(Edit - am updating to add warnings to the chapters: you can find them at the bottom of each chapter. If you spot something I've missed, let me know so i can add it.)

Chapter 1: A Trial and a Decision

"By an overwhelming majority, this court finds Ahsoka Tano guilty of treason, sedition against the Republic, the murder of Letta Turmond, conspiracy to commit mass murder, escaping republic military custody, the murders of several clone soldiers…"

The arms of his chair were cold under his hands. An observer's seat; opposite the row of politicians who held military ranks but had never spent even an hour on the front lines, but who got a vote on the matter. Not that it would have made a difference if he had had a seat. Majority vote. Come on Anakin, where are you? If there was ever a moment for a last minute rescue…

They were onto the sentencing now. Tarkin, of course, was pushing for the death sentence. As he'd promised. Padme was opposing him, but by the looks of things she didn't know what to push for instead, and was fighting a losing battle. How like a politician, assuming things would just go her way. How like Padme. Not planning for the worst was a foolish risk to take, and it was his grand-Padawan that was paying the price for her recklessness.

"Sentenced to death, at the beginning of the next working day."

And it was over.

Ahsoka stood there, on the platform, eyes fixed on the ground in front of her. He looked to the entrances. No last minute reprisal suddenly appeared. No rescue, nothing that would overturn this travesty of justice. The platform drifted over to some guards – military, not Jedi – who roughly herded the girl into their midst.

She offered no resistance, and his chest twinged painfully.

"Obi-Wan."

He looked up, and saw that the other members of the Jedi High Council were already leaving. Mace was peering at him.

Obi-Wan reminded himself that it was against Republic law to lock everyone in the courtroom and argue until they came around to a more reasonable point of view, and that it would be ethically questionable besides. He followed his colleague out.

They took one of the Temple airspeeders back, Ki-Adi driving. Kit was in the other front seat. Obi-Wan watched the lanes of traffic. Habit ensured he automatically scanned for any suspicious activity, yet he wasn't really paying attention.

"Interesting that they didn't question her about the terrorist group she was a part of, once they found her guilty," Kit broke the silence. Obi-Wan swallowed, jerked back to the present.

"You believe she is truly guilty, then?"

His word earned him a couple of slightly pitying looks, and a pair of narrowed eyes from Mace. "The verdict was never really in doubt, Obi-Wan. You saw the evidence with the rest of us."

Yes. Yes, he had seen it, and wondered if they were so blinded by the veil of blood that these days he could sometimes feel settling onto and into his skin, see clouding his vision to a haze, that they did not notice the discrepancies. The "co-incidence" of the sound cutting out, at that particular time, in that particular cell, and the fact that no one who could read lips had been called in for the trail, for example. Or that neither she nor Ventress had seriously hurt the clones that had cornered them, at Ahsoka's choice, according to the recordings from the Clone's helmets. (Which had also not been presented. He didn't even know what had happened to it.) True, it could be an odd version of good CorSec, bad CorSec, without the CorSec and with terrorists; staged to make Ahsoka look good, but it hadn't felt that way. And the very fact that it hadn't been brought up argued against that theory.

He couldn't bring it up now, though. He already had, and they hadn't been persuaded: convinced the evidence outweighed his arguments: convinced he just didn't want to believe and was grasping at straws and refusing to see.

She was most likely innocent. He wasn't sure: he knew all too well how war could change people, and he'd not really seen her in months. It only took one experience that was slightly worse than normal. But…most likely…

"Yes, I saw it."

There was a slight, collective sigh as some of the tension went out of the three.

Kit went on. "It seems a bit…odd. Next morning, no interrogation? I'd almost say rushed."

"She is a former Jedi," Ki-Adi mused. "It is possible that they are more concerned with stopping her from escaping and causing more damage. She has already done so once."

"The only reason they waited until tomorrow is the half day notice required for the public for any execution." Mace's rumbling voice filled Obi-Wan's ears. "Otherwise they would have done it on the spot. Less risk to everyone."

Jedi Masters had enough self-control and perspective to not punch senior Council members in the face. Obi-wan took a deep breath, and released the thought. He could see where Mace was coming from. The thought of a fallen Jedi free to wreak havoc on whomever – the military – the Jedi Order - the civilians – was horrific at best. And the Sith were recruiting any Darksiders, making them more dangerous and unleashing them on the Republic. He understood. But the system failed her, the people in the system had failed her, and there was a good chance she was innocent.

Even if she wasn't…the Temple hanger was a legitimate, military target. The terrorists were looking to protest against the war, from what the Jedi knew of them. Their methods were deplorable, but they were the actions of someone who had not lost their ideals, only had them severely twisted. Redeemable, possibly. The chance should have been given.

"Give my condolences to Anakin," Ki-Adi told him, as they got out of the speeder in one of the hangers that hadn't been blown up. "I imagine he'll take this hard. And," he hesitated, "I'm sorry for your loss. I know you were rather fond of the child."

Jedi do not feel loss. We release our emotions into the Force. Obi-Wan just nodded. "I will whenever I see him." He allowed himself a small sigh, born of pure weariness. "If you'll excuse me. I need to meditate."

Ki-Adi gently pushed his shoulder in the direction of the sleeping/meditation areas.

.

His meditation was…unproductive. It took him a long time to find his centre. Longer to slip into a true meditation. And even when he did, and was immersed in the Force's light, he received no answers to the questions he asked. The Force was silent, and not the silence of communication being blocked, as was unfortunately increasingly common. It was the silence of choosing not to say anything, and that left Obi-Wan pacing around the small room in deep thought. His life belonged to the Force. It was simple fact. He would do whatever it asked of him, no matter the consequences to himself. But this was almost like he was being prompted to make his own decision on the matter of what to do.

Anakin was certain his wayward Padawan was innocent. Obi-Wan thought that was likely, and even if that was not the case, he would far prefer redemption to execution, as a method of solving problems. He didn't want her to die. It didn't feel like her time, the whole thing felt wrong. But what could he do about it? He was just one member of the Council, and his opinion hadn't counted for much of anything when they had voted on whether to place politics or Jedi policies first in their priorities.

He doubted the rest of the Council would see it that way. A choice between turning over a terrorist and murderer for trial, or protecting her and incurring the suspicion of their allies, that was what it had been presented as – but politics or Jedi policy was what it was when you got down to it.

He didn't feel she should die. She was scheduled to be executed early in the morning.

So…

He stopped, staring out the window. The sunset was beautiful, if you found the sky being painted with the colour of blood beautiful. Blood. Innocent blood was to be protected: that was one of the first lessons he had learned. Innocent people were to be protected. A Jedi worked within the local law system wherever possible, because that caused less problems for everyone, but there were times when that was not possible. But the Republic had always been the organization the Jedi sheltered under, content with the system it had in place. The system that was clearly not working in this case.

He rubbed his fingertips around his temples, feeling a headache start to form. The logical conclusion was that he should prevent her from being executed, whether or not the law agreed with him. She was now, thanks to her conviction, legally guilty, which would make things difficult.

Treat this like a normal mission. What would you do if a charge of yours was being held pending execution and the people holding them were not open to negotiation?

He would find a way to get them out.

It was so simple, so breathtakingly obvious, that the idea froze him as he struggled with whether to discard it out of hand – or not. On one hand, it was astoundingly illegal. Even Qui-Gon Jinn, the infamous maverick, his former Master, had always operated with respect to the Republic's laws. And Qui-Gon Jinn had had a similar attitude to potential Dark Jedi as Mace did to actual Dark Jedi.

But on the other, it was the right thing to do. And that far outweighed what he knew Qui-Gon would have thought. It even outweighed the law.

Anakin would be chomping at the bit once he heard what had happened in the courtroom. He wouldn't be able to stop his former Padawan once he got the idea into his head anyway. He could cover for Anakin as long as possible - no point in both of them going when one could cover the other's back, working within the Jedi to find where any evidence (true evidence) was, and Obi-Wan could do that far better than Anakin could with his position on the Council.

He gone along with the Council, stayed through this travesty because he felt that was where he could do the most good, the same as he had when he'd accepted the position in the first place. Felt that, if he waited for the right opportunity, he could still do that. Hoped, believed, that it would all turn out okay, without something drastic.

And it hadn't.

So it was time for drastic measures. Such as breaking a former Jedi convicted of terrorism and murder who may or not be guilty of those crimes out of a Republic prison and finding out what had actually happened.

It was reckless. What in the Galaxy would they do if she was guilty, and/or decided not to cooperate? Her record throughout this affair was not precisely spotless, and breaking out of prison hadn't exactly been helpful, given Anakin had had to drop investigating to chase her down. And what if she was innocent, and they couldn't find proof? How would Anakin even get her out of there?

He didn't know. All he knew was that if he didn't do something, he would not be able to call himself a Jedi in good conscience ever again.

(Warnings for: all the stuff the TCW arc dealt with, such as corrupt politicians, terrorism, institutional injustice, etc. That goes for the rest of the fic too.)

(Also, since I never finished the sequel and thus didn't get the chance to elaborate - Obi-Wan's being unfair to Padme here: my headcanon is that she prepared her defence and then Tarkin and co got all the evidence it was based on categorised as inadmissible at the last minute before the trial.)