19 BBY: Mandalore

Ahsoka Tano was being patient. Her mind was screaming at her, overloaded with the most powerful feeling of danger she had ever sensed. But still, she stayed where she was, in a small house that had been abandoned by its occupants when the fighting had broken out a few days ago. She was slumped against the wall, concentrating on monitoring her surroundings with the force. She knew her men were bound to come through this sector, looking for her, but she and Rex just needed to stay here a little while longer, needed to disappear. He was digging his own fake grave, just outside, while she kept watch.

Ahsoka could still feel the vestiges of the deaths of the Jedi echoing inside her head, but it was more bearable now. When the order was first issued two hours ago, she had barely been able to see straight from the explosion of death that assaulted her through the force. She was extremely lucky she had Rex with her then, or she would probably be dead like the rest of them. That they had managed to shake the clones on their tail was nothing short of a miracle from the force. She and Rex had ducked into this building once they were sure they had lost their pursuers.

She still wasn't sure why exactly her men had turned on her, and why Rex hadn't. She would ask him about it later. Her heart clenched painfully just thinking about it. Going by the mass slaughter of Jedi that still echoed hollowly through her montrals, she guessed that her battalion hadn't been the only group of clones to turn on their Jedi commanders.

She hoped Anakin was okay… he couldn't have known how dangerous the troopers were, or else he never would have left her here with command of them. He must have been given enough warning to escape from his own forces, though. She could still feel his presence in the force, though it had been strangely dark and muted. Then again, everything in her head felt dark.

As if the very thought of her former master had brought it on, her mind exploded into chaos for the second time today, and she cried out. Her first thought was that the other clones had found them- had come to kill her- but it was worse than that.

The thread of the force in her mind, the one that had connected her to Anakin, their training bond, crackled like it had been struck by lightning. White hot electricity raced up the bond, lighting up her head with pain. She desperately grasped at it, forcing her singed force presence to reach out for him, but the bond crumpled into ash. A shockwave seemed to blast through the force. She, shuddering and wracked with sobs, was left with a spreading, gaping, dark void of pain in her mind where there had once been Anakin's exuberant life and light.

Shocked and panicked, Ahsoka slammed down the strongest mental shields she could muster, cutting herself off from the force. She couldn't feel anything anymore… wouldn't allow herself. A high pitched ringing whine in her montrals was all she could register as she began to make sense of what had happened.

So that was psychic backlash, she realized dimly. Once she could not feel the chaos of the force, she was able to recall hearing of the phenomenon. As if from a dream, Ahsoka remembered speculating about it with some other padawans, all sharing a sense of curious dread. Backlash affected Jedi whose bonds with another force-sensitive had snapped suddenly, usually due to the severing of a training bond by the death of a master or padawan.

Oh force. The death of a master. Anakin.

He was gone.

He was gone.

After what may have been seconds or minutes or hours, she became aware that in her tear-blurred vision there was a shape, a person's face, moving, close to her. Then she registered sound: Rex, calling her name. She blinked rapidly and furiously rubbed at her eyes.

"Ahsoka! Ahsoka, dammit, what's wrong?"

He was worried, and had resorted to ordering her. Following an order. Ahsoka could do that much. She wasn't sure how she was able to meet his eyes,

"Anakin… I felt..." she choked out.

His brow furrowed, but she saw understanding and his own grief bloom in his eyes.

"What do you need?" he asked after a beat, ever loyal.

"I…" I need my master she thought bitterly.

"I need to get out of here. Soon." she managed. She needed space to think. Rex stared at her for a few more moments, then nodded, leaving her alone in the house, going back outside to finish digging. She remained, staring at the wall. She must've been thinking about something but she didn't know what it was. It didn't matter.

After a while, Rex came back. She hadn't moved from the position he'd left her in, curled in on herself. He extended a hand, and she used it to pull herself upright. She followed him back outside, to the mound of dirt that covered a clone body. Ahsoka had expected it to be hard to leave her lightsabers behind, but now she just numbly unclipped them from her belt and set them in the dirt. She didn't feel like fighting. Her hand brushed against the string of beads she had clipped onto her belt next to the sabers. When she had last seen him, Anakin had given the padawan beads back to her at long last. He had told her she should at least have them, even if she didn't want to wear them.

Ahsoka knelt down, almost placing the beads next to her lightsaber hilts. But then she would have nothing of him at all. She returned the beads to their spot on her belt.

Kneeling there for a moment longer, she cautiously opened herself back up to the force. After all, she would need it to keep them safe and to get them off-planet without being detected. But she kept the raw end of the bond shielded, not wanting to feel that and be reminded again.

She was not a Jedi, but what little the Jedi had taught her about grief was all she knew. There is no death, there is the force. She thought bitterly that his "return to the force" shouldn't have bothered her; she hadn't been allowed to be attached to him. His absence would have been a mere passing sadness to a Jedi. She was no Jedi, but right now, she would try to be one. She forced herself to start taking deep breaths again. She had to let go of him. It was the only thing she could do.

I'm letting him go. He is with the force now. That is the beginning and end of it.

She told herself this, wanting desperately to believe it. Maybe one day she would.