**IMPORTANT NOTICE IN THE AUTHOR'S NOTE – PLEASE READ IT!**

In the privacy of her comfortable little room in Bonteri Villa, Ahsoka dropped her transmitter carelessly onto her pillow, stood up, and stretched.

It had been a long day, aided in no way by the late night waiting up for Rex's reply and the promise of another early start for training the next morning. Despite that, she wasn't tired. Adrenaline coursed through her veins, fuelling her, pushing her to seek distractions lest the weight of the promises she'd made catch up to her, holding her down so the more painful things she'd just learned could swarm in.

She was itching for a run – the kind that cleared her head of everything but the burn in her chest and the deep ache in her muscles, and would knock her out the second her head touched the pillow.

As she tilted her head toward the brightly painted far wall to work a few kinks out of her neck, she glanced wistfully at the door. It was feasible, provided she didn't get close enough to the edge of the villa's protective ray shield to trip the proximity alarms and spook the guards. Grinning to herself, Ahsoka stuffed the transmitter under her mattress and sauntered up to the door.

Reality sank in again as her fingers brushed the control panel. Proper Jedi didn't go out for runs when they were restless; they meditated until they'd come to the heart of the issue plaguing them, and took any action needed to nullify the problem. Then, they let it go.

But Ahsoka had been an atypical Jedi long before she met Anakin, and if she had one solution that worked, why take a chance on another? Even now that the Force had lightened, and the shadow cast by that unknown something Ahsoka felt smoldering on the edges of her shields every now and then had vanished into the ether, she had to be careful. There were still hundreds of Elites on the planet.

She huffed, annoyed at her own hypocrisy and even more annoyed by how good she was at convincing herself. She'd already taken a bigger risk a few days ago with that healing trance than she ever would with simple meditation. She couldn't keep using her circumstances as an excuse to skip the parts of Jedi life she enjoyed less than others while still indulging in the rest. After all–

Lux's presence whipped past her and down the hallway beyond the door, seething with anger and self-deprecation. Using the Force to quiet the door as she opened it, she stuck her head out and glanced after him.

She was just in time to spot the edge of his cloak – a simple woolen grey one he wore around the villa for warmth rather than show – disappearing around the corner. Ahsoka smiled through her concern for him. Now she had the perfect excuse for going out: asking what was wrong and if she could do anything to help.

She stepped back inside for a warmer long-sleeved tunic to layer over her sleeping clothes. Then, slipping on a pair of boots, she hurried out after him.

As a rule Lux kept pace with whomever he was walking with, matching his speed to theirs out of courtesy. It was enough to make a person forget how long his legs really were, but Ahsoka labored under no such delusions now: it was a struggle to keep up with him without jogging. They were already some distance into the villa's sprawling gardens by the time she was close enough for her voice to carry.

"Lux! Hey, Lux, what's going on?"

Lux jumped, but came out of his surprise quickly. One hand slid under his cloak for the blaster he always tucked in the back of his belt, and Ahsoka grinned, pleased with him. His reflexes were shaping up even better than she'd hoped.

"Oh. Alynna." He retraced his steps to meet her halfway and took her hand as soon as it was within reach. His fingers smoothed over hers, tracing the ridges of her knuckles with touches so gentle Ahsoka could only think he was asking forgiveness. "Excuse my abruptness; you startled me. What are you doing up so late?"

"I was going to ask you the same question."

Lux winced. "I didn't wake you, did I?"

Ahsoka shook her head, and put her free hand over his to still it. "No, I was already up. I heard you rush down the hallway."

"How did you know it was me?"

"Well... it wasn't exactly a tough guess," she said, laughing lightly to cover up the lie. "I mean, who else around here is up this late as consistently you are?"

"Only you, I suppose. And I bet that's partially my fault to begin with."

"Partially, maybe, but sometimes I just find I need to be up and moving. I'll admit, though, it's nice to have someone to share the night with. My brother would get the odd bout of insomnia before a..." A battle, she'd been about to say, but that wasn't information she could volunteer. "Before a big day, but most of the time I only had the shadows for company."

Lux smiled, just the slightest quirk of his pretty mouth, and squeezed her hand affectionately. Something in Ahsoka's stomach fluttered. "Tell me more about him, if that's not too much to ask," he said. "It'd be nice to get my mind off things – plus, it's been a month since we met, but I still feel like I know so little about you."

Ahsoka chewed her lip. She hadn't expected this. Maybe she could–

"That's all right, though," Lux added quickly. "A little mystery never bothered me, and you don't owe me any explanations if it's too hard to talk about. I– I just get curious, sometimes, with all the time we spend together, and–"

"Hush, before you trip over yourself trying to apologize." Ahsoka calmed herself with a reminder that Rex didn't have news, either. Decreased odds weren't the same as a definite conclusion. "I'll tell you about him. Walk with me for a bit?"

Lux beamed and offered her his arm. She linked hers through it, and began.

"My brother was... is the best person I ever knew," she said, unable to keep from frowning as she made the correction. "We got off on the wrong foot when we first met. I was a reckless, headstrong fourteen-year-old who was convinced she knew everything, so I guess that makes sense. But it didn't help that even if he had the benefit of age and experience, he wasn't much better than I was.

"It was only once we realized how similar we were that we started working together as a team, anticipating each other's moves when there was trouble so our opponents had to face two halves of a whole instead of isolated fighters. The more he taught me, the more I became like him, and the more I understood him. I'm still understanding him more every day, because..."

Ahsoka faltered, hesitating for a second before continuing on down the tidy garden walkway. Lux frowned at that, and prodded, "Because what?"

"He was born into slavery. He was freed years before I met him, but I know he still carried those experiences with him."

"I... I see."

"It helps, sometimes, when I think that he went through some of the same things I've been through." The words rang true as she spoke them, which surprised her. "If he could make it to the other side of all his struggles and still find it in him to be strong, to protect people he didn't even know, then maybe I can do the same."

Lux stepped ahead of her and took her by the shoulders. "Of course you can! You already do it. You– you took a foolish boy who thought his life had already ended and gave him something to hope for. You inspired him."

Ahsoka flushed. Suddenly his hands felt warm, too warm, and that was another thing she didn't want to think about. She shook them off to give herself some space. "But I wasn't the first," she insisted, trying to turn the conversation in another direction. "I know I wasn't. Your mother inspired you, and– and Steela Gerrera inspired you too, didn't she?"

Lux froze, and took a calming breath. He didn't offer anything else in reply.

"I'm sorry," Ahsoka said quickly, realizing her misstep. "I shouldn't pry."

"Don't apologize; I was prying not two minutes ago. I just don't often talk about her, and it's... complicated, putting someone you loved into concrete terms."

"I can understand that," she murmured, sitting down on a low stone bench and motioning for Lux to join her. He shook his head, pacing a few steps before turning to head back the other way. He seemed too restless to stay in one place.

"She's all tangled up in grief in my mind," he said, gesturing erratically beside his head, "but somehow she's still as vast and powerful as my mother was. I trusted her with my life – and my heart, which is worth a lot more to me – and she never once let me down. I imagine she and your brother would've gotten along. She always tried to find a compromise, but she had the same fire."

"Probably," Ahsoka agreed, but the words came out faint. Lux had told her very little, but she was able to imagine them – her loved ones and his – all together so clearly she almost thought she'd slipped into a waking vision:

Lux and Obi-Wan amiably disagreed about diplomatic strategies while Steela and Anakin interjected with less passive fallback positions if those negotiations failed. Close enough to hear them but far enough away to appear uninvolved, Rex and a tall man with dark skin and blue eyes debated which weapons and defensive measures would work best for each failsafe the others proposed.

In her mind's eye, Steela looked so much like her that had Ahsoka been born Human, they could have been cousins. Sisters, even.

"I still see her everywhere, you know," Lux said, shattering the image enough that she saw the reality lingering beneath it again. "I hope you won't take offence if I tell you that's what I first noticed about you. You have the same determination, the same confidence. It shows in your eyes like it did in hers, and in the way you present yourself to others..."

Something glacial slid down Ahsoka's spine, pooling sluggishly around each vertebra before continuing on, and the serenity of that impression of another reality dribbled away. Only a month had gone by, and already she'd almost forgotten what she did to Lux to infiltrate his father's palace.

Jedi teachings justified mind tricks, the art of using the Force to overwrite a person's will, as a necessary evil. Sometimes it was necessary to turn an enemy into a friend, but so briefly their essential nature would barely change. Sometimes it was necessary to calm a frightened informant so they didn't do anything rash.

Those were acceptable margins, and made it easy to dismiss each incident in turn. But she hadn't needed to bend Lux to her will. She'd already infiltrated the palace, and rumors of Zakhan's dalliances with his slaves abounded; climbing into Zakhan Noreino's bed and climbing the ranks from there would've been far simpler than convincing his son to find out what happened to Anakin on her behalf.

Once taking Ashalla's place landed her in hot water, she'd allowed herself to be blinded by a sense of gruff determination to put herself and her mission first. She'd confused necessity with the idea that everything and everyone had to be made to work in her favor. That was already unbefitting of a Jedi, and thinking of it made Ahsoka sick to her stomach.

But what really hurt was the fact that now, just when she was starting to think of Lux as... a friend, she couldn't be sure if it was real.

From the get-go, she'd reminded him of someone he'd once respected and loved. Someone he'd trusted. That was why he was so drawn to her. What good were her promises now to protect him and train him to fight? Their whole relationship was based on a mind trick exaggerating the traits she and Steela shared until he'd lost the will to choose otherwise.

Ahsoka squeezed her eyes shut, disgusted with herself. After all the mistakes she'd made, she'd been right to tell Lux he couldn't trust her. She'd already betrayed him once by forcing Padmé to go to Raxus alone and unprotected. This just sounded like the setup for a tasteless joke: a slave master who was among the best people she'd ever met, and a slave who played the victim even as she played others' feelings like a valachord.

She wasn't laughing now. In fact, she felt quite a lot like crying.

"I've upset you." It was like Lux was speaking to her from underwater.

Ahsoka stood up so fast she made herself dizzy, blinking quickly to dry her eyes. Instantly Lux's arm was at her back, steadying her.

His touch was bliss – and that only made it worse. She withdrew, folding her arms tightly over her chest. "Let's... keep walking, okay?"

"Alynna, I'm sorry." His eyes were wide, and in the moonslight the grey-green pupils looked more like polished jade than flesh. "I got caught up in the moment, and I didn't stop to think. Tell me how I can make amends."

"You can make amends–" Ahsoka broke off when her voice came out too shrill, and cleared her throat to try again. "You can make amends by walking with me, if you think there's anything to make up for."

He nodded, and offered her his arm again. She forged on down a bend in the path instead of taking it, pushing branches and flowering vines out of her way when they started to hang too low. By the time she dared to look back and see if he was following, he'd already tucked his arm demurely back to his side.

Ahsoka closed herself to the flickering flame of his presence and focused on her surroundings while she waited for him to catch up. The wealth of sensory data wove a breathtaking tapestry in her mind. The chirps of distant insects and rustles of larger foragers echoed in her montrals like her own private symphony, and the heady smell of the water-rich soil and leaf litter laden with edible seeds and roots made the hunter in her come alert.

She wondered if any of the animals were large enough to make an interesting catch. Snaring one wouldn't be too difficult. Even beneath the twisting canopy of decorative trees, her eyes were sensitive enough to track the motion of a handful of small mammals, and it was natural for her to muffle her steps as she walked.

Lux tramped over, his footfalls quiet by human standards but jarringly loud by hers. The more intelligent of the night creatures fled before she could get him to stop moving, melting into the shadows or vanishing into hidden burrows until she was completely alone with the one catch she never should have made.

After the soft sounds of the animals feeding and prowling, the silence felt unnaturally tense. The Force whispered no warnings to her that this was a critical moment, but she couldn't help but feel culpable, out of joint. In the dark, even with visual acuity far beyond Lux's, it was easy to imagine the denizens of the garden knew her sins, and by disappearing, they had passed their judgment on her.

"Was Steela the one who brought you into the fold with the other rebels?" she asked to fill the lapse. "It wouldn't be the first time a person's partner introduced them to a new cause."

"No," Lux said. His presence flashed with surprise when she spoke. He hadn't expected her to address him for a while longer, but no trace of it showed in his voice. "I was revolted by the state of Onderon under Separatist leadership, and I knew I wasn't alone in thinking that.

"The king's choices can be vetoed by legislative referendum, so I organized several to get an idea of the interest in rejoining the Council of Neutral Systems. But the numbers always came back overwhelmingly in opposition. Either people were too scared to express their true feelings, or the vote was being rigged."

Ahsoka snorted. "Sounds a lot like how things are nowadays."

"Regime changes are usually reactions against the ones that preceded them, with an implied sense that the change is a correction, an improvement. But things like these never exist in a vacuum, and some elements of what came before will invariably carry over to what follows," Lux said in a graceful non-answer.

Even if the Emperor's retribution looms like a shadow over every little thing his subjects say, she thought, for someone with a background in politics, Lux is really not forthcoming about what he thinks. Still, his evasiveness intrigued her, and it was easy to settle into a rhythm probing him for details – much easier than it was to confront everything else on her mind. "I interrupted you. Please, go on."

"After my third attempt," Lux continued, "I started hearing stories about a brother and sister, Saw and Steela Gerrera, who were touring the mining and foresting villages with a group of traders. They advocated the sovereignty of our system, were convinced King Dendup's return to power would bring that about, and people were starting to agree with them.

"I hoped I could use their influence on a diplomatic level, so I tracked them down and proposed we join forces: my resources with their spirit. Saw didn't trust me – he still doesn't, probably – but Steela eventually convinced him."

" 'Doesn't'? He still lives?" Ahsoka demanded. People like that, the kind who knew the layout of the villages, who understood the people's plight and had their support... they were a rarity. This Saw Gerrera could be invaluable to her.

Lux crossed his arms behind his back and straightened his posture like he wanted to cloak himself in poise and refinement. When he spoke, his words held the icy coldness of someone desperate to separate himself from the subject at hand. "The Separatists captured almost our entire group alive, and our execution was a public affair. There were two others still left when my father stepped in to rescue me. Saw was one of them. The other, Dono – I've mentioned her to you before – was hurt in our last battle, and after they denied her proper treatment in prison, her wounds got infected. She died of sepsis a few days later."

Ahsoka sighed. She'd lost comrades too, and Lux could probably find no one better to empathize with him, but this wasn't how it was supposed to go.

Couldn't they have one conversation unrelated to training without having to weave around things that pained them? It felt like any attempt one of them made to change the subject post-blunder invariably opened another scar for the other.

"I'm sorry, Lux. I came out here to ask you why you stormed out of the villa, and if there's anything I can do to help," she said brusquely, and chose to attribute her astonishing lack of sympathy to the late hour. "I didn't mean to drag us into a downward spiral."

"Don't a–" He broke off into tired laughter. "We keep apologizing to each other at the slightest hint of discomfort, don't we?"

Ahsoka smiled faintly. "We do. But you don't have to apologize to me. I have a thicker skin than that, with all I've been through."

"So do I, I hope."

"Trauma's a real bitch, huh?"

Lux snorted. A few seconds later, he snorted again, louder. At last his control fell away completely, and he convulsed with laughter. Ahsoka snickered in turn; his bright grin and bleary eyes were too infectious to fight. It wasn't long before she'd joined him, her eyes screwed shut and hands gripping her knees tight to keep herself from keeling over.

Lux sagged to one side as his legs gave out from under him. Ahsoka caught him, shouldering his weight until they were both sitting in the middle of the path beneath the cool glow of the moons, their clothing streaked with dirt and dew.

Lux leaned back against her shoulder, still wheezing a little, and the smile he shot her made her lekku heat up. "I– I was– really not expecting you to say that," he stammered breathlessly. He grabbed a fold of his cloak to dry his eyes, only to give up and use the back of his hand when a stiff tug didn't bring it within reach.

Ahsoka, however, felt the tug keenly. Realizing she was sitting on the cloak and restricting his range of motion, she scrambled to the side, flushing even darker. Lux gathered the fabric in his hands, hiking it up out of the dirt.

The soft smells of herbs and citrus overwhelmed her when he draped it over her shoulders, shifting closer so it covered both of them. Ahsoka knew his scent as intimately as the green of his eyes, as the wiry strength of his body when he fought to escape her grip as they trained. Already she struggled to contain unwelcome physical responses when they sparred, but this was too much: her mouth fell open for a deeper breath before she could stop herself, and she drank it all in.

Ahsoka shook herself a second later, opening her eyes. She didn't deserve his kindness, and she certainly didn't deserve to enjoy it so much. Her old lessons about hostage negotiations came to mind in a flash, reminding her captives could grow fond of their captors, isolation making an artificial bond spring up between them, but she dismissed them just as quickly. There was no compatibility between Ahsoka, who'd put Lux through the wringer, and a feeble sufferer who didn't know better.

However, she didn't reject the cloak.

"So, what was it that was bothering you?" she asked, grappling for something to distract her from how enticing that smell was.

"It's nothing. I slept maybe three hours last night, and even with all the caf I've had, I think it's starting to show. Some documents I got from Izadash aren't matching up with what I remember reading a few weeks ago so clearly, and..." He huffed a laugh. "I may've let an ill temper and a lack of sleep get the better of me."

"Hey, I may like being up late sometimes, but I've definitely been there on more than one late night." Ahsoka shrugged, not knowing what else to say, and their shared cloak slipped off her shoulder.

Lux shifted his weight, freeing up the arm closest to her. His fingers snaked up beneath the cloak and smoothed the section that had fallen away back into place. He hesitated an inch from her shoulder before courage sparked in him, setting his aura alight, and his hand settled there to turn the gesture into a loose embrace.

It would be so easy, now, to trace a hand over his forehead and brush the loose hairs back into place at his temples, then move down, holding his jaw steady while she leant in. She already knew the taste of his mouth, the way he arched his whole body into a kiss, from that first time in the clearing to distract the guards. She already knew that she liked it.

And, even more troubling, she knew if she did kiss him – knew with the Force, knew with the even deeper certainty of want curling in the pit of her stomach – that he wouldn't hesitate to kiss her back.

But that was no better than a tooka playing with a rat. She'd failed him, and then she'd used him. She'd forfeited the right to his affection ages ago.

Ahsoka pulled the cloak tighter around herself and moved away from his hand, smiling in thanks to soften the rejection.

She was appalled by how long it took her to remember that even had this... thing between them happened organically, she couldn't have allowed it. No Jedi who followed the established rules instead of making up their own ever could.

Coming to terms with being a horrible Jedi was the straw that broke the bantha's back. Fatigue swept through Ahsoka, and she shut her eyes. She couldn't address it now, not when she already had so much else to think about: Anakin's fate, the prospect of leadership, the strain of trying to cover even more ground than she already was. She could barely sort out what she wanted to do anymore.

Her sense of morality balked at Lux's touch, but tiredness hazed her disgust over thickly enough to make it bearable. Slowly, her feelings took on a twisted kind of sense, and she was long past the point of being able to call them false. Sighing, she accepted defeat, and leaned back into the arm he was blessedly still proffering.

"Alynna," Lux said. How suddenly she'd doubled back had made him wary.

She shushed him before he could say anything else. On his next attempt, she shushed him again, and he understood, drawing her closer to his side. Around them, the nighttime animals grew bold again. It wasn't long before the silence was filled with the erratic sounds of life and the steady warmth of his hand on her shoulder.

The Jedi have always advocated strict principles of non-attachment, but the longer Ahsoka stays away from her old allies in the Order and GAR, the more difficult it is to follow them. Desperate for comfort as the weight of all her obligations presses down, she finds herself relying on Lux more and more – and he on her. But is their friendship truly based on a lie? With society and their own moral philosophies against them, will the weight of the secrets they carry drive them apart just when they're close enough to change everything? Only time will tell...

Ahsoka has night vision like a cat and the goggles she wears sometimes in TCW for missions in the dark are to shield her super-dilated eyes against unexpected harmfully bright flashes of light from blaster fire FIGHT ME

Hello all! Apologies for the late post – yesterday was full of emotional turmoil and some of it carried over to today, and my brain was too fried to proofread T_T

This chapter was a delight because it follows up Rex's limited understanding of Ahsoka's choices with actual context for why she made them... or at least, shows that she's feeling like she's in over her head and doesn't want to dwell on them. It also allowed me to address the ethical concerns behind some the things she did while in survival mode, because I've never felt the Jedi way is completely ethical, even if it's well-meaning.

I was torn on chapter titles for a long time, but I like this one a lot. It refers to Ahsoka's mental state where she kind of wanders between responsibilities, pulling one in and then letting it go to come back to it later, but also to the cyclical way she keeps letting go of Lux and reeling him back in. It's only a matter of time before they hit a tipping point, and there's no telling for sure which way things will go.

Now it's time for the

**IMPORTANT NOTICE!**

I'm going to go on hiatus from early January 2021 to the end of February. I hate to leave, but the deadline for an art program I reeeeally want to get into is the first of March. I won't stop writing completely (gotta keep my reflexes sharp!) but in devoting most of my extra time to prepping a portfolio, there's a good chance I won't be able to keep up with my weekly chapters. I still have four chapters in reserve – hence why I'm only starting the hiatus in January – but unless I can work out a new system that's the plan.

But don't worry – this isn't a way for me to covertly ghost you guys after being gone two months. Aside from the prewritten chapters, I have eleven others plus two interludes already outlined. I'm not going anywhere, and I'll be back with more new content before you guys know it!

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Next chapter we'll get some additional insight into the stakes involved in Vader's new mission, and learn who his opponents might be. I'll talk to you guys then!

PS: Who here is screaming over the last episode of Mando? BECAUSE I REALLY REALLY AMMMM AND I HAVE SO MANY IDEAS ABOUT IT THAT I WANT TO WRITEEEEE