Once There Was a Light

Hope in the Darkness

A/N: So... it's been a while... 

Hope in the Darkness

Ahsoka would never be her teenage self again. Never would she be that vulnerable. She had come through too much, too many people had sacrificed their lives for her to waste a moment she'd been given.

He was driving her mad. She wanted the Anakin of old back, the one she'd managed to find inside their recent banters. Why couldn't he stay like that? Was there no hope for escape? She didn't think of her own escape - not without him, of course. Because he was one of those people who had sacrificed much for her, perhaps even his own sanity. 

Looking down, she struggled to gain the breath she had been robbed of, glaring at the floor in place of Anakin. Slowly regaining her normal level of consciousness, she waited for him to move. When he didn't, she gathered her thoughts, as Vader stared, waiting for her to say something, anything. She wasn't sure what kind of reaction he was expecting, and she was prepared to say anything that might bring him back, saving him from himself. 

"I want it to be like old times again. I want to be your Snips, Skyguy. I want you the way you were, the great person I knew you were, whether others saw it or not," she choked a little, over her words. "I was never enough for you, then. You had to have the whole world staring your imminence in the face. You've killed me inside more times than you know, because I hung onto every word you said- I trusted you the most out of..." She paused, trying to muster the correct phrasing. "At least out of most people, most Jedi. You knew it, too. But when I wanted you to trust me, I'm not sure you fully did. Maybe you did more than everyone else, but you still couldn't fully get it. But I got over it. This- this crazy vendetta against the world that you've formed is not a way of "getting over it". You can't use this thing you've got to get over Padme." Her voice was bitter, persuasive.

"I'm...I'm not," he sputtered, glaring lightly, that old stern look she'd never forget appearing on his face. "Ahsoka..." Perhaps he was getting frustrated, loosing control of their situation and now this conversation. 

Honestly, he looked worn out, which almost scared her more than the anger of moments ago. "I...I can't fix you either. I'm not enough. You have to want to be fixed first, and you're not letting me in, you're not willing to change. You were my best friend," she looked down thoughtfully, shaking her head in an almost wistful manner. "At least, when you were Anakin Skywalker, you were. And you wouldn't have failed me for anything, and I wouldn't' have failed you, either. I don't know anymore." Her voice had developed into something almost foggy, breathy, teary.

He didn't really want to speak. He didn't know if she was right or wrong- maybe he was too far gone to know the difference. But maybe he still had a conscience which stirred a little at her words.

Everything he'd done, he'd done because it was something he'd thought done for the best. He entered the podracer competition for freedom's sake. Count Dooku was killed for the safety of the Galaxy. Every major battle during the Clone Wars had been to a most efficient peak because of his good decisions. Then a final thought struck: Padme would be protected if he joined the Emperor.

That hadn't actually happened. Really, if anything, because he joined Palpatine, she'd died. He'd killed her out of his newly discovered rage.

"A great leap forward often requires taking two steps back."

Obi-Wan's old saying flooded into his head like a beacon. Here was his opportunity to take two steps back, and hopefully backwards was the right direction.