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It’s all Anakin’s fault, really.
There were a thousand tiny things he should have done better, should have noticed ahead of time, should have paid more attention to—but he didn’t, and now everything is moving too fast, spiraling out of control.
It should have been a normal mission—but really, he said that about every mission, and they all ended up going lopsided somehow. He received the information from Master Mundi—his division had received intel on a bounty hunter working for the CIS who was operating out of the shipyards of Corellia. As the nearest troops in the area, Anakin and the 501st are the ones assigned to check it out.
After ending the holocall, Anakin walks off the bridge in search of the rest of his command crew. He finds them in a meeting room—it looks like Jesse is teaching Ahsoka how to cheat at cards.
“You’re okay with your men teaching their particular brand of chaos to my padawan?” says Anakin lightly to Rex, who is leaning against the bulkhead watching them. Rex chuckles.
“Pretty sure your padawan is the one who’s a bad influence on my men,” he jokes, and Anakin can’t argue with that.
“Hey, save that for later,” he says to Jesse and Ahsoka. He hates having to be the voice of authority—he always feels like he’s pretending to be Obi-Wan—but they really don’t have time to waste. “We’ve got new orders.”
“Where are we heading, Master?” asks Ahsoka, blue eyes wide and interested.
“Corellia,” he says, placing a holopuck on the table. “We’re on the tail of a bounty hunter named Edra Vale. Intel from General Mundi says she’s been doing missions for the Separatists, operating out of Corellia. We’re the only ones near the Corellian sector at the moment, so we’re gonna check it out.”
He activates the holopuck, showing the bounty hunter. Her face is mostly hidden by a scarf wrapped around her nose and mouth, and her hair is shaved short.
“Sounds like a party,” remarks Jesse.
“Want me to gather the men?” Rex asks. Anakin considers it.
“Better not,” he says. “We’re going to check out the shipyards, and I doubt the workers there will take too fondly to armored soldiers. Ahsoka and I will go, we’ll blend in easily.”
He’s right, of course—as Ahsoka follows him down the narrow Corellian alleyways, he’s glad it’s just the two of them. This place is loud—not just from the noise, but from the press of the thousands of Force presences around him.
Anakin is okay at blocking out Coruscant—he wasn’t, at first, and found himself with a constant migraine from the ages of nine to eleven after arriving at the Jedi temple. He’s never been good about tuning them all out, the loud clamoring of life all around him, demanding his attention, pushing up against his mind. Eventually, Coruscant had faded into background noise, loud but familiar. Every time he goes somewhere new, it’s a fight. He tries to center himself like Obi-Wan taught him, focusing on Ahsoka’s presence. She’s close behind him, her teal aura comforting. It’s easy to focus on her and Obi-Wan—their Force signatures are comforting and familiar, like Padmé’s, like his mother’s—no, he couldn’t think about her right now.
“Skyguy,” says Ahsoka, jogging slightly to keep up with his long strides. “Do you think you could fly every ship in this hangar? I bet there’s at least one that could stump you.”
Anakin snorts. “Be serious, Snips,” he says.
Ahsoka makes an offended noise. “Really! Look at that one—you can’t tell me you could fly that one.”
She gestures to a docked ship, and Anakin notices it’s piloted by a group of Killiks.
“Four arms, though? And Master Plo says they communicate by electromagnetic impulses. You know they’ve got some crazy controls in there that you wouldn’t be able to figure out.”
“Bet I could,” he says, shooting her a sideways smirk.
She rolls her eyes, unimpressed. “Again, they’ve got four arms. You have two.”
He shrugs. “I’d use the Force,” he says blithely. “Or my feet.”
Ahsoka groans, throwing her hands up, and Anakin laughs. He likes annoying her—it makes him feel content, the Force calming slightly around him from its angry whirling. He briefly remembers Kitster from back on Tatooine, how his little sister would trail behind them when they played, constantly pestering them with questions and comments and complaints.
It’s actually nice, just walking around with Ahsoka. There’s no sign of the bounty hunter, no indication of anything out of the ordinary, so they weave up and down the aisles of the shipyards, subtly scanning the people passing them. Anakin notices Ahsoka’s eyes linger on a stand selling nerf jerky, and senses a twinge of hunger through their training bond.
“Are you always hungry?” he says, pretending to be exasperated as he approaches the seller and hands over a few credits. “Honestly, I just fed you. If I’d known it would be so much trouble to raise a padawan—”
Ahsoka ignores his complaining, as always. “Master Ti says the Order never gives us enough meat,” she says. “Togrutas are obligate carnivores, after all.”
Anakin knows this well—he’s seen the horrified look on Obi-Wan’s face as his staunch vegetarian master watches Ahsoka devour raw meat in the dining hall whenever they have lunch together.
“Here,” he says, handing her the stick of spiced meat. He takes one for himself as well—he’s never been quite so concerned with vegetarianism as Obi-Wan, after all. Ahsoka is delighted—her whole face lights up, nose scrunching as she takes an enormous bite. Anakin can see a flash of her sharp canines as she tears into the jerky.
“Hold on, lemme snap a holo of this for Obi-Wan,” Anakin says, pretending to raise a holocam. Ahsoka giggles, swatting his hand away.
“If you had to eat just one thing for the rest of your life, what would you choose?” asks Ahsoka, speaking with her mouth full. She loves these hypotheticals, and can often be found running around the ship asking clone troopers questions like if they’d rather fight one Wookiee-sized Zilkin, or a hundred Zilkin-sized Wookiees.
Anakin considers it. “Blue milk pancakes,” he says. He had half-considered giving her a joke answer, but the truth is what ends up coming out.
Ahsoka makes an interested humming noise, still chewing her snack. “Is that from Tatooine?” she asks.
“It is,” says Anakin, reluctant to mention that hellhole. “Haven’t had ‘em in—well, eleven years? Twelve? I guess?”
“We should get some, then,” she says, like it’s obvious. Anakin doesn’t know quite what to say—her particular brand of teenage optimism is often hard to counter.
He opens his mouth to reply, to make some excuse, because there’s no way he’s ever setting foot on that planet again—but Ahsoka stops in her tracks, tilting her head and listening as one of her lekku twitches at the tip.
“Sense something?” says Anakin, immediately focusing in. He feels it too, an urgent, worried presence hurrying away from their location.
“I think that’s her,” says Ahsoka, her eyes tracking a hooded figure hurrying out of a door in an alleyway.
Anakin doesn’t need any further convincing, and begins to elbow his way through the crowd, ignoring the angry cries as he knocks people out of his path. The hooded figure glances back—she sees them, and immediately breaks into a sprint.
Anakin swears loudly, legs pushing him forward as he runs after her. Ahsoka is close behind him, and he makes a quick plan.
“Ahsoka,” he says as they run. “Remember the back alley near that Killik ship? Go to that, we can cut her off.”
He doesn’t need to look at her to feel her acknowledgement through their training bond as she peels away—another mistake, though he doesn’t realize it yet. He leans forward, drawing on another burst of speed, and starts gaining on the bounty hunter. She sees him catching up behind her, and turns, brandishing a shining blaster over her shoulder.
Anakin ducks instinctively as the weapon makes a loud cracking noise, like the fireworks they would shoot off on Boonta Eve. A chunk of plaster explodes from the wall behind him, showering him with dust.
“The fuck is that?” Anakin demands out loud. That didn’t sound or act like a blaster, not at all. He speeds up, all of his focus now directed on chasing the bounty hunter. She raises the strange weapon again, and this time Anakin is prepared. He whips his lightsaber out, ready to deflect her shot.
His blade comes to life with a satisfying hum, hilt vibrating under his hand as he swings it forward to block. She fires her weapon, and Anakin senses its trajectory—it’s like blocking a blaster bolt, but wrong—the projectile is solid metal, and it explodes on his lightsaber, bursting into molten-hot shards.
Anakin swears and brings his free hand up to block his face—he can’t block all of the shrapnel at once, and he feels a piece burn hot on his cheekbone, his thigh, his shoulder—
He can’t focus on the pain right now, or the hot blood he can feel trickling down his face. It’s clear now—this bounty hunter has somehow managed to track down a slugthrower, and if he can’t disarm her in time—he needs to disarm her in time.
The bounty hunter rounds the corner, pulling up short when she sees the second Jedi chasing her. Ahsoka has caught up to them, and leaps into action, drawing her lightsabers. She’s determined—her brow is furrowed, and her stance is strong. Anakin stumbles forward—he needs to power through the pain, but there’s still pieces of metal lodged in his skin, and every step sends a jolt through his system.
“Ahsoka,” he calls. “Careful—she’s got—”
The woman growls like a cornered animal, whipping out a vibroknife with her free hand. She surges toward Ahsoka, swinging the knife, but Ahsoka is not easily taken by surprise. She blocks easily, catching the bounty hunter’s knife on the hilt of her shoto and knocking her backwards.
Normally, Anakin loves watching Ahsoka fight—she’s truly a natural, using the Force effortlessly to aid her in an intrinsic way that had taken Anakin years to master. But now, his heart is in his throat as he forces himself to surge forward, ignoring his wounds, whipping his lightsaber forward brutally.
The woman is fast—he’ll give her that. She ducks a brutal saber swing that should have incapacitated her, popping up to thrust her knife at Anakin’s face. He shoves her arm with the Force, and she gasps as she’s thrown off-balance.
“Cuff her, now!” he shouts to Ahsoka—another mistake. She extinguishes her sabers to reach for the cuffs hanging off her belt as Anakin wraps his metal hand around the bounty hunter’s wrist, yanking her arm roughly behind her back.
He’s too slow—he’s always too slow. The woman’s other hand is free, and Anakin watches it unfold in slow motion as she unholsters her slugthrower, pressing the barrel flush to Ahsoka’s unarmored stomach, and shoots.
A shout rips from Anakin’s throat as he pulls the woman back, but it’s too late. Ahsoka’s eyes go wide and shocked as the metal slug rips through her body. Anakin’s senses are on fire, too aware of every minute detail—he can hear the bounty hunter’s ragged breathing, can smell the smoke rising from the barrel, can see the bullet bury itself in the wall behind Ahsoka.
And then there’s the blood. Ahsoka stands for a moment, teetering, her hands pressed to her stomach, lightsabers clattering to the ground. Blood seeps out from between her fingers.
“Fuck, please, no,” begs Anakin. He’s in a nightmare, he must be. The bounty hunter wrenches out of his grip, but Anakin hardly notices. He moves on instinct, rushing to catch Ahsoka before she hits the ground.
“Sk-Skyguy—” she tries. She’s shivering and ashen already, clutching at his shoulders desperately—and it’s all moving too fast, it’s only been half a moment and she’s already coated in blood, far more than a simple blaster shot would cause. Togruta blood is brighter red than a human’s, and it stains Anakin’s hands as he presses his hands to her stomach.
“Don’t talk,” he commands. “It’ll be okay—just- fuck, shit, fuck!”
He scrambles for his communicator, fingers clumsy, still sharp with the pain of the shrapnel still in his skin. His vision is going dark on the edges as panic sets in. He needs Obi-Wan here, he can’t do this on his own—
“Rex,” he chokes out. “Need extraction down here—now—we need Kix, the Commander is-” He can’t bring himself to say the words.
“On it, General,” comes Rex’s dependable voice. “We’ll be at your location in five minutes, sir.”
“Faster,” demanded Anakin. “There’s no time, please be faster!”
“We’ll do everything we can, General,” Rex assures him.
“Anakin,” Ahsoka whispers. Her whole body is shaking as blood pours from the ragged wound. Anakin can’t do enough to stop the bleeding—it’s too much blood, she’s so small, she can’t stand to lose as much as she has already.
“It’s okay, Snips,” he tries. “We’re good, we’re okay. Rex is on his way.”
“Sh-she got away—” Ahsoka manages.
“Don’t care,” says Anakin, and truly means it. “Just stay with me, Snips, okay, keep talking to me. Kix will be here any minute, he’ll help us out—”
There’s a roaring in his ears, his blood on fire. He will not lose Ahsoka, not if he has to burn the whole galaxy down along the way. He was too late to save his mother, but he won’t be too late this time.
“Hurts,” she whimpers, eyelids fluttering, her blue eyes glassy.
“Shit,” says Anakin. His breath is coming in fast pants—a distant part of his mind knows he’s having another panic attack, but he can’t for the life of him remember any of Obi-Wan’s techniques to calm himself down. “I know it hurts, baby, I know—but just a bit of bacta, and you’ll be okay. You’ll be okay, and we can go get lunch afterwards, and we’ll order the biggest nerf roast they can sell us—”
“Sorry,” she gasps. “Sorry, Anakin—I—”
“Shut up,” he says. “Don’t you fucking dare—”
He thinks he hears shouting around them, but it’s distant. He really couldn’t care less what’s going on around him, only for Ahsoka in his arms. Her presence in the Force, normally so strong and bright, that familiar shade of teal-blue, is quickly fading, souring, going gray. It’s not right. It’s all wrong, and it’s all Anakin’s fault.
Anakin becomes aware that the roaring in his ears is all around them now. It’s angry, loud, like a storm. There’s wind rushing through his hair, and he leans closer over Ahsoka’s body, shielding her.
“General!” comes a familiar voice. Rex’s shout cuts right through the clamor in his ears. Anakin doesn’t want to take his eyes off Ahsoka even for a second—her skin is growing clammy under his touch—but he rips his gaze away to look for Rex.
Anakin is confused—Rex is struggling to approach them, pressing forward insistently like he’s wading through deep water. The other troopers are behind him, distantly visible through a dark wall of debris and dust, whipping through the air like a tornado.
Rex raises a hand in front of his helmet to block a spinning brick. Where had it come from?
“General,” Rex calls again. “Whatever you’re doing, you need to stop!”
Anakin slowly realizes that he is knelt in the eye of a massive storm—troopers try to approach them, but are thrown back by the strong winds on every side of them. And Anakin is at the epicenter—no, Anakin is the epicenter.
“Don’t—” says Ahsoka, words coming sluggishly. “Don’t be angry, Skyguy.”
He can’t not be angry—he’s never known how. He’s furious, in fact—that he’d been so foolish, so careless, so stupid, and now Ahsoka was paying the price. Just as everyone always did—every single person who came around him suffered for it, even kind, funny Ahsoka, who only brought joy into the galaxy—punished because of him.
“General,” says Rex again. “Anakin!” He’s being pushed backwards again, digging his feet stubbornly into the stone beneath him, arms raised to protect his face from the storm.
Rex, Anakin thought. Rex is good. Rex is safe. The storm dies down slightly.
“It’s okay, Anakin,” calls Rex. “Kix is here—you need to let us in, please, sir.”
“Okay,” Anakin murmurs. Kix can help—he knows this, and the thought manages to cut through the maelstrom in his mind.
“General,” says Kix. He’s approaching Anakin with a hover gurney waiting beside him. “I’m going to need to move the Commander now. Okay?”
Anakin tightens his arms reflexively. If he lets Ahsoka go, how will he feel her life force? It’s steadily weakening, but her distinct signature is still there—dim, but strong, like the candles his mother would light when Watto cut their power off.
Rex’s hand lands on Anakin’s shoulder. “C’mon, General,” he encourages.
“Okay,” Anakin manages. He loosens his arms, and Kix and Jesse swoop in, gently lifting Ahsoka onto the hover gurney. He’s still panicking, breath coming in short bursts, but Rex is gently rubbing his shoulder, keeping him in his own body.
Kix jumps into action, shouting orders to his men. Ahsoka looks so small on the gurney. Her hand is dangling off the edge of the stretcher, so Anakin reaches out and grabs it, squeezing hard.
“I’m here, Snips,” he murmurs, not sure if she can hear him. Rex is helping him stand, a supportive arm around his waist. Kix is fitting an oxygen mask over Ahsoka’s mouth, and Anakin feels his stomach churn at the sight.
“We need to act quick,” Kix is saying. “We’ve got to cauterize the wound before she loses more blood—”
They’re rushing her to the shuttle, and it’s only thanks to Rex’s strong arm around his waist that Anakin is able to keep up. His breaths are coming harsh and ragged, the pain flaring every time he moves.
“Almost there, Anakin,” murmurs Rex, tilting his helmet towards Anakin’s ear, and his voice is soothing.
By the time he manages to heave his body into the shuttle, they already have Ahsoka hooked up to what seems like a thousand beeping machines. Jesse is in the cockpit, guiding them towards their ship, while Kix works, muttering about organ damage and shrapnel as he flits around Ahsoka’s body.
“General, you need to sit down,” Rex tries, and Anakin resolutely ignores him.
“Not until she’s safe,” he says, standing at the side of Ahsoka’s gurney. He can hear the sensors beeping with her heart rate, fast and frightened.
“It’s okay,” he says, squeezing her hand in hers. “C’mon, Snips, you’ve got this. Takes more than a stupid slug to keep you down—”
He doesn’t know if she can hear him—her eyes are closed, and her head lolls limply to the side. The beeping both drives him up the wall and keeps him in one piece—the noise of it drills into his skull, but it means she’s still alive, her heart still beating.
“Captain,” says Kix, gesturing Rex to his side. They speak quietly—Anakin is too focused on Ahsoka to notice or care.
“Ahsoka,” he says, practically begging. “Please, you have to—we have too much to do, you need to—we have to get back to the Temple. Remember, Obi-Wan still hasn’t seen those advanced Shien forms you’ve been working on—you gotta show him, he’s gonna love it—”
“Anakin,” says Rex quietly, and his voice sounds wrecked. “Listen—we need to be honest with ourselves, she’s—”
“Shut up, Rex,” says Anakin, not taking his eyes off Ahsoka.
Rex makes a quiet, choked noise beside him, and though Rex isn’t Force-sensitive, Anakin can feel the grief radiating off him.
“No,” says Anakin, desperate. “No, no. She’s—Ahsoka, come on, please—I can’t do this without you, I can’t—”
She doesn’t respond. She’s paler than Anakin has ever seen her—her warm, dark skin has gone sickly pale, the only color being the fiery red of her blood. The beeping of the heart rate monitor is inconsistent, fluttery and weak. Her eyes are still closed, and Anakin would do anything to see those blue eyes open and meet his. He’d move mountains if he had to.
“Ahsoka, please,” he begs again. “Don’t go where I can’t follow.”
Anakin feels it happen a moment before the machines. The flickering light of her Force signature dims, and then blinks out—just like Shmi’s had. The sensors follow—the horrible beeping flattens out to a long, droning monotone, unable to detect a heartbeat.
“Fuck,” says Rex, a hand over his mouth. He fights hard, chest heaving, but tears are streaming down his cheeks. “Fuck, no—”
“General,” says Kix, white-faced and shaken. “General, we need to—”
Anakin does not hear them. He does not hear anything—just the flatline drone of the heart rate monitor, and the white roaring in his ears.
“I said no,” he mutters.
Clearly, someone somewhere along the line had misunderstood. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Ahsoka was supposed to grow up, strong and bright and joyful, spend her life bringing peace and laughter to the galaxy. She was supposed to be his family—she wasn’t supposed to leave him. She wasn’t meant to die unceremoniously, just fifteen years old, bleeding out on a gurney, heart giving out as her blood coated the floor.
“I said NO!” he shouts, and his voice booms through the shuttle, louder than it should have been. His vision is going white—the forms in front of him blur and glow as if lit by the brightest of suns. As he loses his awareness of what’s in front of him, he can feel his consciousness expanding—he can sense every soul on Corellia, like watching thousands of ants mill through the dirt below his feet.
He can feel the heat running through his veins, bright and electrified. It burns bright and cleansing—the Force is pure inside of him, radiant and galvanizing. His wounds heal instantly, the blood sizzling off his skin. It takes him only a moment to locate the bounty hunter—she is still on the surface of the planet, and he plucks her unceremoniously out of the air. It is easy to crush her, and even from miles away, he feels her life force splutter and go out as all of her bones crack simultaneously.
He does not feel regret. Regret is a human emotion, and he is beyond that. All he feels is righteousness, flowing through him like electricity. It’s easy, now. He had been too weak when his mother died—too human, too flawed. He’s past that now. It won’t happen again. It cannot happen again.
The electricity runs down his arms to his hands, where he’s still clutching Ahsoka’s limp hand. It’s easy and natural to pour it into her, to fill her up, to pull her lifeforce back from where it was trying to escape into the Cosmic Force. He reaches out, tugs her back. It’s easy, and he marvels at how he’s never done this before. It’s easy, and he can keep doing it. Nobody will get to leave him anymore—not Padmé, not Obi-Wan, not Ahsoka, none of them.
He can’t see, can’t hear—he is consumed entirely by the blinding light. But he can feel Ahsoka—he can feel the life flood back into her body, can feel her awaken, can feel her divine agony as her flesh knits back together, fresh blood flowing through her newly-pumping heart.
Anakin, she calls to him.
Don’t leave me, he sends back.
Never, she promises. Come back to me, please.
He doesn’t know how—he’s become a supernova, and he cannot return to being Anakin.
Focus on me, she says, calling him from the end of a bright tunnel. Come on, Anakin. Don’t go where I can’t follow.
Anakin feels a jolt as he recognizes his own words reflected back at him. He wrenches up every ounce of power he’s ever possessed, and starts to pull the supernova in. It’s slow, and agonizing. His feeble mortal body doesn’t have room for the power in his veins—it never has. He is not flesh and blood—he is starlight.
It’s excruciating, but he does it. He manages it, because Ahsoka asked him to. She is his sister, and he will do anything she asks of him.
His legs give out as he comes back into his body. He crumples to the ground, and realizes with a pleasant shock that Ahsoka is looking down at him. She’s pushed herself up over the side of the gurney, discarding her oxygen mask, whole and intact and flushed with color.
“Anakin!” she cries, distressed. “Are you okay?”
“Am I—” he says thickly. He’s back in his mortal body again, and it feels syrupy slow now. “Am I okay—no, are you okay?”
“I’m here,” she says, confused but delighted. “I—left for a bit, but I’m here again.”
Anakin stares at her, trying to wade through his murky thoughts. Ahsoka looks frightened—her eyes are wide.
“Skyguy, you’re smoking,” she says.
“Yeah, smoking hot,” he jokes feebly, but he quickly realizes she’s being literal. He smells a faint acrid burning smell and sees curls of smoke rising off his skin.
“That was… a lot,” he says, trying to push himself up. Ahsoka pushes herself off the gurney. Her tunic is ripped and bloody where the bullet entered, but Anakin can see the skin is whole and smooth underneath, no sign of the wound at all.
Ahsoka kneels next to him, and it’s the easiest thing in the world to grab her by the shoulders and tug her in for a tight hug. Anakin wraps his arms around her back, feeling her strong heartbeat, and squeezes his eyes closed as tears start to leak out. It feels oddly familiar to hug her like this, like a half-remembered dream. He wonders why he doesn’t hug her more often, and swears that from here on out, he will.
“Skyguy,” says Ahsoka, startled by the vice grip he has on her. He pulls back slightly, wiping his eyes. Her eyes widen as she notices, and she grasps his hand and squeezes, sending a burst of affection through the Force.
Anakin suddenly remembers they aren’t alone in the room—Rex and Kix are pushing themselves up from where they collapsed to the ground. Rex is rubbing his head, and Anakin feels a surge of guilt.
“Shit, Rex, are you okay?” he asks. He can’t push himself up to stand, so he leans over, grasping Rex by the shoulder weakly, his other arm still tight around Ahsoka’s shoulders.
“Yeah,” he says. “Uh, I think. I don’t really know what happened. Did you mean to start glowing?”
“I was glowing?” says Anakin stupidly.
It takes Rex’s mind a moment to catch up, and he stares at Ahsoka for a long second before his eyes go wide.
“Commander, you shouldn’t be up,” he says, scrambling to his feet and reaching for her. “You need to be recovering—”
“I am recovered, Rex,” says Ahsoka. Her weight is comforting where it’s pressed into Anakin’s side, and he’s not willing to let her go just yet. “Skyguy took care of me.”
“By glowing,” says Rex disbelievingly. Behind him, Kix is grinning, muttering something about Jedi osik.
“Anakin,” says Ahsoka. “What are we going to do now? You need to tell Obi-Wan what you did—the Council needs to know—”
“Fuck the Council,” he says before he can think better of it. He already knows he’s too powerful for them. They’ll try to curb his power, keep him in check. They wouldn’t let him use his powers—powers the Force itself deemed him worthy of—to do right for the galaxy.
Ahsoka laughs despite herself.
“I’m serious,” Anakin says, squeezing her even tighter to his chest. “You wanna quit? We can quit. I’m fine with that. We can go stay with Padmé on Naboo.”
“Anakin,” she says gently. “How about we wait a few hours after near-death experiences before making any major life decisions?”
“You’re pretty smart for a kid, you know,” he says. He’s getting tired now—turns out it’s pretty exhausting to bring the entire Force into a mortal body.
“General, we’re docking with the ship now,” says Rex as he and Ahsoka help him to his feet. “You go ahead and rest. We’ll call General Kenobi to meet us—”
“Not the Council,” he demands.
“Not the Council,” Ahsoka assures him. “Just Master Obi-Wan. Okay?”
“Fine,” he says through a wide yawn. He can hear Ahsoka and Rex talking quietly as he drifts off. He doesn’t know what will come next or where he’ll go or what he’ll do—but at least he can rest peacefully knowing Ahsoka is safe.