Chapter Text
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The training room was dim, lit only by the pale glow of suspended lights above and the soft glimmer of Coruscant’s nightscape through the high windows. Shadows curled along the floor as Sar’Mari moved through her kata, every movement sharp, purposeful, silent.
Her boots barely touched the floor.
Sweat clung to her skin, seeping through her tunic. Her arms burned, her legs trembled faintly beneath the controlled precision of her stances—but she didn’t stop. Couldn’t stop.
Each strike, each breath, was a tether. A way to keep from floating too far into her thoughts.
A week ago, her entire life had been on trial. Her name. Her truth. Her existence. Now, she was free—technically. But freedom hadn’t come with peace. Not when she could still feel the empty space beside her at night. Not when she could still see Ahsoka’s face the last time they spoke, trembling with conflict before she turned and ran.
Sar’Mari gritted her teeth and snapped her saber into a reverse grip. She pivoted, slashing through the air like it could bleed.
“You should be resting.”
She froze mid-swing, shoulders stiffening. The voice was familiar, patient but tinged with concern. She turned slightly to see Obi-Wan standing at the threshold, arms folded into his robe sleeves, his gaze steady beneath the low light.
“I’m fine,” she said—and kept moving.
Another spin, another strike. Her form flawless. Her anger hidden just beneath the surface.
“That,” he replied, stepping into the room, “is precisely the sort of response I would expect from someone not fine.”
Sar’Mari exhaled sharply and turned away, walking toward the mat’s edge. “My muscles ache. My thoughts are noisy. I needed to do something.”
She switched off her saber at last, letting it hang at her side, annoyed by the interruption.
Obi-Wan watched her carefully, suppressing a sigh. Since the trial, Sar’Mari had been… volatile. Withdrawn. Quiet one moment and sharp-tongued the next. And though the others had kept their distance, he’d endured it—because she was his Padawan. His responsibility. His student.
“You need rest,” he countered gently. “Your body may be healing fast, but your mind—”
“Isn’t your concern?” she offered, voice tight.
Obi-Wan’s brow lifted. “As your Master, it very much is.”
Her jaw tensed. “Then maybe don’t ask me to keep meditating like it’s supposed to fix everything.”
“I am not asking you to meditate.” He stepped closer, lowering his voice. “I am asking you to stop trying to outrun your pain before it turns into something worse.”
She turned back to face him. “And what would you know about that?”
That struck harder than she meant it to. Obi-Wan’s eyes softened—not with pity, but weariness. The same kind she sometimes saw in the mirror.
They stood there in the quiet—teacher and student, warrior and child—until the door behind them slid open with a low hiss.
Plo Koon entered, his presence calm but unusually tense.
“Forgive the interruption,” he said, his voice deep and rasped through the mask. “But there is something you both need to know.”
Sar’Mari straightened, heart skipping.
Plo’s gaze met hers.
“Ahsoka has been captured. She is in a holding cell here at the Temple.”
The breath left her lungs in a slow, sharp pull.
She didn’t speak. Couldn’t.
Her saber clattered softly to the floor.
But then—her voice broke through the silence, sharp and desperate. “Where?” she demanded. “Where did you find her?”
Plo Koon looked at her with a quiet kind of empathy. He stepped forward, folding his hands behind his back.
“She was found near a warehouse,” he said gently. “One that had recently received shipments of nano-droids.”
Sar’Mari’s brows drew together in confusion and dread.
But then—
“She was found on Level 1313.”
The room tilted.
Her legs stiffened. Her throat closed. For a moment, she couldn’t feel the air move through her lungs.
Level 1313.
He could have said hell, and it would have meant the same thing.
Her mouth opened slowly, the words catching on her tongue. “That’s…”
“I know,” Plo said, his voice softened further. “I am aware of your past.”
She turned away sharply, her eyes suddenly too hot. The saber on the floor blurred in her vision. Her fists trembled at her sides.
Level 1313.
The lowest breath of the planet. Where the light didn’t reach. Where everything was broken, bought, or bleeding. Where she learned how to run before she could read. Where Jaccha taught her to lie with her eyes and fight with her fists. Where she first saw a body fall. Where she begged the Force—something she didn’t even know was real—for something more.
That’s where Ahsoka had been. Wandering the same dark bones Sar’Mari had once called home.
She turned back toward Plo and Obi-Wan, her voice caught between pain and disbelief.
“She was there?” she whispered. “ There ?”
Plo nodded slowly. “Yes.”
Sar’Mari’s chest ached with something deeper than heartbreak. It was like her past had reached out and swallowed Ahsoka whole.
“She didn’t belong down there,” she said, her voice cracking.
Plo Koon’s posture remained calm, but his gaze was full of understanding. “Few do. But I believe that’s why she went.”
Sar’Mari turned away again, blinking hard. Her mind spun with the image—Ahsoka on the run, hiding in the shadows of Sar’Mari’s childhood. Alone. Cold. Cornered.
Obi-Wan stepped forward quietly, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder—but she flinched from the touch, her eyes brimming now.
“She was hiding where I used to live,” she whispered. “The one I spent months trying to...”
Her voice shook.
“Why would she go there?”
Obi-Wan hesitated, then said quietly, “Because she felt what you once felt. Betrayed. Hunted. Alone.”
Sar’Mari took a step forward. “I want to see her.”
Obi-Wan’s head turned slowly. “No.”
Her eyes snapped to him. “What? Why not?”
“You know why not.”
“No,” she said firmly. “No, I don’t. I’ve waited for this—for her—for almost three weeks. You think I’ll just sit here while she’s locked up ten levels below my feet?”
Plo Koon placed a calming hand on her shoulder. “Sar’Mari—”
She shrugged him off, trembling now, her voice rising. “Master, please. Let me see her.”
Obi-Wan stepped closer, his expression unreadable, but not unkind. “You are still healing.”
“I am healed.”
“Not in the way that matters.”
There it was again—that unshakeable Jedi calm, the one she used to admire. Now it only stung.
“Don’t speak to me like I’m a ticking bomb.”
“I am not,” Obi-Wan replied, quiet but firm. “I am speaking to you as someone who’s watched you grieve, rage, and collapse under the weight of what was done. And then what was done to you. Since the trial, you have barely spoken to anyone. Your moods shift like weather over Kamino. And I—” he sighed softly, “—I have been the one enduring the storm.”
His words hit harder than she expected.
“I am not punishing you, Sar’Mari,” he added gently. “But if you see her now—before your mind is clear, before your emotions are centered—you may lose control. And we both know what that means.”
She flinched, the implication loud enough to hear even though he never said it outright.
Plo Koon stepped in again, more gentle than Obi-Wan, more careful.
“We do not doubt your intentions, child,” he said softly. “But there is risk in seeing her too soon. For both of you. Ahsoka will need to speak—for herself, without influence. Without distraction. We owe her that.”
Sar’Mari looked down, jaw clenched so tight it ached.
“I just want to know she’s okay,” she whispered.
Obi-Wan’s voice softened. “She’s alive. And here. That alone is more than we hoped for.”
Silence settled between them, the truth heavy in the air.
Sar’Mari nodded slowly, but the muscles in her face betrayed the weight of her surrender. She didn’t agree. But she wouldn’t fight.
Not here.
Not now.
Plo Koon moved toward the door. “I will return when we know more. For now, get some rest.”
The door closed behind him with a quiet hiss.
Sar’Mari turned away, stepping back to the center of the training mat, backlit by the windows. Her saber still lay on the ground.
Obi-Wan didn’t move.
He just stood there in the quiet with her, as he always had.
Enduring.
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Despite Obi-Wan’s warnings, despite Plo Koon’s well-meaning concern, and despite the explicit instructions to stay put —Sar’Mari found herself slipping through the Temple’s lesser-used corridors under the thick veil of night. Attired in the same training fit from earlier, steps light, mind sharp.
She knew the Temple well. Too well. Knew which security cameras were older than Yoda’s jokes, which corridors rotated shifts slower than a sleepy astromech. She’d memorized the rotations during meditation sessions—well, the ones she pretended to meditate through.
Night had long since settled over the Jedi Temple, casting long shadows through the corridors and empty training halls. Most initiates were asleep. Most Masters were meditating or off-world. Most… weren’t her.
Footsteps silent, Sar’Mari moved like a phantom down the Temple’s lower levels—her presence masked, her emotions dulled, her signature so faint she might as well have been smoke. If the Council had known what she was doing, they’d have locked her in a cell next to Ahsoka.
She didn’t care.
She had earned this moment. After all the silence. After all the judgmental stares. After every senator’s question that had twisted her love into a weapon. After being paraded through the same halls, not as a Padawan, but as a suspect.
They had all seen her trial as a complication.
They seen her as something exotic and unreal…
Obi-Wan had endured her moods without much protest. He’d taken the brunt of her anger—her shortness, her stubborn refusal to speak in meditation, her late arrivals. And still, he stood by her. But even he wouldn’t understand this.
Not like she did.
She reached the security doors, bypassed the lock with a flick of the Force—no hesitation—and descended the winding corridor that led to the holding cells.
The air grew colder. Quieter.
And then, she saw her.
Ahsoka sat cross-legged inside the transparent energy barrier of her cell, back against the far wall, head bowed, lekku heavy with grime and disuse. Her red outfit—the one she had been wearing when she vanished—was still the same, though now streaked with dirt, sweat, and what looked like dried blood across one shoulder. She hadn’t changed. She hadn’t even been cleaned.
She looked… small.
Sar’Mari’s breath hitched before she could stop it.
Her hand rose slowly and pressed against the barrier.
Ahsoka stirred.
She lifted her head—and for the first time in three weeks, their eyes met.
Blue and brown. Haunted and hurting.
Ahsoka blinked as if unsure the vision before her was real. “Mari…?”
Sar’Mari didn’t speak. Couldn’t. Her throat clenched the moment she heard that name fall from Ahsoka’s lips again.
Three weeks ago, they were standing at the edge of the industrial pipeline. The metal grated beneath their feet. The city lights of levels 1312 and 1313 blinked like distant stars below. Anakin’s voice had cracked with desperation, Rex’s armor had creaked as he stepped forward, and Commander Fox had lingered back with tension in his stance.
Sar’Mari had gripped Ahsoka’s hand like it was the only thing tethering her to life itself. “ If you come back with us ,” she had whispered, “ we’ll do everything we can. We’ll prove you didn’t do this. You don’t have to run. ”
Ahsoka had turned to her with tears in her eyes. “ You brought light into my life. You know that, right? ”
And before Sar’Mari could respond—before she could beg again—Ahsoka gave her one last kiss and had closed her eyes… and pushed.
A sudden wave of the Force slammed into Sar’Mari’s chest, hurling her backward into Rex’s arms just as Ahsoka leapt onto the descending ship.
Sar’Mari screamed.
Her cry was wordless, feral, ragged—something deeper than fear or grief.
It triggered something uncontrollable.
The tunnel groaned. Pipes above them shook. The lights overhead flickered wildly. Sparks rained down from an overloaded conduit. Metal warped and cracked beneath their feet as Sar’Mari buckled, clutching her chest like she couldn’t breathe. The Force rippled outward from her body in hot, panicked waves.
Anakin and Rex had to calmly but quickly pull her out of it so they can make it out of there alive. She still feels bad about that. One thing Jaccha taught her is to let anybody see her vulnerable side. She felt bad that she felt guilty that Ahsoka seen the side that Sar’Mari believed no one would ever see, because who’d want to be with her something like her? And then Skywalker and Rex and that other clone who clearly didn’t like her seen a side that nearly killed them all. Sigh, Jaccha would probably be disappointed if she knew this. Well, she did, but it was hard to tell if she was actually disappointed or maybe she was just focused on clearing Sar’Mari’s name during the trials. A mother cleaning her daughter’s mess. She didn’t know...
She couldn’t speak. Couldn’t move. All she could do was feel the moment Ahsoka let go —and the galaxy around her broke with it.
And now… now she was back. In a cage.
“I didn’t think they’d let anyone see me,” Ahsoka said quietly, rising to her feet. She stepped closer to the barrier, her expression unreadable, eyes rimmed with fatigue.
“They didn’t. Nobody knows I’m down here,” Sar’Mari finally managed to say.
A beat passed. Ahsoka’s lip twitched.
Another silence fell between them. But it wasn’t peaceful. It was thick. Crowded. Full of everything that hadn’t been said.
Sar’Mari’s fingers curled slightly against the invisible field. “Why?”
It wasn’t accusatory. Not quite.
Ahsoka’s face faltered. “Because I didn’t think I had a choice.”
“You did,” Sar’Mari whispered. “You had me .”
“I know,” Ahsoka said—soft, broken.
That hurt worse than silence.
“I was put on trial after you left,” Sar’Mari said, her voice low but bitter. “Not just by the Council. The Senate too. Two trials. You know how long it took to convince them I wasn’t helping you? That I was just—just trying to keep you?”
“I didn’t know they’d do that,” Ahsoka said, pain lacing her tone. “I thought… they’d leave you out of it.”
Sar’Mari’s jaw clenched. She looked away for a breath, then said it:
“They know.”
Ahsoka blinked. “Know…?”
“About us.” Sar’Mari’s eyes flicked back to hers, sharp. “Everyone knows. The Council. The Senate. They know we were together.”
Ahsoka’s face went blank. Like her body had gone cold.
“I didn’t even try to deny it,” Sar’Mari continued, voice steady but heavy with shame. “I couldn’t. What was the point? I told them I loved you. That I was trying to save you. But all they saw was another Jedi breaking attachment rules. Another reason to assume I was part of your plan.”
Ahsoka’s lips parted, but no sound came out.
“I stood in front of the Council, in front of politicians who’d never set foot in the Temple, and I had to explain why I wasn’t a threat,” Sar’Mari said, a bitter laugh catching in her throat. “They twisted what we had into something criminal. Something dirty.”
“I didn’t want that for you,” Ahsoka whispered, stepping closer to the barrier. “I didn’t think it would come out. I thought—”
“You didn’t think at all,” Sar’Mari cut in—again.
Ahsoka flinched. But didn’t argue.
And Sar’Mari hated how even now— even now —she wanted to cross that barrier and wrap her arms around her. She wanted to kiss the dirt from her skin, trace the scars, ask if she’d eaten, slept, cried.
She wanted to hate her.
But all she could do was look at her. And ache.
“I’m sorry,” Ahsoka murmured.
Sar’Mari didn’t answer.
Not yet.
She just stood there—one hand against the barrier, her eyes never leaving the only person who had ever made her feel like she mattered.
Like she was worth loving.
Even if it didn’t feel like it anymore.
The air between them stayed still and warm, like breath caught in the throat of time.
Ahsoka’s fingertips hovered near the blue glow of the containment field, not quite touching it. Her eyes—tired, hollowed, but flickering with that same familiar fire—remained locked with Sar’Mari’s.
And then Sar’Mari said it, barely louder than a whisper.
“Master Kenobi told me I wasn’t allowed to see you.”
Ahsoka flinched slightly, her brow drawing together.
“He said it’d be my undoing,” Sar’Mari continued, voice brittle and trembling with a bitter laugh. “He said I’d worked too hard, that I needed days of silence—of healing. That if I saw you again, all the pain that went away, which never really did, would come back and drown me.”
Her gaze drifted for a moment, somewhere distant, back into the memories that haunted her between the walls of the Temple. “He wasn’t wrong,” she murmured. “My mind… it still isn’t quiet. It hasn’t been since you jumped.”
Ahsoka’s expression softened, her throat tightening.
Sar’Mari took a breath, stepping closer to the barrier. “But how could I not come?” Her voice cracked. “Ahsoka, my heart’s been screaming for you ever since you left. Three weeks. I didn’t know where you were, didn’t know if you were alive or suffering or lost—”
Her hand hovered over her chest. “But I felt you. I kept hearing your voice in my sleep. And now, now you’re here, right here in the Temple and they expect me to just not come to you?”
She let the words hang, her eyes glistening. “I had to see you. I don’t care what they say. Even if it breaks me—I had to see you.”
Ahsoka stared at her, lips trembling.
Her voice came out soft, raw. “I would’ve come to you first. If I could. I was afraid they wouldn’t even let me speak your name.”
Sar’Mari swallowed hard, the ache in her chest pressing sharper now that Ahsoka stood just a breath away—but even through the emotion, questions clawed at her.
She lowered her voice. “They found nano-droids near the warehouse on 1313,” she said. “The same kind used in the Temple bombing.”
Ahsoka stiffened slightly.
Sar’Mari hesitated, but asked anyway. “Why were you there, Ahsoka? Why that place?”
Ahsoka lowered her gaze. Her jaw clenched, then loosened, and when she finally spoke, the words came with a weight that only truth could carry.
“I didn’t know about the droids,” she said. “I see them at the last second, before Wolffe got me. I went to meet someone. A contact who claimed they had proof. Something that could clear my name.”
She shook her head slowly. “But it was a trap. Someone wanted me there. Wanted the clones to find me—surrounded by just enough to look guilty.”
Sar’Mari’s throat tightened. “You were trying to prove your innocence.”
“I didn’t see another way,” Ahsoka said, voice softer now. “No one was listening. Not the Council. Not the others. The only one who believed me was Anakin. And you.”
She finally looked up, and her eyes met Sar’Mari’s with a quiet desperation. “I was trying to survive. And find the truth. I never wanted any of this to touch you.”
Sar’Mari blinked back tears. “Well, it did. They avoided it. Like we were some kind of stain.”
A beat passed. “But I don’t care about them either.”
They stood there, two aching hearts pressed against a barrier of light and silence, staring through it like they were staring across time itself.
Then Ahsoka stepped even closer, her palm hovering over Sar’Mari’s. “I still remember the way you’d curl into me when you were cold. The way you shivered in your sleep and tried to hide it.”
Sar’Mari gave a soft, rueful smile. “You always noticed. I told you about my hypothyroidism…”
Ahsoka’s voice dropped, reverent. “You always needed warmth. And I always gave it… not only because of your skin or your species. But because I loved you.”
Sar’Mari swallowed hard, barely holding herself together. “Then let me stay, just for a little while. I don’t want you to be alone in there.”
“You’re the only one who’s ever made me feel like I wasn’t,” Ahsoka whispered.
Their palms remained separated by a few centimeters of shimmering energy, unable to touch.
But somehow, still reaching.
The faint mechanical whir of the shield was the only thing between them now — a translucent blue haze that pulsed gently, casting a soft light across Ahsoka’s face. She stood just beyond it, still and quiet, her hand hovering a few inches from the barrier, mirroring Sar’Mari’s from the other side.
Neither of them had spoken in some time.
But time… had kept going.
Sar’Mari’s eyes flicked toward the chrono embedded in the wall just down the corridor. Her face fell. “Stars,” she murmured under her breath, stepping back with a quick inhale. “I’ve been down here too long.”
Ahsoka didn’t move. Her gaze only followed Sar’Mari, a sliver of disappointment flickering through her features. “You should go,” she said quietly, though her voice betrayed how little she wanted that to happen.
Sar’Mari nodded slowly, but didn’t turn to leave. Her hand remained near the shield, fingers splayed, palm warm against the cold, invisible field. “Before I go,” she said, “I wanted to tell you something.”
Ahsoka waited, her expression unreadable in the blue glow.
“Master Skywalker… he’ll be here in the morning. To speak with you before the trial begins.”
Ahsoka blinked, but stayed silent.
Sar’Mari’s jaw clenched gently before she went on. “I won’t be there.”
Ahsoka’s eyes finally lifted to meet hers, surprised.
“They don’t want me involved anymore,” Sar’Mari said with a bitter smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “They said being around you could… undo my progress. That I need more time. That this,” she motioned between them, “could cloud judgment.”
Ahsoka stepped forward — only until her hand was inches from Sar’Mari’s on the other side of the shield. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Sar’Mari shook her head gently. “No. I chose to come here. I had to. I was told not to… but my heart kept calling out for you ever since the moment you ran. And now you’re here, in the Temple, and I still couldn’t see you? That made no sense to me.”
Her voice wavered. “I couldn’t breathe with you that close and still locked away. I had to come.”
Ahsoka’s eyes shone with quiet emotion. “I know,” she murmured. “I felt it too.”
Sar’Mari tried to smile again, but it faltered.
“I just want you to know,” she said, “that even if I’m not in that room when the Council speaks… I’ll still be listening. To the Force. To you . I’ll be hoping they see what I see. The truth.”
Ahsoka pressed her palm flat against the barrier now, her eyes locked with Sar’Mari’s.
“You always see me,” she said softly.
Sar’Mari placed her hand directly over Ahsoka’s, separated only by the humming field. “Always.”
A beat of silence passed. Then Sar’Mari’s voice dropped, gentle and reverent:
“I’ll be hoping with everything in me that they show you mercy.”
And for a moment — through the silence, through the barrier — it almost felt like they were together again.
Almost.