*Here's your update, Art. NOW can you stop pestering me? XD*

Sorena walked down the long hallway of the Star Destroyer that had dropped them off, her long strides propelling her towards her assigned quarters.

She was quite proud of her plan to lure the rebels who had blown up Tarkin's ship back to Lothal. With the subtle persuasion of the Dar'mah Ji, or the 'Art Of The Clouded Mind', a talent she had perfected in recent years, the bait reeling them in would seem without affiliation of any kind to the Empire.

Vader's quarters were along the way. But as she passed his door, she heard something that gave her pause: an angry, mechanized yell.

She sighed exasperatedly. "Leave it to him to have another temper tantrum about something silly," she muttered, and opened the door.

The moment she walked inside, she was greeted by a cry that, with the same booming microphone, would have terrified the living daylights out of anyone else: "Who the kriff dares enter my quarters without knocking?!"

"Same person as always," Sorena called back, unruffled. She crossed her arms, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the lack of light in the room. "What are you about to blow to smithereens, Sky Guy?"

For a moment, it was silent aside from the gritty sound of his respirator.

Then: "Don't call me that. It's an old name of is not of any consequence."

"I will call you that, and there's nothing you can do about it to stop me unless you want to stab me through the throat. The past should be remembered." She felt around on the wall beside her. "Turn the lights on, will you? I can't see anything and I don't know where the switch is in here."

As she finished her sentence, the lights were powered up. Blinking at the sudden change in the brightness of the room, she made her way over towards an almost impossibly comical sight: Vader crouched down next to his meditation sphere, trying desperately to wedge it open with his powerful metal fingers.

"Kriff it... Help me with this, Snips," he said, dropping the cultured tone he used with other agents of the Empire in favor of his old jargon from the Clone Wars, like he often did around her. "The wires are acting up again – it doesn't like the new power source some idiot plugged it into earlier."

When in public, they appeared to be the perfect team. They balanced one another out in brute force and a menacing demeanor, and in political finesse and skill at negotiating. It was well known that she was Darth Vader's favorite out of the disciples of the Dark Side working for the Empire, outdoing even Mara Jade and Starkiller for first place.

No one knew, however, that it was only because of their shared history – both on the battlefield and on the command deck. He had made her powerful.

But when it was just the two of them, they squabbled like an old married couple. Not that they were a married couple, but that was the best description she could come up with for dynamic of their partnership in general.

Vader heaved against the metal with all his might, but he couldn't get it to open. After one last try, he gave up and let himself fall back against the cool surface of the shiny black object.

"If you can't open it with your metal hands, what makes you think I could with flesh? Use the Force on it."

"It's resistant to the Force," he said. "Why do you think I always insist upon bringing it with me? I don't want just anyone breaking in."

"Then what's the problem with it?" Sorena asked, her mood for verbal sparring fading away. "It's got to be something in the wires."

"It is." He was hesitant to give out any information. If anything, he sounded almost sheepish.

"What, then? Come on. You were always tinkering with starships back... then." She and him had come to an accord not to mention the Jedi Order, the Temple or anything about the Clone War that referred specifically to them, so they sometimes found themselves trailing off during conversations like these. "You must know what the problem is."

"I can fix it, but... My, uh, fingers are too big."

She choked out a laugh. "What?"

"With the gloves on, I can't fiddle with the wires. And if I take the gloves off, there will be a breach in containment in my suit. My lungs can't tolerate the air mixture on a ship – not anymore. It would kill me, slowly and painfully."

Sorena crouched down next to him, a gentle smile on her face. "I know," she said, giving the part of his arm she knew was still flesh and blood a comforting squeeze. "But hey, I learnt everything I know from you. I'll take a look at it."

And so she did, popping the cover of the small console off. She took a look a the mess of wires inside, before stretching out her long tan fingers to remove the some of the caps linking one cable to another, and putting them back together elsewhere to reroute the power.

Vader exhaled almost happily as the two halves of the meditation sphere parted – Sorena's maneuvers with the wires had worked. He promptly crawled inside, beckoning her to join him.

The two halves closed a moment later. At first, the sudden change in gas mixture made her feel a little lightheaded and dizzy, but she soon got used to it.

A mechanical grabber was extended down from the ceiling, taking off Vader's helmet; the mask he removed himself. "Thank you," he said. "I've been stuck in that infernal suit for the last two days. It's good to just breathe again."

"You're welcome," she told him with a smile, looking right at him without flinching at the sight of his scarred face. "You've always been like my brother, Sky Guy. And now that you're not as strong as you were back then, I'm making it my business to make sure you're okay."

Suddenly, Vader tensed. "Eyes," he hissed.

That was their quick warning signal when one of them had their eyes changing back to their original shade of blue, the red and yellow color attributed by the energy of the Dark Side to its wielder beginning to funnel away.

When they were alone, they were prone to having eye flare-ups. But they both knew how dangerous it was to shift even briefly the Light, despite the fact that they always returned to the Dark in the end. There was no telling how much the Emperor could sense, or the other Inquisitors, for that matter. Such things had to be kept under wraps.

Sorena took a deep breath, channeling the Dark Side. She imagined molten lava spewing from her midichlorians and into her bloodstream, rushing up towards her heart. Then she pictured a dust-laden wind cooling the magma into rock around it, leaving just enough room for it to beat in passionate anger and hatred, but not enough for her to feel too much compassion.

That was the Jedi way. She was on a different path now, and her heart was just a necessary thing to her body's continued ability to function. She would do her best to repress any unwanted emotions. Feeling too much was wrong.

Vader put a hand on her shoulder. "The path of the Dark Side is the one you were always meant to take. I'll make it my business to make sure you don't waver too much. Deal, Snips?"

But that troublesome spark of Light that refused to sputter out entirely had a problem with that belief. It would do whatever it could to ensure that she stayed in the middle – the Grey area of the Force – if she wouldn't turn back.

And Ahsoka Tano knew it.

But still she said, "Deal."

*Vader and Sorena have a complicated relationship: similar to the one they had during the Clone War, but at the same time, quite different. And now that she is finding herself caught between the two Sides of the Force, it could take less than she expects to bring her back to the Light. Maybe, for example, the return of an old friend...

More Vader and Sorena dynamic! Yay!!

But it has come to my attention that it's possible that you people think they're together. They're not actually, they're just... Well, like I said: they have a similar relationship to the one in TCW. So brother and sister, just a little deeper now that they're older and 'wiser'...

[And I say wiser in quotation marks because I don't think that the Dark Side leads to wisdom. The possibility of ever obtaining ultimate power is non-existant, so I don't think they're wise to constantly chase after it.]

Anyways, I am getting tired, and will probably retire to bed to dream about Luxsoka and other related parties soon. But first, I'm gonna make a stab at that new TISS chapter. After that in the list of stuff to update is L:ALS. I'll post a new chapter for this soon!

May the Force be with you,

Sharron