By My Side

Chapter 1 - Where it all Started

It ripped a hole in his heart he knows nothing – nothing – can ever refill. The one person he knew he could trust and rely on, the person he was supposed to take care of. Right after everything he believed in was ripped away, right when the Jedi proved again none of them trusted him, she turned her back on him. They should have been able to work it through together, to tell him she wasn't the only one suffering from the Council's betrayal. But she didn't even listen.

"More than you realize, I understand wanting to walk away from the Order," he had said, in one final desperate attempt to get the point across. The only reason he stayed was that he couldn't do that to Obi-Wan The only reason. It had been a moment of choice, between the man who raised him, and his daughter and wife, and given the life he's lived, of course he chose Obi-Wan over them both.

"I know," Ahsoka had said, because she had to let him know she was the only person who understood him – momentarily giving him the hope she wouldn't hurt him like everyone else – only to disappear off into the sunset. Because he didn't mean anything to her, either.

And in the end, he loses everyone, whether it be them walking away or forcing him to leave them. What is so wrong with him that no one wants him?

***

There is nothing that hurts more than throwing himself into battle to the point he expects to see her when he turns. When it suddenly crushes him again that she isn't here, that he can't tell her to go help the clones over at the edge where they're rapidly being overrun while Anakin struggles to keep back the droids in the main part of the battlefield. They're simply outnumbered, and there's only so much ground they can give. It's the first mission since Ahsoka left, and it's going badly.

Ahsoka, if you knew this would happen, would you have stayed?

An explosion rips through the ground nearby, throwing several clones to the ground.

The droids have brought their tanks forwards now. He'd been so focus on the battle droids he hadn't seen it coming.

Snips, where are you when I need you?

***

It had all started over twelve years ago. When he was just a little boy back on his home planet of Tatooine. When he was no one – just like now – and when he looked to the stars, waiting for his father to come. He had been too young to understand that when his mother said he didn't have one, that there wasn't one. That he was the son of the Force. But on a place like Tatooine, so many families are destroyed it was an easy assumption to make. But he knew eventually he'd find his father, too, so he watched, he waited, because he knew he wasn't going to be stuck on that dust planet forever. That place where lives mean nothing and families – whether by blood or by choice – are constantly ripped apart because they're no more than objects to be bought and sold.

And then, he came. The first Jedi Anakin ever met. Qui-Gon Jinn. At first, Anakin was as distrustful and wary as ever. Years of experience had taught him that, making him tense and closed off near any adult except his mother and another slave, constantly in fear of punishment if he slipped up. But the man's kind and gentle manner made Anakin trust him to the point he was ready and willing to risk his life for him – for Padme, the only non-slave friend he'd met.

And then, he had a choice. Between his mother who raised him, who stood by and supported him, and between his dreams. His family, or the Jedi and his longing to stop the pain that surrounded him. Between his parents. "Don't look back," his mother had said, and he didn't. He'd chosen to face the unknown, to leave the one person who stayed by him through all. Is that why Ahsoka left him? To show him how his mother felt, losing him like that?