.”

“Ugh,” Hera grumbles, “Not one I’d ever eat.”

“Are we seriously talking about eating the Emperor?” Rex asks, befuddled.

Danger whispers in the Force, and Anakin reaches over, impulsively grabbing Vader’s lightsaber away for the coming duel.

“That is not yours!” Vader argues, trying to pull it away.

“I thought the Dark Side was so powerful,” Anakin argues, grabbing it back with the Force – they’re actually having tung-of-war with the Force over a lightsaber now? And they’re the same person, so neither will ever win. They have the same strength in the Force. “Can’t it protect you? Come on!”

“Find your own!”

“I dropped it!” Anakin yells back.

“Then pick it up!”

“I can’t magically summon my lightsaber.”

“You can summon illusions, control Force lightning, and make yourself invisible. Why can’t you teleport your own lightsaber?”

At least two people behind them are facepalming.

“I cannot believe I trained you,” Obi-Wan bemoans.

“I held high hopes for you, Lord Vader,” Sidious gripes, equally disappointed in their intelligence level. “But you will always be as it started, as a traitor.”

The hurt flickers in the Force, and Anakin’s anger flares with it – and then, just like before, a crash of thunder drowns everything else out, electricity exploding outwards and the lightsaber flies safely to its proper owner’s hand.

Anakin doesn’t remember hitting the floor, but he is opening his eyes again with a pounding headache to see a blurring mix of faces leaning over him. Obi-Wan, Ahsoka, Rex, Vader, Kanan, Hera, Sabine, Ezra – Zeb, lingering in the back and towering over all of them, and even Chopper.

Aw.

That’s sweet. He actually does care.

“What was that?” Ahsoka asks.

He groans softly. His head is spinning. “I don’t know. Is everybody okay?”

“Chopper nearly got zapped.” Kanan tells him.

“He’ll be fine,” Hera assures. “Are you okay?”

“Where’s –” Wait. The air feels like death. Someone died, but all of his friends are still alive and safe. And the danger isn’t here anymore. The death hasn’t made the Force any darker. Instead, it’s almost like… the Force is brighter. Lighter. Still dim and empty, but somehow brighter than he ever remembers it being since coming here.

Anakin rolls his head to the side, blinking the stars from his vision and looking at the still-smoking body on the ground across from him. He blinks again, staring. “Did I just kill Darth Sidious?”

***

“I still can’t believe you did that,” Sabine states flatly. Everyone’s still looking at him with something like awe, and it’s almost ridiculous. But whipping up a lightning storm is pretty epic, so…

If Vader did that, he’d be fully certain it was some sort of Dark Side thing, considering the strangeness of it, but he’s hardly even sure if Sith can still do that anymore. Not like he’s seen, and he’s the only person who can summon lightning, as far as he knows.

“Me neither,” Anakin replies, smirking a bit, “That was fun.”

“Was that something Vader taught you?” Obi-Wan asks.

“No. I got some really weird abilities after coming here. Either the explosion changed me, or the Force is different here, I’m not sure.”

Their attempted momentary relief is interrupted – again – with Maul’s arrival. Anakin feels his presence even before he sees him, mentally kicking himself for not having noticed it a long time ago.  He jolts to his feet when the Zabrak comes into view across from them on the landing platform they’ve borrowed, courtesy of Vader, in the Imperial palace to rest before going back to Attalon. His yellow eyes glitter at them through the darkness of the evening.

“When I saw you, I intended to make you my apprentice,” the Sith states, “But you have given me something even better.”

Anakin rolls his eyes. “Me? You’re apprentice? Why does everyone think I’d be an amazing apprentice? You should try to train me and see what you get.” He swears, if one more person asks, he will just to make them learn exactly how infuriating he can be if he wants. But after seeing Obi-Wan again, he honestly doesn’t know if he can be a Jedi, if he’s capable of it.

Obi-Wan gave up on him. That hurts more than he wants to admit. If Obi-Wan thought that of him, what if he was right?

Maybe Sabine was right, and he should go to Mandalore. But he’s going to deal with Maul, first. They have business to attend.

Ezra jolts forwards, expression darkening on seeing the Sith. Anakin reaches out, extending a hand in an attempt to soothe him. He knows this is difficult for him, and that the padawan is struggling, and he needs to keep him back from rushing into something that will lead him closer to the Dark Side.

“Anakin’s not going anywhere with you,” Ahsoka accuses.

Maul laughs. “Oh, I am not here for him. I’m here for Kenobi.”

Anakin bristles. “You touch my master, you –”

“I have a better idea,” Sabine answers, pulling her helmet on and stalking forwards. “As Mandalorian, I challenge you, the rightful ruler of Mandalore.”

Anakin inhales sharply. “Sabine, I don’t think that’s a very –”

Her helmet tilts a little towards him. She’s braced for fighting already, ready to fight, completely unafraid. A little nervous, but mostly just determined. “Trust me,” she requests. Anakin doesn’t want to. he doesn’t want to risk someone else he cares about being hurt by Maul, and he has to admit that she was trained well. By Kanan and Ahsoka, and whomever on Mandalore. Sabine’s a good fighter.

It's just… after Qui-Gon, Anakin doesn’t know if she could stand up to Maul.

The Sith looks at her interested. “Very well,” he agrees, “As is the Mandalorian way. Only the strongest shall rule.”

Sabine ignites the blade in front of her. Maul draws his double-bladed lightsaber, igniting it as well. Anakin bites his lip, hand clenching as he waits and watches.

“Like I always say,” Kanan grumbles, “Mandalorian only think with the end of a blaster.”

“Hey,” Sabine argues, “I’m a little more than Mandalorian right now. Thanks to you.”

They stalk around each other, and Maul lifts his saber in a double-handed grip.

Sabine runs at him. Their blades clash, an electric field crackling between the two. They trade blows, Maul trying to make her drop the weapon, but she doesn’t. He kicks her, and she’s thrown back, but rolls to her feet, lighting the Darksaber to block the ruby blade slashing down at her face.

She lifts her left arm, unleashing some sort of energy blast that throws him backwards. Mandalorian armbands. Convenient. Useful, actually. She goes for her blaster, firing a couple of times and blocking the shots with a shield that she forms from her armband. Really useful. She’s handling this well.

Ezra moves to intervene, but Anakin tries to hold it off despite his own worry. Yes, he’s scared, but more than that, he trusts Sabine. And it’s strange to feel that, but the calm and certainty is burning in every inch of his being. He already knows how this will end somehow.

They trade blows in a furious blur of motion and he has to say, it’s impressive how well Sabine is able to keep up with him. Her training has gone a long way.

Anakin’s not fully sure Maul was taking the fight seriously until now, as it’s getting steadily more intense. She’s able to counter any of his Force shoves with blasts from her armor and it evens the stakes a lot.

And then she somehow manages to send his lightsaber skittering away, flinging him to the ground and leveling the Darksaber at his neck.

There’s a moment of absolute silence.

Sabine won.

She actually defeated him.

Clearly, Maul’s getting rusty. Because there’s no way Sabine’s a better fighter than both Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon.

Maul glares up at her. “And yet, you’re still too weak to finish it.”

Does he want to die that badly?

Actually, what if he does? Does he even have anything to live for? That’s not a thought Anakin wants to consider further.

“That might be the Mandalorian way, but it’s not my way,” Sabine throws back, staring down at him. “Not anymore.” She slowly takes a step back, still keeping the Darksaber leveled.

Anakin doesn’t actually know what they want to do with him now.

Maul lashes out suddenly, flinging Sabine back with the Force and going for his lightsaber again.

A blaster shot rings out.

It hits Maul in the chest and he falls, motionless.

Everyone spins around to see Rex is holding the blaster. “That was for my brothers,” he says quietly.

Maul killed some of his brothers? He’s not really surprised by that. But it must have been many, for the amount of grief Rex is radiating.

Ahsoka nods silently to Rex, expression grim.

But it’s… over.

They defeated Maul and Sidious. Practically by accident.

“Well,” Anakin offers, “I guess we won.”

“So we did,” Hera agrees, “I’ll have to notify the Rebellion.”

Anakin turns around at the familiar sound of a respirator, yelping loudly when a familiar, silver cylindrical object smacks him in the face. “Hey!” he cries in protest.

“You are welcome,” Vader tells him firmly, “I pulled it out of the garbage chute. Try not to discard it a second time.”

He is so screwed. Obi-Wan gave him orders not to lose the thing already. “I –” Zeb and Ezra laugh behind him. Anakin turns around, attempting a glare, but breaks and laughs instead. Okay, maybe it was funny. Just a little bit.

***

They won. The battle is over, and the Rebellion won. Finally. The relief isn’t as real to Anakin as everyone else, but people are already taking to the streets, celebrating, even here on Coruscant. As soon as the news gets out, he can already see people toppling statues of Sidious and doing all sorts of anti-Imperial things.

Sweet.

All in all, it went well, and they go down to join a bit of the partying, just… because.

Why not, really?

They’ve all been through a lot, and they won. The war’s done.

He sees Obi-Wan and Ahsoka talking, then loses sight of everybody, until Sabine tracks him down, and he needs to seriously have a conversation about the Mandalorian thing. “After seeing Obi-Wan again, after what happened with Sidious, the Force abilities… I don’t know fi can be a Jedi. Besides, the Jedi really aren’t a thing anymore.”

“Mandalorians and Jedi don’t really get along,” Sabien replies, “I might be their rightful ruler now that I killed Maul, but I still don’t know how we’ll be accepted.”

“But the Emperor’s gone. It won’t be long before the Empire falls, too. Without Sidious, everything falls. You can go home, Sabine. And I – I want to go with you.”

“I don’t know what happens now,” she confesses, looking away. “I never thought about after. I honestly didn’t think we’d make it to the end. But here we are. And now we need to figure out what we’re doing.”

“And you’re not sure if you’re going to stay together,” Anakin guesses.

Sabine sighs. “Yeah. I have to go to Mandalore. Ezra’s gonna want to go back to Lothal. He should get that chance, and I don’t know when I’m going to see him again.”

“You’re still family,” Anakin tries, a slight fluttering uncomfortableness in his gut. “And, I guess, so are we.”

“You really think you want to use a blaster?”

“Sure. Why not? They’re cool.” Anakin grins deviously. “Besides, Obi-Wan hates them.”

Sabine laughs. “You really are a menace,” she tells him sweetly.

“I try to be.”

“I know.” She shifts a little, hands in her lap, and Anakin just grins at her, smothering a smile, wondering at the strange feelings bubbling to life in her chest. He’s had friends before, but this is different in a way he can’t even place. But it’s something, and he’s starting to think he knows what he wants, even if it’s strange and he’s really not sure if she wants that. Well, Sabine’s a fighter, and that’s really what he likes about her. She’ll say so if that’s not what she wants, and honestly, for as afraid as he is of rejection, he’s more afraid of her being hurt, though she’s Mandalorian and she’s proved well that’s not very likely.

He just wants her to be okay.

She smirks a little when he leans closer, and Anakin slowly leans down to kiss her. She actually smiles a little, the light of it reaching her eyes, and her gloved hand reaches up to the back of his neck as she moves in to close the distance between them herself.

She’s happy.

She likes him.

She’s always felt like a part of his family, but this is different. This is a promise of family eternally, the first time he’s ever had that since his mother, that he’s gotten a promise that they can stay here. Hera had said, but this is different, because it’s more than allies surviving through danger.

Anakin’s hands lift to her shoulders, hugging her closer, and then he feels a prickle of too-close amusement and they abruptly break apart at a ridiculous flicker of colors.

“Ezra!” Sabine shrieks in amused apprehension as her stupid little brother jumps back with an embarrassed grin, holding a bucket of confetti he probably stole from the nearby party supplies. Yeah, it’s about time they finally decided to have this moment, even if he sort of thought they’d start with a conversation, first. But that doesn’t mean he appreciates getting a bucket of confetti dumped over their heads, probably part with the Force, and they were both too lost to notice being snuck up on.

That’s embarrassing. This is very embarrassing.

Anakin tries to relax even if he feels himself flushing ridiculously. “I, uh –”

“Okay, how much of that were you watching?” Sabine demands feral, crossing her arms.

“Uh…” Ezra rubs at the back of his neck. Beside him, Zeb cackles approvingly. “Most of it?”

“What?” she half-shrieks. “No way.”

Zeb cackles. “I don’t know, I just think it’s about time you two talked about it.”

She bristles.

Ezra and Zeb run for their lives.

Anakin exchanges a glance with her, both still blushing furiously, and charges after.

***

“I heard about the, uh, situation,” Kanan spells out politely.

Anakin groans, burying his head in his arm. “Yeah, I think everyone has.”

“I just wanted to tell you that you’re not the first Jedi to have a relationship,” Kanan says, “You know I do, too.”

He knows about Hera. Or maybe he sensed or guessed something, Anakin’s not sure, but either way, he does know that. “I know. It’s just, in my time, this wasn’t normal.”

“You’re not in a normal time anymore,” Kanan replies, “The Jedi now, we’re not who we used to be. We have to adapt to fit this world, not the one you used to live in. I’ve seen how you are with her, and I trust you to take care of her more than I would anyone else.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Anakin gripes.

Kanan laughs. He actually laughs. It’s strange to hear, and he realizes this is actually the first time he ever has heard it. “Fine, you don’t have to.”

He still feels better about the whole thing when Hera just gives him a small, soft smile, no questions asked. It makes his throat clog a bit, with how it reminds him of Shmi, and he’s never going to get to see her again.  But she’s happy to have him, and he is of her, too, though he’s not sure he’s ready to think quite yet about the exactly form of relationships he’s forming with the rest of the Ghost Crew. Hera’s not that much older than him, all things considered, but she’s really the closest he’s had to a mother since he was nine years old.

It's been eight years.

That’s… a long time

***

“Before the Jedi fell, I also had someone,” Vader admits when the two of them are alone, shockingly not arguing. “You’ve met her. We married before the war.”

Anakin stares at him. Words fly away before he can even speak. Vader was married? Before? He would still have been Anakin then, but he can’t imagine that. He knows he had… feelings a bit like that towards Padme once, but now that he met Sabine, he’s hardly thought about her, and he’s also realized fast that it was more of a fantasizing than reality.

It wasn’t what he really wanted.

Sabine is all that matters in that way. And her family is already his. He doesn’t even know if Padme has a family. And they could never have been together. It would just have been… weird.

“What happened to her?” Anakin asks a little panickily, because he can’t imagine she’s still alive. Wouldn’t they have had children? And either way, what if he time-traveled into a future where he’s already supposed to have a wife? Sure, he’s not Vader and doesn’t rightfully belong in this time, but it still feels weird.

The grief that flares in the Force is overwhelming. “Padme is dead,” he answers, “I killed her. Unintentionally. But it was my doing, nonetheless.”

Anakin swallows, looking away. He doesn’t know what to say. It figures that they ended in disaster. He can’t see any other way. Sure, he wanted it, and she must’ve too, but it’s just not real. He doesn’t think there’s any other way it could have gone. Not if he was a Jedi, or she’s a Senator. “I’m sorry,” Anakin replies softly, gently laying a hand on the Sith’s arm.

Vader’s respirator continues cycling. “I hurt her,” he confesses, “When I Fell, she did not stand with me. She tried to kill me, and I lashed out. I did not mean to, and I thought she…” He trails off. “I thought she was alive. But after I fought Obi-Wan, she was gone.”

Anything could have happened in the meantime. He’s a bit nervous to point that out, though. He doesn’t know how the Sith would react. “I’m so sorry,” he murmurs again, patting the Sith’s arm. “I know we’ve – we’ve made a lot of mess-ups in this future.” He’d say he can’t believe Padme would try that, but it’s been weight years since he saw her. He doesn’t know what it was like. “But you’ve killed Sidious. We’re still bringing peace like we’ve always been trying.”

“Years, and I have still failed. What if we have again?”

“I think we’ve been on enough sides to know it’s more difficult than what even the Jedi were being led to believe. I see that now. And I don’t know  if I really want to be a Jedi. I know this word needs more of them, but I see other places, other things that Jedi can’t do that I was meant for. Maybe this is what the galaxy needs. Not death, just… change, but change can never come without death.”

“When did you get so thoughtful?”

“I don’t know, but I blame Kanan.”

“How was it Kanan’s fault?”

“I didn’t say it was. I just said to blame him.”

“Very well.” A silence settles over them until Vader speaks again. “If this is the path you want, I wish you luck,” he says, and it’s ridiculous to hear in his deep monotone. “You should not be burdened by the weight of my own misdeeds.”

“Our,” Anakin corrects. “We were the same. I could have been you, and you were me, and maybe… you still could be.”

“Will you go to Mandalore with her?” Vader asks.

“You’re not coming?”

“The rest of the galaxy requires attendance.”

The disappointment is ridiculous when it’s perfectly reasonable. Ezra is going to want to go back to Lothal, even if he’s coming with them right now.

Anakin leans over to hug him, and Vader hugs him back tightly. It feels odd to be hugged by the cyborg with how metal he is, but still nice. He has to spray-paint a bright rad smiley face on his cape with a can he borrowed from Sabine in parting.

“We’ll be fine,” Anakin promises, pulling back, “I’m gonna come back to keep making my life your problem.”

“Hi, Anakin… and Anakin,” Ahsoka says, approaching, cocking an eye-marking at them. “Um, Vader, why is there a smiley face on your cape?”

“What?” he asks, alarmed, like someone just told him he got a bomb planted two inches from his face. He rips his cape off and spins it around to fancily display Anakin’s messy drawing. “Anakin!” Vader roars.

He runs.

***

Obi-Wan takes Anakin leaving for Mandalore fairly well, all things considered. It’s not certain where he’s going, but Anakin doesn’t ask, either. All he says is that he was getting some other type of training that he wants to teach Anakin someday, too, and explains something about preserving consciousness in the Force.

“This may be hard to believe, but I was speaking with Qui-Gon Jinn’s spirit.”

Anakin twitches a little, looking away. “You actually talked to him?” He’s wanted to see him again so, so much. Has Vader sensed him since he Fell? He’s afraid to ask.

“Yes, I have. I know this is –”

“It’s not,” Anakin interrupts. “I know. I mean, I guess I’ve always known. I… didn’t know how to tell him. I never did. But I sensed him. All the time. He was always here, always watching. All those years at the Temple, I made it because I knew he was there. I knew I wasn’t really alone, even if it always felt like it, and it was so hard.” He blinks a few times. “I – I sensed him here, too. Not as much. But sometimes. He’s always here. Always watching.”

And he will be, forever.

***

Mandalore is… it feels of death and years layered on years of sorrow, a planet burned through to ashes, but this is Sabine’s home world. But it’s cold, as opposed to Tatooine’s sharp heat, and as the snowflakes fall around Anakin and Sabine, he knows they can make something out of this world.

Together.