My Heart Is Nuclear

Well, this is how it starts:
 

She hovers in the shadows of Sky–Padme’s funeral. The Emperor paraded her corpse around like a victory flag, showing off her still heavily pregnant belly and she wished more than anything that she had been there, done something. She should have been there. She could have protected her, would have stayed with her out of the way while Anakin and Obi-Wan dealt with things. It would have been like old times.
 

(Only, she wasn’t a Jedi and yet the clones were everywhere, killing them all, oh what had been done to them? And if that man was the monster, then what did he do to her Skyguy? Padme was dead.)
 

Queen Apailana wept as she walked, flanked by her handmaidens, and she could just make out the small forms of Padme’s nieces, wrapped in mourning colors and solemn faced. She didn’t know which humans were Padme’s parents, having never met or seen holos of them, and it makes her uncomfortable to admit it. People were weeping all around her, gungan and human alike, and just as she was about to leave to indulge in her own mourning she caught the sight of Bail Organa out of the corner of her eye.
 

He looked awful, like he hadn’t slept in ages, and though his face was dry he felt…bruised and wrung out in the Force. Next to him was his wife, the Queen of Alderaan and in her arms was a small bundle of cloth.
 

(She made herself go into the temple, even though it was swarming with Imps. She had to see, had to know. She’d made it through the upper levels, where knights and padawans had laid slain and the upper crèche where the younglings lay, eyes open and sightless. Blasters didn’t instantly cauterize wounds so the place was covered in blood and it was seeped in darkness and hate. So much hate. She’d screamed when she got to the first infant room, whirled around to throw herself into a pillar, tears running down her face. It was too much, it was – she would have vomited if not for the blaster fire.)
 

The Naboo people entomb their beloved Queen in stone and bury her in flowers. She knows a small bit of Naboo Flower Lore, enough to read a few of the truly beautiful odes to her, and she finds herself desperately searching amongst them for anything too passionate, too filled with love, but it’s impossible.
 

Skyguy is dead. He has to be – Padme is dead.
 

(She’s hiding like a coward at her own friend’s funeral. Her friend who was pregnant, Oh, Skyguy, why didn’t I comm you my new contact information?)
 

She stays in the tomb long past the funeral. She’s there to see the first and the last visitor and doesn’t dare come down from her perch until the stone doors are swung closed as the sun rises at dawn the next day. She’s exhausted, but more than that she’s heartsick.
 

She lays her hand on Padme’s cold, too hard cheek. She’s never touched a corpse before, never been in a position to do so before and…it’s all wrong. Skygal is too hard and cold, her skin waxy and she’s utterly empty – no slight flow of her blood just under the surface of her skin, no butterfly touch of the Force, no split moment of Anakin skating across her fingertips, an echo of the bond between them.
 

“I’m sorry. I – I’m so sorry, Padme, I…” She leaned down to touch their foreheads together, tears falling from her eyes onto the older woman’s face. Not just Skyguy and Skygal but the little one too, all of them gone. Master Obi-Wan and Plo Koon too, every Jedi she’d ever known or seen or felt or –
 

Everyone. Gone.
 

And then it can go two different ways, can’t it? She can find Leia or she can find Luke. And I think it honestly makes the most sense for her to find Leia, because Bail, Breha, and Leia are right there. And Ahsoka is alone and hurt and she hasn’t been a Jedi for years so now that ball of complicated emotions is fueled by the fact that she can never show any of them how wrong they were to abandon her, can never show Anakin that she made something of herself without him but not in spite of him. She can never thank him for being there for her, for training her, for believing in her, and then for letting her go.
 

She’s so filled with conflicting emotions and righteous anger and, well, Bail is right there and he has the beginnings of a fledgling Rebellion on one hand while the other one holds Padme’s daughter.
 

Ahsoka becomes Leia’s nanny and personal bodyguard, but I feel like Bail would also withhold some truths from Ahsoka. He would, of course, confirm that Leia is Padme and Anakin’s kid – between what Leia would feel like once she was more comfy and the way she looks like a devastatingly cute baby version of Padme with Anakin’s eyes staring out at them it’s hard to deny that. But Bail would also see her as a child since Ahsoka was only eighteen and no longer a Jedi or a politician. I think he’d keep the truth of what happened to Anakin from her for as long as he could, possibly stretching that truth until Leia was maybe five or six – still too young to be able to handle the knowledge that her parents weren’t the ones who birthed her without feeling a measure of uncertainty and maybe even abandonment.
 

Leia would grow up with a playmate who taught her extra things, not just boring things like reading and writing but fun things like how to make toys fly and how to throw her icky food to the floor without “being unladylike by not using proper utensils”. Ahsoka would teach Leia a little like how she was taught by the Jedi: work up to meditation by doing breathing exercises at bedtime, hold the girl in her lap as she lightly meditated and let Leia feel the Force around them; and emphasizing empathy and fairness during playtimes.
 

Leia would grow up knowing how to create really good mental shields because she’d feel how sad her Ahsoka was sometimes and it would scare her. Even worse, sometimes when Ahsoka slept Leia would see her dreams and wake up crying and want her parents. Ahsoka would teach her the basics at first so it would be easy for her to go in and make them herself but then Leia just…went the extra parsec and did them herself.
 

(As she sees the progress Leia makes, sees the hurdles she bounces over like they’re nothing instead of the huge mountains they are, she’d start to understand a little what it must have been like for Anakin. Anakin, who was self-taught before he came to the Jedi too old and too emotional; Anakin, who was so strong and had no one to support him; Anakin, who knew family and love and loss and was told to get over it. She’d marvel at Master Obi-Wan, who managed to get Anakin to where he was in the Order at all.)
 

The Rebellion would be doing it’s thing in the background, chugging away and sometimes Ahsoka would go out on missions but most of the time she was staying on Aldaraan to protect its princess.
 

I feel like she’d meet Darth Vader before Bail ever got around to telling her the truth about what happened to Anakin Skywalker as he knew it. And it guts her because under all that darkness, she knows that force signature. She doesn’t know this monster’s fighting style, all lethal power strikes and brute strength, none of the agility and acrobatics her Skyguy was known for – but that presence was unmistakable, even smothered as it was with the Dark.
 

Bail tells her Anakin fell, that Anakin lead the temple slaughter, that Anakin fought Obi-Wan, that Anakin hurt Padme and – it’s too much and not enough all at once. Yes, she knows that Palpatine = Sidious but surely he hadn’t influenced Anakin so much that he’d ever do –
 

“He loved kids. He spend hours in the crèche and he had a censor file that was over five gigabytes large, text based, full of overclocking and encouraging attachments among the young and – you’re lying. You have to be lying or confused or – “ Ahsoka is frantic, waving her arms, and Bail is as calm and unflappable as ever.
 

“Obi-Wan confirmed it.” Is all he says and Ahsoka can’t believe her ears.
 

“You don’t – you’re not listening to me; Anakin would never harm children! He’d never let anyone shoot infants – innocent, sleeping in their beds, awake and staring at the ceiling, babies – when he was alive! You’re all confused!” She shouts back, her voice hysterical and mind whirling and she’s back in the temple, in the infant rooms, there’s blood pouring out of the bassinets. One of their heads was just a mush of –
 

“Ahsoka, I was trying to spare you this.” Bail says and he sounds so much like Master Windu that she wants to punch him right in the mouth, but he’s hugging her and she’s clinging to him, gasping and trying not to gag over the stench of death and blood and fear and hate and Skyguy would never!
 

“Soka?” Leia’s voice, soft and unsure, sounds from nearby. She’s Anakin’s daughter, Anakin’s baby. Her little Skywalker.
 

“Leia, go back to your room, honey.” Bail says gently.
 

“What’s wrong with Soka?” Leia demands, little voice firm and she’s so much like her father. So much like – she’s going to vomit.
 

Ahsoka tells Leia about her biological mother and father when she turns thirteen. Old enough to know the difference between parents and genetic donors. Young enough that she still wants to know about her other parents, the ones who aren’t here anymore, and Ahsoka tells her the truth from a certain point of view.
 

(Light years away, Luke Skywalker is told that his father was a freed slave who became a pilot, who was killed in the Clone Wars. A good man, Anakin Skywalker, was and much loved. His aunt and uncle don’t remember his mother’s name, but they remember the way she and Anakin looked at each other, the way Owen accidently saw Anakin crumpled in her arms after the death of Shmi. His mother was a beautiful off-worlder who dressed in the color of water and had her own ship.)
 

Leia is not trained to be the last hope of the Jedi Order. She’s raised to be who she is – Leia Organa, birth child of Anakin Skywalker and Padme Naberrie Amidala. She uses the force and uses Ahsoka’s old lightsabers, smuggled off of Coruscant as it was still making the transition to Imperial Coruscant. They fit in her hands perfectly but she’ll always prefer a blaster.
 

Ahsoka doesn’t follow Leia into the senate, leaves others to guard her there, and when Captain Andor rounds people up for a suicide mission to get some plans, Ahsoka goes with them. It’s exactly the kind of mission an ex-Jedi would be of use for.
 

So she goes to Scarif. She’s part of the ground forces, because that’s where she’d be of most use, spreading the fear of a Jedi aligned with the Alliance. She sees the data stream go up into the sky and feels Leia, distant and bright. The Death Star fires and she reaches for Anakin for the first time in years, stretching along a bond that should have been shattered years ago but isn’t.
 

It’s a beautiful and terrifying sight, this horrible weapon of the Empire’s. She has so much she wants to say to her Skyguy, so much she wants to scream at him, but there’s not enough time.
 

For a brief moment she feels his hand on her shoulder, fingers squeezing in quiet support, and then she doesn’t feel much of anything at all.

Ahsoka Tano had seen a lot of truly amazing things in her life. She’s seen civilians – armed with nothing but their voices – stand up to corrupt governments, a sun being swallowed by a black hole, a sky filled with endless stars as one of the moons burned, flowers that mimicked speech, and even a starwhale that held an entire city on its back. She’s seen auroras over strange skies, kissed someone she thought she could grow to love under an asteroid shower, built two new lightsabers with brilliantly strong crystals, and she still thinks the tiny being in her arms is one of the most amazing things she’s ever laid her eyes on: five little fingers on two tiny hands, ten little toes, a pointy noise, milky soft skin, and a gentle Force presence that felt like home and everything good in the universe.
 

“You’re a dad, Skyguy.” She said quietly, still staring down at little Leia Naberrie-Skywalker, who had such a large name for such a little thing. Her former Master – Don’t call me that, I’m not a master, just call me Anakin – was sitting beside Senator Amidala, who was exhausted and filled with a drugged sort of elation that occasionally made Ahsoka’s head spin. She supposed she might have to start calling her Padmé now that she and Skyguy were official and open about everything.
 

(“You’re what?!” Ahsoka had screeched in disbelief. Anakin shuffled his feet like a youngling caught out after hours before he finally looked back at her with a steady gaze and repeated himself:
 

“I’m married to her. I have been since the war started, she’s pregnant, and I want you here, Snips. I need you here. Please, come home.”)
 

“I still can’t believe it and I’m holding his son in my arms.” Obi-Wan deadpanned. Anakin snorted while Padmé giggled at his words and the artificial feeling of her happiness feels like too much sugar in her tea or spinning through the air too fast.
 

“Snippy Snips, can you bring me my holopad? I wanna see if Bail and Breha are still on track for the reformations.” Padmé said as she winded back down, the drugged happiness fading into something more natural and gentle.
 

“I think you can leave your work for a few more days, Padmé, or at least until the drugs wear off, yes?” Obi-Wan suggested with good humor. Luke waved one of his arms and it hit Obi-Wan’s face gently, causing the older man to turn his attention back to the baby, smiling gently down at him.
 

These two were going to be spoiled for attention, she could feel it now.