[closed;] damn your love, damn your lies

[ex_forcechoke292]

Who: Anakin Skywalker (forcechoke), Ahsoka Tano (divagated), & Obi-Wan Kenobi (jedimindtrick)
When: 6/6 and post-6/12
Where: Various vacation resort rooms, depending on thread.
What: Pre- and post-#VADERGATE trainwrecks. [*VADERGATE, a drama in (like) 15 parts (or something), this being the fourth of those 15 parts.]
Warnings: N/A, will be updated as necessary. #ClassicSkywalker whining?

Comments

[ex_forcechoke292]

I know.

[The insistence is tired, but hard-pressed, his eyes dragging up from the ground, burning with intensity where his voice doesn't. He hadn't ever believed anything but. She has always been one of the best of them--even if he's never said as much--and they failed her.

There's another pause, but he can't force his gaze to shift away again, not when she deserves to hear this, no matter how much he doesn't want to say it.]

I would never leave you to deal with that alone, Ahsoka. Ever.

[It's what he doesn't say immediately that's so damning, and he knows it.]

The Council...didn't agree.

[And never seems to anymore, when it matters. Would that he could do it again, he'd take Yoda to task, and then...well, and then what? Leave with her when it was all done?]

[divagated]

[The news hits her like a punch to her chest. It's one thing to learn you were framed for a murder, but she knew Anakin would believe her. And she was so sure that the Council would too, so him telling her otherwise? It doesn't compute.]

No-- No, they would believe me-- they wouldn't actually think I would--

[No, no no no no--]

But Master Yoda-- Master Plo-- Master Obi-Wan-- they know me-- [how could this happen? How could they not believe her, she was one of them.]

[ex_forcechoke292]

You don't think I tried to reason with them?

[Granted, more often than not, his idea of reason rarely syncs with that of the Council, but there hadn't been a choice. If he'd been there, with them, on it even...]

You know how different Obi-Wan is when he's with them.

[There's still a piece of him, smaller now after so many months away, that seethes at the idea of that apathetically accepted complacency. The sycophantism that the Council seemed to inspire still rankles, and to think Obi-Wan had once been part of that without even beginning to think something was wrong?

But he's only a piece here when the whole problem, the real problem, is the Jedi Council's misled and misguided ivory tower.

Anakin sighs. There isn't any sense to be found in their once hard line, and he can't blame Ahsoka for her shock. He'd been just as angry. She was...is still his Padawan. If they had once been so willing to cut the cord with their brightest, what did that say for him? His training? Their trust?]

They didn't take the time to ask. Following your... expulsion, I went looking for the truth. No one else seemed all that interested in it. It's beneath us to look for a scapegoat, but "politics."

[It's already been hard to look back at the last three years in hindsight and not comes away with little but bitterness, but this decision above all else leaves an acrid taste in the back of his throat.]

I wish I could that it back, Ahsoka. Lie about it. Change it. They tried to offer you the same thing. A place back, like they hadn't made a mistake.

[divagated]

[So rather than stand behind one of their own, they turned her over for a crime she didn't commit? They ignored her pleas, content to let a Padawan rot even though she insisted she had no part it in? For what? Politics? To please the Chancellor? Just so the Republic would stop breathing down their necks?

She knew the Order had changed throughout the coarse of the war. The Jedi were supposed to be about peace, but so often they got wrapped up in the politics, in the violence, that the real peace didn't seem to matter as much anymore. And this was another example of just that.

Anger didn't seem to cover how she felt. Anger wasn't a feeling befitting of a Jedi, but at the moment, she honestly didn't care. How could she sit there and try to follow their teachings when they wouldn't follow them to protect her?

She felt betrayed, not even just by the Council, but by her very way of life. The Jedi Order was more than just her home, it was her life-- it was who she was. And it all turned it's back on her.]

I didn't accept it, did I? I walked away. [He doesn't have to tell her for her to know her choice. The hurt and betrayal she feels just by him telling her was bad enough. But living it out? How could they honestly expect her to come crawling back after treating her like that?]

[ex_forcechoke292]

No, you didn't accept it.

[And yes, you left. Me. The thought still hurts, even with her here in front of him. Their hurts mingle together until he's not sure if its her sense of betrayal he feels, or the one he'd imagined all those months ago.

...But she's here. Which is more than he can say for anyone else in the Order. And she's had as little choice in this that he ever has, and even less knowledge of it. Can he honestly hold that against her?]

...I'm not sure I would have either.

[divagated]

[She knew it. She didn't have to live it to know how she felt, and it sucked. And she's not sure who seems more disappointed, her or him.]

...I'm sorry, Ma-- Anakin. [she starts to say Master, but it feels almost wrong, in a sense. He's still her Master, definitely, but she feels a disconnection to that at the moment. And who could blame her?]

Thank you. For being honest with me. [She feels terrible now, but she did ask for it, did she not? But she would rather know, then have it kept secret from her.]

[ex_forcechoke292]

You don't need to be sorry, this isn't your fault.

[He used to hold her up to it: to leaving. Used to worry if this disappointment he felt was reasonable, and whether it was with her or the Order itself, but in all the things he's learned, the scant details that don't quite fit, he knows enough.

The Order started this, and the Order failed. (And has been making a habit of it, lately.) He doesn't like the idea that Barriss might have had a point--she certainly hadn't gone about it right way--but...there is something to be said for the mishandling of this entire war they shouldn't even be a part of.]

So, what now?

[It feels like a question he should be answering, not asking.]

[divagated]

I still left you. [She knows how much of a struggle that had to be for him. How hard it had to be for her. Keeping attachments was something both of them struggled with, so breaking a bond like theirs had to have left a mark on them both.

At his question, she hesitated. What now? She didn't even know how to answer that, how she even felt. This was all so fresh, she didn't know what to think, what to do.]

Honestly, I-- I don't know. I need some time... to think about everything.

[ex_forcechoke292]

[Despite knowing that it's coming, despite knowing he'd ask (not near as nicely) the same thing in her place, it's like a knife shoved into his side and twisted. The expression that follows, a bitten back grimace that does little to hide the conflict under it, makes that pain plain.

And yet, all he can do is simply...nod. He can't demand she stay, can't offer a distraction (especially when he's not feeling it anymore either), can't do anything but offer platitudes on platitudes, and he's never been one for grovelling.

"I need some time" is still better than anything that starts with "I'm sorry." He remembers, plainly, her walking away the first (and hopefully only) time. That decision had been clear. Necessary. This is infinitely more complicated.]

Of course. [It doesn't sound certain at all.]