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The ghost swallows as the woman flees.
Luke takes a step after her and Anakin wants to reach out, to ask him not to leave. Ahsoka does it for him; she follows the other woman.
His son turns back around, shaking his head, “I don’t understand.”
“Don’t you?” Leia’s stare is hard and blank, “He hurt her too.”
Anakin’s shame is laid at his feet, time again. He hurt her; he hurt them too – them and countless others. He hurt them all. He doesn’t make excuses.
“Anyone in my way was at risk. I recognized her as another Force-wielder, one the Emperor would never teach, but a powerful agent nonetheless.
“I threatened her life on multiple occasions, though they meant nothing to me – left no mark on my conscious.”
No, he’s not proud of it. The only thing it ever did was damage that woman’s psyche, imbedding fear and distrust.
The ghost swallows and waits. Waits for the explosion, for the door to slam, for the silence ever after between him and his children.
It doesn’t come.
“What’s done is done. We’ll move forward.” Luke’s fist is clenched. “I wouldn’t expect Mara to forgive you.”
Anakin thinks it may be the first time he’s ever heard her name. He doesn’t expect her to forgive him.
He wonders why they don’t all run when he appears.
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Were it not for the growing presence of fear and hurt, Ahsoka might not have found Mara, well-hidden in the inoperable portion of the Temple. Ahsoka approaches cautiously.
Mara tries to curl further into herself, loose hair from her braid falls in her face, “Is he gone?”
Ahsoka is moved by the smallness of Mara’s voice; the scared tones of a child. She must have sounded the same to Padmé.
“No. Luke and Leia are speaking with him.”
Him. Anakin. Ahsoka’s trained herself to think of him with his true name again. It never occurred to her, Mara would still know him as Vader – that Vader was a part of her life. Though it seems obvious enough to them all now.
“I’m sorry. We didn’t know.”
Mara buries her face into her knees. She trembles and puts a hand to her neck. She doesn’t have to say anything for Ahsoka to understand what her old master must have done.
Witnessing Mara’s pain, Ahsoka can’t help but revisit her own hurts dealt out by Vader’s black fist.
Her student’s shoulders convulse, somewhere between strangled sobs and stifled frustration.
If it were Luke or Leia, Ahsoka wouldn’t hesitate to comfort them; she’s less sure how Mara will receive such a gesture. Warily, Ahsoka drapes a protective arm over Mara.
She stiffens momentarily, but doesn’t shrug it off. Her trembling resumes.
Ahsoka stays with her a long time, Let it out.
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He’s here again. She can feel it. But she won’t run this time. She’s not going to let a ghost frighten her.
Mara holds her breath when she crosses the threshold. Her resolve cannot bring her to look at him, convinced if she looks up she’ll see the dark mask staring back at her, his long rattling breath mocking her desperate gasps for air.
Ahsoka lowers her voice as Mara enters. He follows her lead. Mara’s concentration suffers; she cannot completely block out their conversation.
The uneasy edge she stands on suddenly disappears. The ghost is gone.
Ahsoka joins her on the floor. They do not meditate.
“You didn’t have to force yourself to come in while he was here, I would have understood.”
“I know,” her throat sticks, but she gets the words out, gripped by anger. “How can you stand it? How can you look him in the eye knowing what he’s done?”
She shakes badly.
Ahsoka doesn’t stretch a hand out this time; she draws in before reaching out.
“Because if I couldn’t, I wouldn’t be able to look you in the eye or live with myself. It wasn’t easy to forgive, not after what he’s done, not after what he did to me personally, but I had to.”
It isn’t enough, not for Mara to understand.
“So you just forget it all?”
“Not for a second, but no less than him.”
It’s not a lesson, but Mara takes a different understanding away from it.
Coming here – learning the ways of the Force isn’t a way to forget. It’s a way to live with what they’ve done; accept the actions they can’t take back.
Ahsoka does it to make up for running – for giving up on the Force for years. Mara does it to make up for the things she did as an imperial agent – for the years she felt nothing at all.
And if Anakin Skywalker feels half the pain he inflicted, the Force is too good to him.