Fading

Chapter 13 - Crisis

Author's Note: Warning's at the top this time. It's just a very minor-ish thing, but it's still... important. ;-;

WARNING: Mentions of past rape/non-con.

~ Amina Gila

Anakin tilts his head back against the tree branch, closing his eyes. He's exhausted, completely worn, and it feels like he's being crushed. Anakin had thought this would get better, but it hasn't, and he doesn't know why.

"Anakin," Ahsoka's voice calls from below him, leaves crunching under her boots. "I know you're there."

Hiding up in a tree is stupid and childish but he doesn't want to be around Obi-Wan right now. Actually, he hasn't for weeks but still. But Ahsoka is stubborn, and she won't stop until she gets her way. It's simply how she is. He may normally be fine in indulging with what she wants, even if it makes him uncomfortable, but not right now. Truthfully, if not for her, he doubts he'd be the Jedi he became during the war, even if it was only brief – she forced him to adhere to their teachings so he could teach her to.

But he failed her, anyway, so what good was it?

He doesn't have the energy to look down, but he senses her at the foot of the tree he's sitting in now, and she steps forwards, laying a gloved hand on its trunk. "Padme sent me out here to find you. You haven't eaten today."

"I'm not hungry," he mutters, eyes still stubbornly closed.

"Why are you hiding out here?"

"Obi-Wan and I argued."

"How is that any different than 'normal'?"

"It's complicated." He doesn't want to explain it to her. She has enough resentment towards his former master already. Anakin senses her coming closer, maneuvering her way beside him. If he wasn't at a split in the tree, they'd never have room to squeeze in together, but then again, they've squeezed into many tight places before throughout the war.

Before she left.

He wishes he hadn't just walked out on Obi-Wan.

He's also surprised she even wants to be here.

Ahsoka doesn't say anything, sitting across from him, legs dangling over the edge of the branch. He can feel a muted grief from her now. What is he supposed to say, when he knows he's the one who caused it?

Don't leave her in her misery as Obi-Wan always did you, an instinctive voice in his mind whispers, and he reaches over, leaning forwards, taking her hand. What are you supposed to do, when you see the child you know you failed? What do you say, when you destroyed everything she worked for? When you know this pain is yours?

When you dug her lightsabers out of smoke and ash, the one you built for her, in the last place you were truly together? When you watch her walk away? When you watch her life destroyed by the people she served? When your pleas mean nothing? When you keep her lightsabers right beside you, as if it's enough to take the place she once held in your heart?

When you've destroyed the very thing that brought her together?

Maybe someday, Anakin will know the answers to that, but it won't be today.

Ahsoka settles against the tree, turning to face him. "What do we do now?" she asks.

"I don't know. I haven't thought about it. I wanted to stay here with Padme and now I can, but I do not know what to do about the galaxy. It's not in our... control any longer."

"You're not even going to try?"

She probably didn't mean it badly, but he can't help taking it that way – nothing Obi-Wan has said to him was nice, except over the past few days. And that wasn't until after making him depressed enough to nearly... anyway, yeah. "After you left your duties, I cannot understand why it would upset you so much."