It was a realization that took a while to sink in, one that had been slowly dawning for quite some time. One that perhaps, subconsciously, she'd known for years, but didn't want to think about. Every time the whispers entered her head, hissing suspicions, she pushed them aside in favour of new missions, new knowledge, new distractions, anything but the one truth she did not want to face.

But she could not run from it forever.

It was a cold day on Chandrila when Ahsoka Tano looked into the mirror and accepted that she was no longer getting any older.

It was now undeniable. At age 42, she was supposed to have more stripes twisting down lekku that should have been longer. Signs of aging should have begun to line her face. Her montrals were far too short.

The only thing old about her was her eyes.

How? How had she simply stopped aging? Some species grew very slowly after they hit a certain age, but that was unheard of in her own. Togrutas had a lifespan of about ninety years, and Ahsoka had always figured she'd be dead long before that.

Ahsoka took three steps back until she was sitting on the bed in her tiny room. On the vanity in front of her, her reflection reached up to touch her cheek. She felt curiously empty, as if her soul had gone on and left her behind.

She locked eyes with herself. It was like looking at a stranger.

What happened?

There was nobody to answer that. As of right now, she and Luke Skywalker were the only experienced Force-users left in the galaxy, and Luke had his own path to walk.

She was alone.

And then she blinked, and suddenly, she was not the only reflection in the mirror.

For a moment, she thought she was looking at Luke. They had the same eyes, same face, same stance. But this was not Luke. This was someone much more familiar to her.

She tried to say his name, but couldn't.

"I imagine you have some questions," said Anakin Skwalker.

Ahsoka turned around, hand on her lightsaber. Darth Vader had been dead for three years, but Anakin Skywalker had been dead for over twenty. For him to be standing there, looking just as she remembered him- it wasn't possible.

However, it should not have been possible that Ahsoka looked exactly the same as she had the last time they had come face to face.

Upon closer look, Anakin was slightly transparent, as if he was a hologram. Holograms didn't have Force-signatures though, and this figure definitely did. It was older and sadder than she remembered it being, there was something fundamentally different about it, but it was still unmistakably Anakin.

She was still wary, though. She couldn't help it. The Force worked in mysterious ways, but it could still be manipulated for evil purposes.

"Last time I saw you," she said, forcing her voice to stay steady, "you were... someone else. How do I know this isn't a trick?"

"I wasn't someone else," the glowing blue figure said. "That was still me. I have done terrible things, and I'll probably spend a very long time trying to atone for my sins. But I was given a second chance, and I plan on making the most of it." He shrugged. "How do you know this isn't a trick? You don't. But please... hear me out."

Ahsoka hesitated. Then... "Alright."

So Anakin began to speak. He filled in pieces of the story she'd been missing in the beginning- how Palpatine lured him in with promises never fulfilled, how he'd lost himself in the darkness. How he ended up in the suit. He told her of all the years he'd spent locked in a cold and terrible rage. How everything had changed once he realized he had a son. Luke, he said, had redeemed him when he thought there was no hope for himself. Luke had freed him from the Emperor, and Luke had been there when he died. But death hadn't been the end for him. He'd been given an opportunity to learn how to retain his consciousness even after becoming one with the Force.

"Why do you look like this?" Ahsoka asked when he was finished. He could have been taken right out of her memory, and she didn't understand why.

"I can take many forms from different points in my life," Anakin said. He looked hesitant then, and it was an expression she had rarely seen on him back in the war. "I just... thought you'd like to see one that you knew."

For some reason, that was the sentence that convinced her that he was truly Anakin.

The emptiness within her gave way to a rush of emotions- joy that the Force had given her someone back, sadness, for all the time they'd lost, and a tinge of old fear and anger, for times she no longer wanted to remember.

"Welcome back, my friend," she said softly. "It's good to see you again."

Anakin smiled, surprised but pleased, as if he hadn't been expecting her to accept him that easily. "Likewise, Ahsoka."

There were so many things she wanted to say to him; everything from, I'm sorry I wasn't with you at the end of the war to, it was your training that helped me last this long to, I saw a man driving a speeder far too recklessly last week and I still thought of you.

For so long, she'd thought of what she would say if she saw him- the real him again. And now, she found herself speechless.

Ahsoka took a step closer, wishing he wasn't transparent so she could hug him, then realized something.

She no longer had to look up at him to make eye contact.

"We're finally the same height," she said. She laughed ruefully, shaking her head. "It only took twenty-five years."

Anakin blinked as he seemed to realize he was no longer looking down on her. "I... didn't even notice," he said. "I suppose I should just be thankful you aren't taller than me."

The thought came unbidden. I could have been.

But now both of them were here, frozen in time as it were, Ahsoka somewhere in her early thirties, Anakin in his twenties. Neither of them would get any taller.

The empty dread from before threatened to return, stealing the smile from her face.

"Not that it isn't good to see you," she said slowly, "but... why are you here? Why now?"

"I wanted to come sooner, but you needed time," Anakin said simply. Maybe he was right. She'd needed time to process the death of Darth Vader, and what that meant for her. She'd also needed a few years of relative normality, living as a protector and informant to Mon Mothma on Chandrila. "But now, I think I have some answers for you."

An icy feeling crept up the back of her neck.

"I'm not going to get any older, am I."

Anakin shook his head. "No."

To hear it out loud was more devastating than she thought it would be.

Ahsoka had already lost everyone, years and years before. Now, with the war over, she was finally starting to build new relationships. She had friends now, people she cared about. She was beginning to make new connections when she thought she never would.

And now...

She would outlive everyone. The last former Jedi of the old order, she had survived when nobody else had, and now she might never die.

It was, perhaps, a crueller fate than death.

Anakin was watching her with a sad expression. "I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault, Anakin."

"Well," he said, "that's not entirely true."

It said a lot about the day Ahsoka was having that that was the most surprising thing she'd heard so far.

"Why?" was all she managed. "What happened to me?"

Her room felt too small all of a sudden. She imagined still living in this tiny apartment on Chandrila two hundred years from now, with a new government, new citizens, everything changing but her.

It was as if the walls were closing in on her.

Anakin looked at her for a moment, reading her expression, then said, "Let's take a walk."

They ended up in the skygarden of Hanna City, a beautiful park with winding trails and enough privacy that Ahsoka could walk and talk to a ghost without being seen. Could people even see Anakin? She doubted it. When they smiled at her on the streets on her way to the skygarden, their gaze always slid right over Anakin.

It was probably for the best. Ahsoka didn't like drawing attention to herself.

"There was a mission, back in the clone wars," Anakin began as they entered the gardens. The day was cold enough that they were fairly deserted. "I don't know how much you remember about Mortis and the Ones who lived there."

Ahsoka remembered enough. In her studies of the Force throughout the years, Mortis had come up once or twice in ancient texts. It was mostly the talk of legends, and nobody could say for sure if it existed or not. She knew better, though. It did exist, and things that happened there had haunted her for years.

"I remember," she said. "The Son, the Daughter and the Father. The dark, the light and the balance."

Anakin nodded. "What I never told you was that on Mortis, you were turned to the dark side and eventually killed by the Son. We told you the Daughter was killed by the dagger. That was only partially true. She was dying of a stab wound when she offered to bring you back from the dead with her remaining life force. The Father used me as a conduit to make the transfer."

Her memories of Mortis were clouded and dreamlike, but she did remember waking up beside the lifeless body of the avatar of light. Dazed and confused, she had accepted her Master's explanation that she had been knocked out, and in that time, the Daughter had been killed by her brother.

"I... don't understand," said Ahsoka. "Why are you telling me this now?"

"Because the Daughter didn't just give you her life force, Ahsoka. She gave you some of her abilities as well. To what extent- I don't know. But I can feel it in the Force. You're stronger than you used to be."

It was as if a puzzle piece had finally clicked into place after so many years. It was the piece that explained her growing abilities, her ageless face. It explained why she hadn't died on Malachor in that Sith Temple.

It also explained why the green-gold convor that had been her guide through the trials of the Malachor temple had felt strangely familiar. It had been a different kind of avatar.

"Hey. Are you alright?" Anakin asked, and Ahsoka realized she'd been silent for a long time.

"Yes," she said. Then, "No. I don't know." She took a deep breath that did little to calm her swirling emotions. "How long have you known?"

"Since I first became a ghost. I can see things differently from this side."

Ahsoka closed her eyes briefly. "You should have told me from the beginning."

"What difference would it have made?"

He had a point. She would have had more time for the news to sink in, but now, time was the one thing she had too much of.

"Not much of one, I suppose," she sighed. Something occurred to her. "You said that this was your fault. How so?" She couldn't see fault here- Anakin was to blame for many things, but this? This was not one of them.

"I was the one who agreed to revive you in the first place," Anakin said. There was no guilt in his voice, he was just speaking what he believed to be true. "I wouldn't accept your death- I demanded that they help you. And you paid for my selfishness."

Ahsoka shook her head. "There's no way you could have known. I would have done the same thing."

"I know," Anakin said, and they were both lost in thought as they continued their walk through the skygarden.

They had both changed so much, Ahsoka reflected. Anakin was quieter, more soft spoken. The old fear that had haunted him throughout his life was gone, replaced by a calm she had never sensed from him before. She was wearier, more reserved, sadder, but wiser than she used to be.

"I'll understand," Anakin said after a while, "if after our history and everything I've done, you don't want to see me again after this."

What?

Somewhere in Ahsoka, the part of her that remembered being a young girl alone in the galaxy stirred. The piece of her that still remembered the clone wars as some of the best times of her life awakened. And the part of her that had mourned Anakin Skywalker for years begged, please don't leave. Not again. Not this time.

She'd lost Anakin during the clone wars, then again on Malachor. She couldn't go through that again.

"What is the lifespan of a Force ghost?" she asked. Anakin clearly hadn't been expecting that. He blinked.

"I'll be around until the Force no longer exists."

Ahsoka nodded. She'd figured, but it was nice to hear confirmation. "Then I guess you're stuck with me until that happens," she said. "Seeing as we're both technically immortal now."

Anakin smiled at her then, a tentative smile that was tinged with relief.

It felt like a new beginning.

They had a lot to talk about and a lot to figure out. Anakin had spent twenty years as a Sith Lord, Ahsoka now bore the legacy of the avatar of the light side. They would have to relearn how to exist in one another's lives.

But they had all the time in the world to do so.

There are rarely happy endings in Star Wars. But I'll take bittersweet.

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