Anakin ran behind Obi-wan through the dark hallways of Jabba’s palace. The whole place was in chaos, shouting and fighting from behind them from what must be the freed prisoners from the dungeons flooding into the castle and using the cover of the darkness and confusion to attempt to escape or take revenge on Jabba’s mercenaries.

  Only one mercenary group tried to stop them the whole way, once they left the building itself and were rushing towards what must be Obi-wan’s ship.

  The eight mercenaries shouted at them and raised their weapons, but when they saw Obi-wan’s activated lightsaber they were wary. When they saw Anakin running right behind Obi-wan they all paled and promptly turned around and fled as fast as possible from them.

  Anakin supposed he deserved that reputation considering what he had done at Mos Espa… But it still seemed like a rather extreme reaction considering it had been years since it had happened…

  Obi-wan lowered the ramp on the ship and ushered Anakin inside upon which he immediately sheathed his lightsaber and ordered the ship to fly up to orbit.

  Some of the control panels were flickering and the ship rattled dangerously as they rose into the air into orbit. The communications equipment was completely fried from what Anakin could tell as he inspected it curiously.

  The ship rumbled several times during their flight as their shields took some fire from some ships in orbit that started firing on them.

  Their shields fell down to near half strength before in a sudden burst of plasma fire, the star destroyer opened fire and destroyed the nearly dozen vessels that were firing on their shuttle in one giant barrage of weapon’s fire.

  The other mercenary ships that must belong to the Hutts beat a hasty disorganized retreat as Anakin and Obi-wan’s shuttle continued on its way towards the Republic ship.

  The ship approached the large Venator, and even without any communication they were guided into one of the main hangar bays to land by a pair of fighter craft.

  The ship landed and by silent agreement Obi-wan and Anakin walked out of the ship together. There to greet them were dozens of heavily armed soldiers all pointing their weapons straight at Anakin.

  He slowly raised his hands in surrender as Obi-wan kept moving forward and went to go speak with the Republic officer in the center of the soldier’s formation. The man looked irritated by Obi-wan’s words, but eventually seemed to give in and gestured to the soldiers to stand down.

  Obi-wan returned to Anakin who still had his hands raised.

  “You are to remain in sight of me at all times so I can monitor you. You are not to use the Force in any way while on this ship, or attack anyone. You will sleep in the cells, but in exchange for good behavior you will not have to wear stun cuffs or be completely confined for the journey. Do you understand? There will be no second chances. One thing out of line and you’ll be in the brig until we reach Coruscant.”

  Anakin lowered his hands, slightly surprised that he wasn’t being thrown in a cell immediately.

  “I’m surprised you got them to agree to that. But I agree. I won’t cause any trouble.”

  Obi-wan let out a held breath in a long sigh, “Good. By the Force, this whole thing’s a mess. How did things become so complicated?”

  Anakin snorted in laughter and Obi-wan gave him a strange look.

  “Tell me about it,” Anakin explained with a little chuckle.

  Obi-wan smiled slightly as he understood and nodded back.

  There was some awkwardness as all of the surrounding soldiers stared at the two of them even if their weapons weren’t quite raised at Anakin anymore.

  Obi-wan started walking into the ship and after a moment Anakin followed after him.

  They went into a room just off of the main hangar. Inside were some tables and relatively comfortable looking. Obi-wan sat down on one of the more plush chairs and gestured to another one across from him that Anakin gratefully sat down on. His body was still sore after who knows how long floating in place in Jabba’s dungeon and it felt like he was sitting on a cloud in comparison as soon as his butt touched the cushions.

  The room was empty besides the two of them. One man came in and walked over to Obi-wan and whispered in his ear for a moment. Obi-wan nodded back and whispered something back and the man went outside again.

  “The Republic officers want to talk to you obviously,” Obi-wan said after a few seconds of silence, “We shouldn’t talk about anything more serious until they’re all here. Have you trained your lightsaber forms in this time?”

  “No.”

  Obi-wan’s brows furrowed and Anakin clarified, “The Jedi Master on Mos Espa stole my lightsaber in the battle. I haven’t had one since then. Luckily I haven’t had to fight all that much except for… The few times that I’ve had to.”

  “Ah,” Obi-wan said and his expression cleared slightly, “I’d forgotten. Yes, I suppose that makes sense. I’m surprised that you of all people would be so calm about being unable to improve your forms. You used to be obsessed with sparring and the duels with the other padawans in the Jedi temple. In pushing yourself to go further and improve.”

  “I guess I was. It was fun, I haven’t thought about a fight like that in a long time. I really was just fighting people and meditating on the Force all the time, wasn’t I? I wonder what my old self would think if he saw me now.”

  “It’s a necessary process to refine our connection to the Force. You tell me. What would your old self say? You’d know better than me.”

  Anakin leaned back in the criminally luxurious chair. It probably wasn’t even that great, but compared to floating in a containment field for days, it was the height of luxury.

  Anakin thought about his honest answer to the question. And the answer was…

  “I don’t know. I honestly have no clue what he would have thought of me now,” he said in surprise as the truth came to him easily. He was too different from even the boy from two years ago who had left the Jedi temple. Let alone the one who had been training back before Draeth and everything that had happened with Master Druman.

  “I–”

  The door to the room hissed open and Anakin stopped to look along with Obi-wan to see a orange skinned Togruta girl standing there. Her head tails were striped blue and white as she walked in and stared intently at Anakin. She had a pair of lightsabers hanging from her belt, one on either side of her hips, that Anakin looked at in interest. Wielding two blades at once? That was pretty wizard. Anakin had tried learning those forms a few times, but had never quite been able to manage it properly. She must be pretty good to use them as her main forms.

  She seemed young, ten or eleven maybe? But then why would she be here…

  Obi-wan coughed and the two of them broke from their impromptu staring contest to look at the Jedi master.

  “Ah. I forgot to mention before. I have chosen a new padawan considering everything… Anakin Skywalker, my former Padawan, meet Ahsoka Tanu, my newest padawan. She’s talented and managed to pass her Padawan trials at only the age of twelve. As you can see, she uses the double blade style.”

  Anakin was surprised by how hurt he was by the fact that Obi-wan had chosen another padawan so soon. But he slowly let the feeling fade away as he absorbed his gut reaction. He never intended on joining the Jedi order again. He was sure of that now. So maybe it was for the best that Obi-wan was doing this. A clean break from the past.

  “Hi,” Ahsoka said, raising her chin and giving Anakin a challenging look, “I’ve heard a lot about you at the Jedi temple. You better not hurt my master or you’ll have to go through me first.”

  “Ahsoka!” Obi-wan scolded, “Please-”

  “Good.”

  Both of them looked at Anakin in shock and he nodded at Ahsoka.

  “Good,” he said again, “He’s far too reckless. He needs someone to keep him in check. Old man’s old bones aren’t as nimble as they used to be.”

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  Ahsoka looked stunned as Obi-wan just huffed and sat back in his chair in response to Anakin’s cheeky response.

  “Old bones… I’m barely over thirty, you brat. I’m still plenty nimble.”

  “Okay, old man. You keep telling yourself that.”

  The two of them bantered a little more and fell back into their old patterns as Ahsoka watched them. It took a minute or so for Anakin to look over and notice her just… standing there staring at the two of them silently. Her fists were clenched and she had a look of intense… jealousy? Yes, Jealousy on her face. The look quickly washed away into something more neutral and her fists unclenched at her sides as she noticed Anakin looking at her in the lull of the conversation.

  “Ahsoka,” Obi-wan said as he also seemed to notice with a note of faint guilt that he had been leaving her out of the conversation, “Did I ever tell you about my mission to…”

  Obi-wan started telling Ahsoka about one of the missions that he’d gone on for the Jedi Council. He had to investigate a disturbance in the Force that the Council had sensed. This one had turned out to be a previously undiscovered ancient ruin saturated in the Force. A dark side aligned beast had started to corrupt it with their powers, seemingly instinctively. Obi-wan narrated as he went through the temple until he found the source and fought it and eventually killed it in the end.

  Ahsoka was entranced, excitedly asking questions about Obi-wan’s tale with stars in her eyes as she looked at the man, seemingly imagining herself in Obi-wan’s place and investigating an ancient temple and fighting the fearsome beast. She seemed to have almost completely forgotten that Anakin was even there as she got more invested in Obi-wan’s story.

  Obi-wan was a good storyteller. Anakin enjoyed listening to the story too. He’d heard it before, and remembered having a similar reaction to Ahsoka’s the first time. It sounded like something that would be from the Jedi legends from how Obi-wan told it. But it was all real and things that the Jedi master had actually done himself.

  Obi-wan kept talking and telling stories as Anakin and Ahsoka listened.

  — — —

  Obi-wan cut himself off mid sentence as the door to the room slid open again. Four stern faced men in officer uniforms walked inside, their eyes focused on Anakin as soon as they walked inside.

  “Ah Commander. It seems that we must turn to more serious business.”

  Obi-wan put on a serious expression and turned to Anakin, with Ahsoka shifting herself so she was standing behind her master. The four officers walked in to flank Obi-wan as he stared at Anakin, the atmosphere in the room suddenly tense.

  “So Anakin,” Obi-wan said, “What can you tell us about what really happened?”

  Anakin opened his mouth and closed it a few times, remembering Dooku’s message to not tell the Republic anything until Dooku talked with him.

  “I can’t say anything. I’m sorry.”

  “Young man,” the ship commander said as he frowned deeply at Anakin, “I don’t think you understand the trouble that you’re in here. You’re being accused of destroying a Republic military vessel worth tens of millions of credits and killing two Jedi knights as well as the command crew.”

  Anakin hesitated before deciding that it was probably fine to tell them something.

  “I didn’t destroy the ship. The second Jedi Master was holding something in his hand. A communicator. When I ripped it out of his hand, the whole ship exploded before I could even react.”

  “And how did you manage to survive that?” Obi-wan asked, “How’d you get away?”

  Anakin hesitated before realizing that he had to stop talking. He had no idea if something he said might cause problems for Dooku’s plans.

  “I can’t say any more. But I didn’t blow up the ship. It was someone else.”

  The Republic officers and Obi-wan tried to convince Anakin to say more, but he stayed strong and didn’t answer their questions. He hoped that he already hadn’t said too much.

  Ahsoka stood there with a strange look on her face as Anakin repeatedly gave strained denials to his old master and the insistent Republic officers’ demands for answers.

  Eventually the ship commanders grew fed up with Anakin’s refusal and decided to throw him into the brig as punishment despite Obi-wan’s protests.

  Anakin was led to a cell and led inside. Luckily he wouldn’t be wearing stun cuffs this time, although he was told that Obi-wan would be nearby and ready to stop him if he tried to escape as well as all of the other troops on the ship.

  Anakin sighed as he leaned back on his cell bed and stared at the ceiling. One prison after another, it seems. The sad part was that he was here willingly. He still had his heat and electricity resistance active for a few days. If he wanted to he could break out of here and probably escape without anyone being able to stop him, even Obi-wan.

  But Dooku had a plan, so here Anakin would stay for now. If he was cleared by the Republic of any crimes then maybe he and his family wouldn’t have to be hidden away from the galaxy anymore…

  — — —

  Anakin looked up as someone walked in front of the shimmering force field in front of his cell. Ahsoka. He peered to the side, and was surprised to see that she appeared to be alone.

  “Skywalker,” she said, before trailing off looking unsure.

  Anakin sat down at the foot of his bed and watched her on the other side of the force shield staring at him.

  “How are you so calm?” Ahsoka eventually asked him, “With everything you’re accused of. How much trouble you are in, with there even being rumors that you were drawing on the dark side of the Force and had fully fallen… How can you just sit there? I don’t understand.”

  “It could be worse,” Anakin said, “Much worse. I was mostly worried about my Mom and Slarena. Now that they’re safe, I just feel relieved. Guess everything with the Republic doesn’t feel real with how long I’ve been hiding from them and the Jedi.”

  “Safe? Do you know where they were taken?”

  Anakin paused slightly before answering, “Of course not. Just a feeling, you know. Wherever they are now is safer than Jabba’s palace was.”

  “Oh. I guess that makes sense. I’m sorry that happened to them.”

  “Me too. But thank you. Does Obi-wan know that you’re here? What if I went crazy and hurt you or something?”

  “You seem pretty calm,” Ahsoka replied although she took a half step back despite herself, “I don’t think you’d hurt me. It just doesn’t make sense to me. The way that people talk about you. It’s like… You’re just so different. Even the rumors of how you were before you left the temple.”

  “Yeah. I am pretty different, I guess. I’ve been through a lot.”

  “What made you first leave the Jedi temple? I’ve never heard of anyone even trying to leave as a padawan. You must have had some kind of reason to do it.”

  “Oh. Are you sure you want to know? You might get in trouble if other people in the temple haven’t heard about it yet.”

  “Tell me. I can handle it,” Ahsoka said firmly, puffing up her short frame as if to make herself bigger as she stood on the other side of the cell’s force shield.

  “I really didn’t like my new master. Master Druman,” Anakin said, “After… Obi-wan had an incident after one of his missions, I was transferred to Master Druman as my new master. He was strict, made me meditate all the time, didn’t let me spar with the other padawans or even talk with them for months. I couldn’t handle training under him any longer, so on my padawan’s journey I ran when I had a chance. It wasn’t even about my mother back then, even if it became important to me later. If Obi-wan had remained my master I probably wouldn’t have ever wanted to leave in the first place.”

  Ahsoka frowned, “That sounds horrible! Not even sparring with the other padawans… But why didn’t you just go to the Council and ask for someone else? I’m sure that they would have listened to you if you really felt that way.”

  Anakin chuckled, only to see that she was frowning at him with an almost pout as she looked at him.

  “Ask Obi-wan about it,” Anakin said, “I did ask the Grandmasters a few times when I could, and nothing happened. Even Grandmaster Yoda said it was an exercise for me to master my patience and tolerance for when I was a full Jedi knight. They were never going to do anything. It had already been months and Master Druman wasn’t going anywhere.”

  “That can’t be true!” Ahsoka protested, “They must have not known how bad it really was. For them, meditating all day is natural since they’re so old and wise. If you’d just…”

  “It doesn’t matter now anyway,” Anakin said as he leaned his back against the wall, “What does it matter what I should have done? I’m here now.”

  “Would you come back and be a Jedi, if the Council clears you of the accusations of you drawing on the dark side?” Ahsoka asked.

  “Probably not. I bet they’d just put me back under Master Druman. And… I guess I just don’t have that same dream that I had before. Jedi masters trying to slice you in half tends to do that to you…”

  Anakin unconsciously rubbed his nose where it had been severely burned from the Jedi master’s lightsaber passing by it. The bandages wrapped over it and the skin grafts had been so itchy and had bothered him so much more than all of the others on his body.

  “But if you had a better master. Someone good like Master Kenobi maybe,” Ahsoka insisted, “What about then?”

  “I don’t-”

  “Girl, what are you doing here?” A deep voice suddenly said from down the hallway. Ahsoka turned.

  “I’m here to talk with Skywalker,” she said firmly.

  “Please step away from the shield,” the soldier said gruffly as he came into Anakin’s view, “Where is your minder, girl?”

  “Don’t call me a girl again! I am a padawan in training, and my Master is resting. Not that it’s any of your business.”

  “I’d suggest you return to him,” the soldier said, seeming unimpressed by Ahsoka’s outburst, “Commander’s orders straight from Coruscant, no one is to talk to the prisoner alone.”

  “Well, that’s…” Ahsoka said, visibly trying to suppress her annoyance at the man’s rudeness towards her.

  “It was nice talking with you Ahsoka,” Anakin said as she seemed to be about to argue with the man, “See you on Coruscant hopefully.”

  Ahsoka glanced at him and then huffed a little as she glanced back at the rude man.

  “See you, Skywalker. I hope that the Council finds you innocent of all those things you’re accused of.”

  She turned and left as the man who had interrupted them watched. The man then turned and it was just Anakin and him staring at each other for a while.

  “Don’t even think about trying to break out. None of your Force strangeness will be able to handle this ship’s defenses.”

  “Okay.”

  The man waited for more, but seeing that Anakin was done, turned away and walked off while looking disappointed by the non-reaction.

  Anakin lay back on his bed. He should take a big long nap, he hadn’t been able to sleep very well at Jabba’s palace before.

  Before Anakin even knew it, he was fast asleep in his cell with not a care in the world as time passed without even dreams to disturb his rest.