61 What is right.

Eh?

Was I lying on the ground?

What just ha-

The time space fuckery detector was blaring like a dying cow.

I snapped to look at it and what I saw horrified me to my core.

A myriad of timelines splitting and fraying from what looked like a massive ripple in causality. Like someone took a big fat dump on reality itself.

What the actual fuck just happened?!

I stopped the blaring alarm and got back on my feet, running through my memories, going along the protocol I set for such an event, checking for inconsistencies that might have occured from someone changing the past and I found nothing.

That means the past wasn't what was changed but rather the future. Or the present, but then again changing the present doesn't require taking the hammer to the fragile glass embossed coffee table that was the timeline.

So yeah, probably the future.

I looked at the watch again as the possibilities started to merge together again, verifying my suspicions.

Yup. Definitely the future.

The only question was how?

And the answer came to me as simply as the question.

But simple didn't mean good. Especially not in this case.

Likely, this mess on the timeline meant one of two things.

Either I came back in time to save Offee.

Or she was dead and I was the one who would be initiating change.

And all I had to do was walk over to the next room over and check.

Yeah. That's it. I just need to-

Yet, my legs refused to budge as if stuck on a cockroach trap.

I looked down and saw nothing wrong.

Why aren't they moving?

This is no time to be standing around!

Then I saw my hands. Shaking.

Is it cold in here? I don't feel cold?

And why can't I goddamn move?!

A voice within me answered.

Because I don't want to.

I don't want to find out. I was scared.

What if....what if she's dead? What will I do?

And deep down I knew. I would break.

This was the first time I had fallen in love. And loss, one of that which you love was something I didn't want to even think about.

It gave me the shivers.

I could hear footsteps now, trampling through the corridor.

And my heart sank at the implication.

Yet, I stood rooted to the the spot.

I was here. Wasting my time. While Offee was there, dying, all alone. After I promised her that I would never let her.

Never let her die. Never leave her alone. Never let her feel that way ever again.

I fidgeted with my wedding band, a simple contruct of durasteel and plantinum, eyes locked eagerly to the door.

And as if answering my prayers, the door swung open, Ahsoka bursting in, tears in her eyes.

My hands dropped to my side, limp and lifeless as my eyes.

I felt the world zoom in on me, and the weight of the realisation crashed into me like a freight train. That day, my whole world came crashing down on me.

That day, as Ahsoka held me, I broke.

There was no dramatic 'Nooooo!', no sobbing, or raging.

I just felt dead. My heart ran cold.

Empty within. Like a walking corpse. Even as the doctors begged me to let them study her, I just picked up her body, gently in my arms and placed her in the cryo chamber I had made.

Too slow. A voice inside me chastised.

Too late.

But I didn't listen. With a single minded drive, I rolled the cryo-chamber out, into my van, and without a word, I disappeared.

The next few months went by blindly. I had left Star in the company of Padme and family for the time being. Looking at him reminded me of Micah and Molly, their dead eyes haunting me.

Some scarce thought in the deep of my concious nudging at me.

Telling me I deserved it. This was karma.

Just retribution for the deaths I had precipitated.

Superstition, of course. I told myself. Like thise Skinner box experiments about how people like to correlate unrelated stuff and assign causation to it.

No. I refuse to believe such nonsense. I am a man of science.

Still, their faces did flash before my eyes, everytime I looked at my little Star, crying for his mother. I felt like a failure. I hated the world for taking wjat was mine. But most of all, I hated myself for letting it. For not doing my due diligence. And I was broken.

I was in no state to care for him.

He had begged and whined and screamed but they fell upon deaf ears.

I had just calmly explained to him what had happened, comforted him for a bit and left, without turning back. Star was no longer a weapon in my eyes.

Over the past year or so, I had come to care for him as I would a real son.

And this.....Star deserved better than this.

He deserved a family.

The next few months I spent out of office, working my sorrows away.

Half the time I was barely lucid enough to breathe, much less live.

The trash piled up, an up until I deigned to portal it into a nearby star.

And then it piled up some more.

My eyes sunk deep into their sockets as work took over me. I had things to do, treaties to sign, bills to pass.

Anything. Anything to keep the pain away. To keep my mind off of it.

I signed the peace treaty, like I had originally planned, and then I disappeared into work once more.

Work. Work. So much work. Comforting work. Distracting work.

Until one day, the door to my room blew open.

There stood Ahsoka. Her eyes conflicted.

She stomped uo to me, intending to chew my ears out, and grabbed me by my collar.

But when the piles of paper gave way, her expression changed.

Softened. A deep grief reflected in her eyes. My grief.

And form within burst forth the only sort of compassion she could muster.

Ahsoka's eyes dulled as if she were remembering something, and she gave the memory a small nod as a steeled resolve shone in her eyes.

Like a sack of potatoes, Ahsoka lifted me, dragging me to bed.

No. Something inside me said.

I knew where this was going.

No! It cried.

She's just a child.

Ahsoka threw me into the pillows.

No. My mind cried.

She sat down, clearly embarrassed, and hesitant.

"You don't have to do this." My lips croaked.

Ahsoka looked at me, her crystal eyes, steeling further.

"I want to." She said, pursing her lips.

"I am not a child. I am 19 now. I can support you. I promised."

Ahsoka leaned in, eyes closed in worry.

A voice cried within me.

Don't.

And I failed.

I leant into her kiss, even as a deep feeling of disgust rose within me, like oil and sand.

Her touch felt poison to my skin. And yet, I failed.

I gave in to desire, and she to obligation likely.

And I spent the night in her bed.

When I awoke the next day, with proper sleep the first time in months, all I could feel was disgust.

This wasn't right.

I looked back at Ahsoka, and I saw not the uppity girl of yesteryear, but a woman on her own right.

And yet, even an adult, it didn't make it right.

I shook my head. Ahsoka didn't deserve this. She should have done it with someone she loved, not some.....not....me.

I looked back at her.

What have I done?

And a feeling sputtered in me.

No more.

Walk away. A voice called to me.

Walk away now. Save her the pain. The hurt.

Don't make this mistake again.

I nodded.

I wrote a letter, and tucked in the deed to my villa beside the beach.

A gift. For reminding me what was important.

And just so she wouldn't come after me, I wrote, 'Wait for me, if you will.'

Of course, I wasn't going to return.

A small heartbreak for her now. But it would save her much pain in the future.

I know it was selfish. But.....

Yes. It was only right.

I had obligations.

Obligations of love to the one that still resided in my heart.

I picked up Star from the Skywalker household and gave them my heartfelt thanks, depositing the pouty child back into the colony ship.

I put on my nekomimi headphones, switching songs to Don't Look Back by Kotomi and Ryan Elder.

And I resolved.

I will not let her rest like this.

I will revive her. I will revive my Offee.

No matter the cost.

But first, I had another task on my mind.

Revenge.