"–AND IF MY COMMANDER WERE HERE SHE'D TEAR YOUR ARMS OFF AND USE THEM TO CLOBBER YOU SO GOOD YOU'D NEED A HELLUVA LOT MORE THAN A RESPIRATOR TO MAKE YOUR LIFE BEARABLE YOU HUT'UUNLA SHABLA DI'KUT–"

Vader sighed quietly, too quietly for the vocoder to register, as he left the last prison cell of the four he visited daily – the one he'd been most interested in, despite its occupant's legendary stubbornness. He didn't remember the men who'd once served under his command being quite so... irritating.

Perhaps it was easier to get along with them when you were in on the fun.

Not that there was anything remotely fun about the present circumstances. The few clone pilots his forces had captured alive following the assault on the Death Star weren't talking. He'd tried everything short of reaching into their minds for the answers, but soon, he'd have to try that, too. The Emperor expected results, and using the Force on Anakin Skywalker's old comrades might be Vader's only chance to get them before the situation spiralled utterly out of his control.

Director Tarkin's eyes flicked away from the warden as Vader activated the cell ray shield behind him. Dismissing the warden with a gesture, the gaunt man crossed his arms sternly behind his back and made his way over to where Vader stood. His flinty eyes that had to be blue but were closer to violet through the red lenses on Vader's helmet glared up at Vader with even more intensity than usual.

"You hesitate to use the Force to interrogate the Rebels, Lord Vader?"

Only a slight change in pitch at the end of Tarkin's sentence kept the question from becoming an accusation. It was a narrow margin, but it was just large enough that Vader couldn't call him out on it. Gritting his teeth, he answered, "These clones' minds are strong, and they have received training to resist persuasion with the Force. If I push them too hard, I risk breaking them, and then they'll be of no use to anyone. I must learn their weaknesses before I can proceed with a deeper probe."

Tarin raised a skeptical brow. "If I did not know the exalted Lord Vader's reputation as I do, I might have thought him reluctant to do what needs to be done. First your silence about drawing the Rebels out, and now a slow interrogation..."

The accusation was definitely there, this time. "Agent Kallus and I have had reason to suspect the infiltrator is an officer. That greatly limits the people I can take into my confidence, even while planning a sting operation," Vader shot back hotly. "And you cannot understand the Force as I do, Director Tarkin."

"I had several friends in the old days who could use the Force, Lord Vader."

"Bold of you to claim connections to Jedi when their subordinates launched an attack on this battle station not ten days ago!"

"The Jedi?" Tarkin smiled thinly. "When did I claim connection to them?"

Vader shifted uncertainly. If Tarkin had had friends who could use the Force, it more than explained his nearly impenetrable mental fortifications. But that left Vader with another unanswered question: who had taught Tarkin, if not the Jedi?

Vader looked Tarkin up and down, reassessing him. There had been rumors during the Clone Wars of a Sith Lord controlling the Republic Senate – rumors he'd since come to believe had been hinting at the long reach of Darth Tyranus and his Separatist worlds. Had Tarkin been in league with the Emperor for all this time, unsuspected because of his damning Republic ties? Had he been covertly informing the Emperor of Vader's movements ever since Vader set foot on the Death Star?

That explanation fit most of the facts, but one detail still rankled. Vader's Master seldom spoke of the man who'd taught him. If the Sith Lord holding court in the Senate was another – Tyranus' Master, perhaps – had Tarkin learned from him, instead? That idea presented too many unknown variables for Vader's liking.

"We should put the infiltrator out of our minds and focus on the present," Tarkin said lightly. "Whatever goal Rebellion came here in the purpose of achieving, I am confident our forces repelled them before they managed it."

"I read the reports, and I do not share your confidence. Three dozen escape pods were jettisoned remotely from various points in the station. Several managed to dock with Rebel ships."

"There were no life signs in any of the escape pods, and no one has yet been reported missing from the Death Star's crew complement."

"It's possible the infiltrator was a droid," Vader said for the sake of argument. Their mystery slicer displayed a sentient capacity to adapt that went beyond any allowances programming could make, but Tarkin wouldn't know that.

"And it's equally possible the person simply found a way to trick the sensors so that our guns couldn't pick a target! You yourself proved that was possible when you left the station." Tarkin exhaled sharply through his nose. "My point is, Lord Vader, that there are simply too many unknowns about your infiltrator to count. Our databanks are undamaged. None of our intelligence is missing, nor, stars forbid, are the technical readouts for this battle station and its weapon. When the Rebel tide crested over us, we stood strong, and repelled it. This is our moment of triumph."

"You let complacency weaken you, Director," Vader hissed.

"I am being pragmatic. I suspect the infiltrator came to steal from us before realizing theft without detection was impossible. He or she then fled at the earliest opportunity, calling upon a Rebel fleet to cover the escape attempt and probe our defenses in the same stroke."

The Force rumbled uncertainly around Vader, wary of... something. He couldn't place it. "That theory leaves many questions unanswered."

"And I have every confidence you will answer them – you, or Agent Kallus."

Vader opened his mouth, hoping to probe the strange feeling curling in his gut at Tarkin's words further with a few careful inquiries. At the sudden trill of his wrist comm, the breath he'd summoned to speak left his lips in in a huff. The caller ID was masked, but the audio transmission was being placed from the Imperial garrison in Kyzeron.

He blinked. With the week of upset aboard the Death Star, he'd pushed the auction house fiasco and the various contingencies he'd instigated on Onderon to investigate it in his absence to the back of his mind. But now that he did the math, only the four Elites he'd sent to the border villages had reported in yesterday. Of the other two, who had taken part in maintaining order in Kyzeron as the lockdown was slowly lifted, there had been no sign.

Vader curled his lip. Of all the insubordination... They must be comparing notes with Lady Noronessa. She only reported back when the fancy struck her.

"I must take my leave of you, Director," Vader said sharply. He turned on one heel and stalked off down the hall without waiting for a farewell. Then, routing the call from his wrist comm to his internal system and shutting off his vocoder to keep everything he said confined to his helmet, he barked, "Report."

"... Lord Vader?"

That was Lieutenant Rehin's voice. Vader frowned, not understanding the source of the deep confusion in the words, before realizing the man wouldn't ever have heard Vader's voice sans vocoder.

"My helmet is not welded to me, Lieutenant," he said dryly. It wasn't the call he'd been hoping for, but there was surely a good reason Rehin was getting in touch outside of his usual schedule. "I need make no excuse for the difference in my voice."

"Yes, my Lord. Your pardon, my Lord." Rehin cleared his throat and began. "Normally I wouldn't impose, but last night Onderon time there transpired events that bear your personal attention. Kyzeron's mystery Jedi struck again."

Vader's eyes widened. "What?"

"We have only the words of a... an addict to go by, and a squad of Elite storm troopers that were too far away to sense the specifics. You must understand, my Lord, that this information is not wholly reliable."

"I will sense the misconception in what you say and draw the truth from it," Vader said. "Tell me what has happened. Now."

Again Rehin cleared his throat. "From what we've been able to reconstruct, a glitterstim addict was dozing off the high in an alleyway when two people arrived in a speeder and disembarked. He thought them lovers before he began to suspect they were rebels breaking curfew to plan seditious actions against the Empire. When he said as much, one of the pair attempted to mind trick him."

"Did he get any particulars?" Vader pressed, scarcely able to believe his luck. "Looks, species, vocal inflections?"

"The addict is certain the one who mind tricked him has Togruta montrals and is small in stature, and they spoke in a high voice, but the drug was distorting his senses too much to remember a face. With the deep shadows in the alley, he saw nothing of the second person before the Togruta rendered him unconscious."

Vader snarled a curse before remembering Rehin was privy to everything that went on inside his helmet. Composing himself, he muttered, "Go on."

"A half-squadron of Elites was near the scene at the time, and they picked up on the mind trick. Two of them were members of your honor guard. Another was a captain who was given training with an Imperial-grade lightsaber – part of a project to reverse engineer existing Jedi lightsabers to arm our troops, I'm told. The Elite split into two groups to box the Jedi and their accomplice in, but were... repelled."

"Repelled?" Vader echoed.

"The Elites' helmet cams were smashed beyond any hope of recovering their contents, but based off the spread of the battle and what the second squad was able to sense from afar, the Jedi confronted the first group unarmed save for the Force. The Jedi then disarmed and killed them using their own electrostaffs.

"When the second group of four made their approach, the Jedi killed one of the members of your honor guard by throwing him against the wall. The Jedi fought the other – the strongest Force user of the six, as I understood it – in armed combat using a stolen electrostaff. Then..." Rehin paused, swallowing audibly. "Somehow, the Jedi drove them mad, my Lord."

"They did what?" Vader shook his head. "What you speak of is impossible."

"They mutilated themselves, my Lord, and threw themselves against walls. Other Elites nearby spoke of sensing a pressure on their minds, compelling them to forget their training, but they were too far away for it to truly take hold."

Vader grit his teeth. His Master was going to be furious when he learned of this. He'd known, as the Emperor knew from years of twisted experiments with midichlorians, that the Elites were susceptible to mind tricks. No Jedi was meant to live long enough to discover that, but apparently, one had.

And had then escaped to tell the tale to whomever they liked.

The dark side roared at the periphery of Vader's mind, a storm that grew harsher and stronger the higher his fear and anger rose. "Finish your report," he said hollowly, praying something in what Rehin said next would allow Vader to fix this before the Emperor received word of it – if he hadn't already.

"Much as before, the Jedi destroyed the Elites' surveillance tech. They then fled the scene with their accomplice, taking with them the lightsaber. From what we know, the entire skirmish took place in the space of a few minutes."

"The Imperial-grade lightsabers have tracking beacons in them," Vader said, and felt the storm recede somewhat. Major General Acesto would already be in the process of tracking the Jedi down, her forces zeroing in on the chip's frequency–

"I'm... I'm sorry, my Lord. The tracker was found in the alleyway along with the rest of the unusable tech."

That was another thing that should not have happened, unless the Jedi was so strong they could sense threats even in an object as attuned to the Force as a lightsaber. But here was another possibility, one Vader hadn't allowed himself to consider but had had on his mind ever since Rehin mentioned the word 'Togruta'.

"Who did the crystal in that blade belong to?" he asked slowly.

"One moment, my Lord. Let me consult my records." For a few seconds, all was silent. Then, Rehin said, "The lightsaber is question is double-bladed, with two crystals on record as having belonged to Reduction Subject 5399, a Padawan who was captured on Felucia just over a year ago. Her given name is Ahsoka Tano."

Ahsoka Tano. Reduction Subject 5399.

Ahsoka.

"She took out half a squad of Elites in a few minutes," he murmured. "She took out half a squad when the same nearly killed me."

"My Lord?"

Realising he'd come to a sudden halt in the middle of the hallway, Vader shook himself and kept walking. No, it wasn't her. He did not dare hope for that. But the coincidence was so compelling he couldn't help but think it wasn't a coincidence.

He had to believe Ahsoka had taken the tools he'd given her and used them to escape the Emperor's punishment. Anakin knew in his soul she would have slipped away back to the Rebellion by now. There was no reason for her to be on Onderon – save Project Archetype. But the existence of the project was being kept even more highly secret than the Death Star itself.

No. It wasn't her. She wouldn't be that stupid. Anakin hadn't trained her to make such clumsy mistakes; she was somewhere far away from the vipers' nest of Kyzeron, keeping a low profile until she was certain Anakin hadn't broken and told the Empire her secrets.

Anakin hadn't broken. Anakin. He'd called himself Anakin.

The desert rose up in him, reminding him of why h had chosen this path and just how little there was to keep him on it now. He banished it again with a harsh rejoinder that there had been no other way, and that vengeance anchored him to this path as surely as any physical ties ever could.

The Rebellion had betrayed him by murdering his wife. He wouldn't go back, even if they'd have him after all the Rebel blood he'd spilled in retribution. But now that he'd tasted power, true power, Vader wouldn't settle for a life of mediocrity far removed from galactic affairs, either. He was destined for more. And if he wanted to keep Ahsoka safe, the Empire was all he could ever have.

"It's none of your concern," Vader said. "Send word to Major General Acesto to rotate the Elites so that two of my honor guard are in the city. And I want your written report and any other relevant information you come across in half an hour."

"Yes, my Lord. It will be done as you command."

He ended the call with the press of a button, and immediately programmed the device to establish another link with Lady Noronessa's comm. He needed more information than what Rehin and the garrison could provide him with, and the little Taevarion heiress clearly had theories she hadn't shared about the string of Jedi raids along that Noreino boy's publicity tour. Perhaps there would be a connection.

He wondered if he would have to kill her, when this was through. She was a good weapon, sharp like a vibroblade, but even the best vibroblade could become dangerous to the one using it if it began cutting of its own volition.

And Vader was not a man who would long tolerate the kind of sly defiance Noronessa insisted on showing him.

As though the girl had somehow overheard his mental backtalk from half a galaxy away and decided to spite him yet again, the comm rang ten times before going to her answering service. Vader swore for the sake of swearing, but his frustration didn't run deep enough to consume him. How could it? One of his two assignments – and arguably the more frustrating of the pair – was progressing at last, and he wasn't about to let that opportunity slip past.

And, if things did end up moving in the direction he least hoped for, he'd just make sure the Emperor never found out the lightsaber crystals were Ahsoka's.

It was a good thing Al– the Jedi hadn't shown herself in the long night and day since the massacre outside the notary's office. Lux had already awoken from two catnaps – the most sleep he could allow himself – with bile rising in his throat and throaty yells of terror fighting their way up along with it. If he saw her now, he had no idea what he'd do.

He genuinely had no idea what he would do.

The part of him that loved her wondered where she was hiding if not in the safety of his rooms, if she was all right. The part of him that had recoiled in revulsion at the vacant, uncaring way she stared down at a soldier she'd just killed hoped his father had somehow found her out and taken her away.

Stars. Lady Noronessa had been right about– about her, hadn't she? You can't trust her, she'd said. She isn't who she says she is. You may think I'm going to use you, but it's nothing like that Togruta will do to you if you don't watch yourself.

Lux crossed his arms over the desk he'd scarcely left in the last twenty hours and rested his head on them. He was such a fool. A karking fool. He didn't know if it hurt worse to think his damned trusting nature was the reason he lost everyone he'd ever cared about, or that destiny itself had turned against him, nipping his every blossoming connection off at the bud.

His mother was dead. Steela was dead. So were the rest of his old comrades, save Saw and Akani – but Saw wanted nothing to do with him, preferring to drown his troubles so deep in drink he no longer felt them, and Akani wouldn't meet except in the direst of emergencies. Dakharen had been going behind his back for who knew how long – ever since Lux's house arrest following his failure in the plateaus, he suspected – and Lux was starting to hate his father more than he loved him.

Then Alynna was...

That's not her name, Lux told himself. Alynna is someone I loved, a dream that was my safe harbor for two precious months. This new person... she's a monster.

Lux's eyes dampened, and he blinked the moisture away. He'd long stopped trying to determine what was simply watering eyes from looking at his screens too long, and what was the beginning of tears.

He let memories of his conversation with Noronessa at the ball settle over him, parsing through her words for additional clues. There would never be love between them when he hated everything she stood for, but perhaps he didn't have to be alone. Noronessa could make a powerful ally – someone to watch his back, if only because his continued survival and prosperity was in her best interest.

And if she decided it was no longer in her best interest and slit his throat in his sleep, well, that wouldn't be so terrible, would it?

Lux smacked a fist against the desktop and forced himself back up into a sitting position. For a second the room spun queasily around him, and he spared a second to wonder when he'd last eaten. He hadn't been hungry. Besides, it was better to heave bile than lose an entire meal if he woke up with his stomach turning.

Just as it was better to be alone instead of putting his faith in Noronessa. That was only furthering the cycle of faith and betrayal he'd been stuck running through ever since Onderon had seceded from the Republic. People like Noronessa were only ever on their own side, no matter what their outward appearance suggested. It was better to be alone than to trust such a one as her.

He had misjudged the Jedi, seeing her as a chance for connection and healing instead of for what she was: a snake in the grass waiting to strike. But with her, the only casualty he knew of was his heart. He couldn't afford to be that foolish with someone like Noronessa, who had political ambitions to rival Lux's father's. Even if Lux was still useful to her, she was likely to kill him the second he had an Heir-Designate of his own for her to rule the Noreino slave empire through.

It was best to be alone. This was his lot in life, and he could accept it. He knew he could. The hurt was fresh, but he had another purpose in life to sustain him in the absence of companionship: protecting his people, even if they scorned him for it.

His lip began to tremble. Gnawing at it hard enough to bruise, he sank back down on the desk.

The sun was low on the horizon, and only the barest glow still made it over the windowsill behind him to light the rest of the room. It gave the bottles in the liquor cabinet on the far wall a halo of light, as though presenting an answer. He squinted at them and considered it. He could always get drunk and comm Saw in the hopes that Saw would also be drunk enough to forget how much he hated him. With how little Lux had eaten and slept, it wouldn't take much.

Then his bleary eyes coasted over a bottle of Chandrilan rum, and he was flung back to the last night everything had felt truly simple, when he'd been in love with Alynna and felt loved in return.

Rousing himself, shoulders shaking with barely held-in sobs, Lux dragged his datapad closer and activated the holographic function in his desktop computer unit. He had to turn his mind to other things or he'd lose himself grieving for what could have been, and where would that leave him? Maybe, if he focused hard, he could find some new information about Project Archetype, whatever it was.

He lasted half an hour before he broke down crying again.

Only once Ahsoka sensed that Lux had at last fallen into the deep sleep of utter exhaustion did she finally creep back into his suite.

She'd spent the day in and out of quiet corners, her stolen double-bladed hilt pressing into her back beneath her tunic – the shrapnel of her past life perpetually a split-second away from burrowing into her flesh and consuming her. It was a cold reminder even after the metal warmed with the heat of her body, but she needed it.

She needed to remember how she'd hurt Lux. She needed to understand that she'd left too much to chance in how and when she'd tell him what she was, and now she was paying the price for it. She needed to keep it glued to the forefront of her mind that she'd hurt him, and that this was all her fault, because self-deprecation was the only thing keeping her from falling into a nervous breakdown right now.

The sitting room was a raw wound in the Force, so full of the grief for Rex Ahsoka was trying to put out of her mind she hurried past it into the bedroom at a run. The bed was too intimate, the couch on the other wall too full of memories of lazy kisses and long hours telling stories. Ahsoka chose the floor instead, sinking into the traditional cross-legged meditation pose on reflex. A quick probe into the Force came back free of any danger. Redirecting that tendril of energy down to the lightsaber, she shut her eyes and separated the components, levitating the sum in midair like a youngling shaping their first lightsaber.

She found the places where circuitry could be cut and reconnected to form two blades instead of one, and where other, more specialized components had to be inserted to replace faulty Imperial craftsmanship. She noted the segments at the one- and two-thirds marks where she could place a grip for her hands, and how much extra metal she would need to weld on to give the new blades the proper balance as she fought. The unnatural echo of the Elite who'd wielded it before her faded away she worked, the components taking on a song more in joint with the crystals at their heart, and with the Jedi who had reclaimed them.

Jedi. That was what Ahsoka was. Wasn't she?

Ahsoka shook herself, pulling the lightsaber components back together and lowering them back to the ground. She'd been given her freedom and her crystals in the same night, and she could still see the repulsed look on Lux's face as he told her he washed his hands of the matter, giving her complete control to decide for herself.

I wash my hands of you, he hadn't said, but it was what he'd meant.

Ahsoka bit down on a trembling lip. This was her wakeup call, her summons from the universe back to everything she'd left behind, all the duties she'd set aside for the sake of a wonderful, beautiful boy and the planet he loved.

She looked to the other room where Lux was sleeping, his presence in the Force barely discernable he was so far gone from the world. The soft flicker of his aura moving in deep, distant dreams had no right to soothe her as much as it did.

For months Ahsoka had walked amongst shadows, as formless and bleak as the pools of darkness around her. Reality had been painful, bringing her at its most bearable only panic attacks and dreams that woke her up screaming, and not the rest. Then Ahsoka had dared to help a pregnant slave girl who'd desperately needed saving, and she'd found herself blinking in the light of her own private sun – one that was close enough to touch, to talk with, to learn from.

Yes, she was a Jedi. But the Jedi were never taught any coping mechanisms but releasing their emotions, their distracting thoughts, into the Force. She'd gotten through the Clone Wars relatively unscathed because of it, and because of Anakin's comforting presence at her side – a golden tether stretching back to sanity when she was too far gone to let go of what she was feeling before it broke her. The Empire had taken that from her, first with Anakin, and then with being able to use the Force openly enough to purge the fear – the trauma – of being enslaved.

Jedi weren't supposed to get post-traumatic stress. But Ahsoka wondered how much of the Empire's midichlorian reduction process turned Jedi into listless, empty husks deafened and blinded by what had been done to them, and how much of it was the inability to move past years of shellshock and nothing to show for it. To be stuck sitting in it, feeling like she deserved it because it was all she had left... that was its own private hell. It was akin to being dead.

The sooner she left, the better off she'd be. It was what she should have done a long time ago. Besides, Lux would never heal if she was right there to remind him of how badly she'd broken his trust. He needed time to forget her, and she him.

Lots and lots of time.

Biting her lip too hard to feel it trembling, Ahsoka walked over to the armoire and pulled open the cabinet doors. She had no bag large enough to carry even her datapads and a single change of clothes, but years on the front with unstable supply lines had prepared her for much worse. It was easy to roll datapads, lightsaber, and clothes up in her biggest shawl and tie the whole bundle around her waist, much as she'd once done with her Jedi cloaks on hot days.

Draping a second shawl over her montrals to conceal their distinctive pattern of white and blue stripes, she padded past Lux's study, aiming for the sitting room and the hallway beyond. Her hand froze over the door controls, and Ahsoka turned, drawn to the soft thrum of Lux's presence in the other room.

She couldn't leave without saying goodbye, even if he wasn't awake to see it. She'd been given so little closure over the course of the war and the ensuing fight against the Empire. This was one indulgence she had to permit herself before she could mourn him, and the life he'd go on to live without her.

It was dark as pitch in the office save for the light of a single datapad. Ahsoka blinked, letting her eyes adjust, then moved toward the glow. A multihued lump on the desk oriented itself into Lux's wild hair and slim shoulders. He was wearing the same tunic and scarf he'd been wearing the night before. She didn't think he'd left this room long enough in the last Standard day to change.

The datapad was dim, and a blinking light on the side warned that its battery was nearly drained. The edge of his palm was lying against the screen, and Ahsoka had to assume that was what had kept the device from switching to power-saving mode even with the lack of use.

He was sleeping too deeply to notice when she scooped up the datapad, her fingertip sliding up to the power button. Then she saw what was on the screen, and she pressed a hand to her mouth.

Everything on the page was written in code, the kind the Rebellion used for non-military devices they had no way to secure with EF-4. The code was too new for her to recognize and read it – which made sense, with how long she'd been out of the loop – but it had all the usual Rebel hallmarks.

And there, at the end of a short paragraph of text, was Origin's callsign.

Hardly daring to breathe, Ahsoka scanned the rest of the page for details. The heading explained the purpose of the mysterious HoloNet database Ahsoka had seen while upgrading Lux's computer terminal security two months ago. The ieX80R network was a way for Lux to communicate covertly with people he didn't want it known he had dealings with, store files he didn't want it known he possessed.

Ahsoka's mind was moving faster than a podracer at full throttle. With effort, she slowed it enough to mull the alphanumeric sequence over with a clear head. The 80 stood out to her as the numbers the closest in appearance to the letters besh and osk, Bail Organa's initials. And the resh at the end... For Rebellion?

The Force surged around her, and Ahsoka knew in her soul she wasn't wrong about this. Lux with the Rebellion, and had been since before he met her.

She choked off the sudden compulsion to laugh. All this time, they'd been on the same side, and Ahsoka had never known it. His past history suggested he was a sympathizer, but he'd learned hard lessons from Onderon's ill-fated uprising. Never in a million years would she have suspected him for a comrade.

The laughter building in Ahsoka's throat faded all at once. If Lux was truly with the Rebellion, why hadn't she seen any sign of it before now? Was he so deep undercover he couldn't risk revealing himself to anyone, even a potential ally? Or was it that he'd never felt like he could trust her with this?

Then there was the offhand, doubtful way he spoke of Jedi. Not all Jedi were with the Rebellion, and not all Rebels liked the Jedi and what they'd stood for during the Clone Wars. The Rebellion had former Separatist worlds as members, too. And even without Lux's disagreement with the Jedi Order's involvement in politics, he'd spent years thinking Pong Krell killed his father. That kind of resentment was hard to unlearn – much more so when Lux was still reeling from the way she'd hurt him.

Replacing the datapad beneath Lux's hand, she pressed a kiss to the top of his head and left the room. She put her things back in the armoire methodically, almost robotically. She didn't even realize she'd decided to stay until she was stepping back to make sure the lightsaber didn't show where she'd concealed in a handy lip on the underside of the armoire.

She could still leave, and let Lux continue whatever secret business Senator Organa had tasked him with completing without interruption. It had to be in the service of Onderon, somehow, or Lux would never have agreed to it – and that was an opportunity to expand her network Ahsoka couldn't afford to overlook.

Not right now, though. Maybe not even in a month. But that was fine by her. Lux was the only true, close friend she had left, and she needed him.

She needed him. The Jedi would shun her for it, but she did. And it wasn't wrong to need him. When a plant was deprived of one source of light and life for months then suddenly given another, was it wrong to use that to grow strong again? What was fidelity to an inaccessible coping mechanism in the face of the need to survive inhospitable circumstances? Where was the selfishness of loving one person when she didn't have enough left in her to give the whole galaxy?

Love. Not the powerful bond of friendship and brotherhood, but romance – the chasm yawning beneath her, full of sharp twists and turns and adversaries she had never been trained to fight. The immensity of it overwhelmed her, and Ahsoka hugged herself, not sure if she wanted to laugh or sob.

She'd thrown so much of herself into Lux, staked so much of her happiness on his presence, that she didn't know how to go on without him. She wouldn't know if she even could until she had free use of the Force again. Ironic that she only really understood that now that Lux had turned his back on her, and she'd been stranded in a second solar eclipse.

She took a long, calming breath inward. She loved the new sun she'd found herself orbiting, and she wasn't going to give him up that easy. Once he was ready to hear her out, she'd tell him everything she'd kept hidden these last two months. Until then, she could only pray that when she did, he would understand.

In a stroke of fate, Ahsoka has learned information about Lux that levels the playing field, and that will keep her from leaving – for now. However, as old questions about loyalties and duty swirl around them, a new threat may be rising again from across the galaxy. But just how seriously is Vader entertaining the idea of Ahsoka being the mystery Jedi? The longer he has doubts, the longer Ahsoka can stay under the radar. Or can she? Could the man who was once her teacher still be trying to protect her even now? Only time will tell...

Hello all! Sorry for the late chapter... You all know how it is end of semester, and I had the additional obstacle of recovering from a wisdom tooth surgery, which as of now seems to be going well. (Thank the gods, because if I can't have any turkey dinner in four days, I will be... irritated.)

I warned those of you who asked that where the last chapter was emotional, this one would be depressing, but I hope it was still a good read! I felt it was important to stress that Lux can't forgive what Ahsoka did or forget what he saw all that easily, and just how scattered his loyalties are right now, and this was the best possible way to illustrate it.

Even if the feels are there. VERY much there.

I was also glad to finally get to this Vader segment, because it hints at a very critical aspect of this story and an even more critical unanswered question: how and why Ahsoka came out of the Reduction process without being cut off from the Force. Alas, you guys will have to wait until the next book to find that out, but rest assured, Vader is still very interested in Ahsoka's whereabouts and her safety. Whether she and him have the same ideas about what constitutes 'safety', now, that remains to be seen.

Next chapter, Ahsoka and Lux will make a reluctant stab at talking out what happened. I'll talk to you fine folks then!

The same anger Ahsoka had felt from Lux in the alleyway rose up in him again, less volatile than before, but ready to flare into an open flame in a heartbeat. "Everything I did for you before it grew into something– more, was in repayment of the abomination of being sold to my family in the first place. We could part ways right now, and I'd be angry I poured out my heart to you when you lied every step of the way, but I could understand why you did it."

He took a sip of caf, an excuse to calm himself. She watched him smooth the anger away, and as much as the alternative scared her, she wished he wouldn't.

"The way I see it, you made the choices that would keep you safe," he said at last. "I could tell myself I was just a means to an end, the same way I seem to be to everyone else. Betrayal is a bitter pill to swallow, but eventually I'd get over it."I've been keeping secrets, too. But if you want us to stay... close, all this lying to me, it has to stop. There has to be full disclosure, right here, right now." He sighed. "That agreement we made in the beginning, when I wasn't sure I could trust you, that was flawed from the start. You're a Jedi who can use the Force in battle, so there was never a chance you could teach me everything you know about fighting."

His words condemned her, but maybe she could still find a way to explain, instead of leaving him with the bitter aftertaste of her actions alone. "Lux–"

"If your promises to protect me and help me learn how to protect myself ever meant anything to you, do this for me," he said, stepping around her and putting his caf and datapads down on a nearby caf table. When he looked back again, his eyes were more piercing than she'd ever seen them, edged with something manic and wild. "Give me a way to protect my heart from what you did. Don't break it further."