CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

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ANAKIN WATCHED ARTIE STORM ONTO THE SHIP WITHOUT A GLANCE BEHIND HER, SEVERAL YARDS AHEAD OF HIM AND AHSOKA. THEY'D BURST FREE FROM THE BAZAAR'S CONFINES, but Artie benefited from her head start. Anakin swore under his breath and broke into a run. Ahsoka did the same, but his legs were longer and carried him farther.

"Get onboard," he called over his shoulder. "Stay in the hull. I'll talk to her."

"Master, we'll lose Hardeen if we don't get moving," Ahsoka warned.

"I know," Anakin fired back. He felt slightly panicked and couldn't completely wrap his head around the breadth of his problems, as they had certainly never seemed so dire. Their bad luck was unrelenting. He hated to imagine what had happened back in the bar, but the pit in his stomach and Artie's thrumming anguish he could feel in his blood told him it was something bad.

Anakin leaped up the cruiser's ramp and found the door to the cockpit shut, but he'd expected as much. Ahsoka joined him and smashed the button to close the ship's belly and soon they were sealed away from the horror that was Nal Hutta. Internally, Anakin scourged himself for letting Artie step foot on the planet — he had known something would go wrong.

He cast Ahsoka a look, then approached the cockpit door. It slid open and he stepped inside.

Artie sat in the pilot's seat with her head in her hand. Her braid fell limply over her shoulder and he could see she was shaking; she seemed shriveled, weakened. He stepped closer, and Artie flinched in surprise and sat up straight.

"Sorry," she murmured, pushing pieces of hair away from her face and wiping her eyes.

"Sorry?" he repeated. It shocked him. "Artie, what — what happened? Why are you apologizing?"

"I, um." Her voice came out a hoarse croak. She fiddled with the control panel but wouldn't fire the ship's engine. "I don't think we have time to talk about it. We need to go."

"Artie, you're bleeding. Let me see your hand." He came to kneel before her. He took her hand in his own and turned it over. He'd seen enough wounds in his life to be desensitized to most, but it did not mean the state of Artie's fingers and palm did not alarm him. The flesh was ripped into flayed pieces, a mash of tissue and blood. Shards of glass stuck out of the wound, which dripped red down her arm and soaked her sleeve. "Artemis . . . "

"Don't," she whispered. Fresh tears spilled down her cheeks.

"Shh," he said. "Hang on. I'll take care of it. That glass has got to come out." He made her spread her fingers slightly further. She let out a small, pained cry, but clamped her other hand over her mouth and turned away. Anakin lifted his hand and took in a deep breath. He felt the Force move in him and show him in a gentle image where the shards were buried in Artie's hand. None too deep, which relieved him. Another deep breath. He narrowed his focus on one shard and lifted it from her flesh. He let it drop to the floor to be swept aside by someone's boot later.

"I did this for Obi-Wan once," Anakin remembered aloud as he lifted another shard. That screaming grief still raged inside him, but he had to hold it back for now. It helped, he found, to siphon it out with small recollections of his former Master. "It was bad. Eight pieces of transparisteel lodged in his chest — from that assault on Kothlis Grievous launched. Missed his heart by an inch, his spine by half. It was kind of a miracle . . . "

Anakin felt near tears at the thought that Obi-Wan's miracles had run out since then. He did his best to devote his attention to the task at hand, which was making sure Artie was all right. That much he could control, so by the Force he would.

     "Yeah, that was a bad one," he went on. "You missed out — the Seps jammed all our internal communications and we were blind out there, for a while. That's when Ahsoka got those three fractured ribs."

"I remember," Artie said through clenched teeth. Anakin tried to hurry things up.

It was a meticulous feat, but an accomplishable one. An urgent need to chase after Hardeen gnawed at the back of Anakin's mind, but he knew he could not indulge it yet. Eventually, the floor around them was sprinkled with tiny, bloody glass shards. Anakin summoned the medpack, snatched it from the air, and took out a small bacta canister and a roll of bandages. He dressed her wound and thought back to the time on Tatooine when he and Artie had scarcely known each other, and he doctored the gashes she'd earned from a fight with Lysander. How strange the way things had changed since then, and how they'd hardly changed at all.

"There," he said quietly as he tied off the bandage. She had, by some stroke of luck or genius or what have you, injured her left hand and not her right. "Now, would you mind telling me how you ended up like this? Who was that man?" Anakin stroked her cheek, but she didn't seem very comforted. He could still feel her trembling beneath his touch.

"He was a bounty hunter," Artie whispered. "He used to work for Lysander. He wanted to take me back to Tatooine."

For a moment, Anakin's mind went blank. He swore. He couldn't help it. He was filled suddenly with shame and rage at himself, because how could he have let that happen? How could he have let anyone from Lysander's circle get near her again? It was another failure he could taste in the back of his throat, feel scratching from the underside of his skin. He tried to banish it from his mind and listen to what she said next:

"Lysander had kicked him out, or something. He wanted a way back into the syndicate, and he'd seen me in the chain codes."

"Lysander was supposed to have rescinded your bounty after Zygerria."

Artie stared down at her hands in her lap. "He did. This guy didn't know. He'd seen me years ago, I guess. He planned to trade me for his job back. He told me everything."

"He told you?"

She nodded shortly. "Yeah. Laid it all out."

"That makes no sense. Why would he do that?"

Artie's eyes lifted in a flash. Anakin immediately understood he'd not said the correct thing. "Because he didn't think it'd be anything to overpower me. He figured there'd be no fight."

"He's out of his mind. He would have to know. I mean, Artie — you're an officer of the Republic. How could he think he'd just get to up and take you?"

"Well, he thought he could do a lot more."

"What?"

But she'd stood up and moved past him and crossed the floor. "He tried — he tried to . . ."

"What?" Anakin said again. He felt cold. His thoughts felt slow. He got to his feet.

"He . . . grabbed me. I don't know how else to say it. He just — he shoved his hand between my legs and he, he just grabbed me. Just because he could. Or thought he could." She lifted her bandaged hand. "All I wanted to do was hurt him. I couldn't think of anything else."

"You should have killed him," Anakin said. When his voice came out, he hardly recognized it. He'd not felt such fury since his mother. He'd not felt the resolve to harm that he did now since finding her beaten, chained, and humiliated. His head swam with a disarming need to destroy and his vision began to darken from that ferocious need's unquantifiable measure. No, this was not something he could just let be. "I'm going back."

He started for the door, but Artie seized him by the arm with her good hand. Her fingers dug into him hard. He looked at her sharply. Her stare was something he'd never seen before. Embarrassment and shame were visible in her face, but her brow was pushed down and her mouth was hardened in anger. It was such an odd conflation of emotions that for a split second, Anakin mellowed.

"We don't have time," she said.

Anakin gestured wildly. "He can't just do that to you, Artemis! Do you think I'm just gonna let him walk? Are you crazy?"

"Anakin Skywalker," Artie said in a deathly quiet voice, "you know there isn't time. We have to leave, or we'll lose Hardeen." Her grip on him tightened. "Is that what you want?"

"Artie," he said, "please." Desperation climbed through his insides to rise in his throat and choke him. "He hurt you. He has to pay."

"Any other time. You know what's important right now. There's too much at stake. I won't be the reason you can't avenge Obi-Wan. It's not happening." She released him and moved back. She wiped her face with her unbloodied sleeve. "Get us in the air, okay? Pray we haven't lost them already."

Artie left him with that. She went through the cockpit door and a moment later Ahsoka came in looking confused.

"Is she okay?" she asked. "What happened?"

Anakin threw himself into the pilot's chair and fired up the cruiser. Ahsoka sat down next to him and began wordlessly switching on controls. After several minutes of silence, when they'd long since entered hyperspace, she murmured, "So . . . to Orondia, right?"

"I guess she's fine," Anakin said, partly because he wanted to convince himself and partly because he felt bad ignoring his Padawan. "It's not really my thing to talk about."

"Orondia, though?" Ahsoka asked cautiously.

Anakin blinked. His bloodlust could not decide on a singular target; like a barghest seized by dripping savage hunger, it tossed its head and barred its teeth between Hardeen and the bounty hunter who had threatened Artie. More than threatened. Anakin's jaw tightened.

"Orondia. Yeah." She had told him what she wanted. He'd sworn to listen to her, and he would. For the time being.

Anakin watched Ahsoka set their course. His body was taut with need — to fight, to break down in tears, the run around in frantic circles screaming until someone forcibly sedated him.

"Did it have something to do with that Lysander guy?" Ahsoka asked suddenly. "She told me a little about him during the mess on Zygerria. Did she ever tell you?"

"A little," Anakin said.

Ahsoka wrinkled her nose. "From what she said, he's horrible. Was he there?"

"No. Just someone who used to work for him giving her trouble." Anakin shut his eyes briefly. "Adhara's strong, little one. I wouldn't worry about her too much."

"You seem worried."

"I — I'm not. She's perfectly capable."

"I know that," Ahsoka said. "Still, I . . . never mind."

Anakin turned his head to look at his Padawan. Sometimes he couldn't believe how drastically she'd changed in two years. He wondered if the same would be true if they weren't at war. He knew he owed her the truth. He knew with the reputation he'd earned her just by the sheer fact he was her Master, he owed Ahsoka honesty, and not just about him and Artie. For so long, a good portion of his teachings had been sanitized to placate Obi-Wan, so many of his true feelings and principles flat abandoned so that Obi-Wan would raise no objections. But now — and it was a terrible thought to have — with Obi-Wan gone, Anakin looked at Ahsoka and knew there were a thousand things he needed to say, a thousand lessons he needed to take back, amend with the truth: love and attachment were the only things that made his existence bearable. He had never let go of anything in his life, and he wouldn't. He'd done reprehensible things to those who took away what mattered to him most, and coupled with the shame of his actions with which he lived each day was the even more terrifying notion that despite it all, he'd do them again. Yes, there were things Ahsoka should hear from him.

But how could he open up the floor beneath her like that? Undermine everything he'd ever taught her for . . . what? Some of that suffocating guilt to be lifted off his chest? It was a grave, seductive temptation, but one he knew he could not give in to at the price of Ahsoka's peace. She was still a child, and he needed to remember that, even if no one had remembered it about him. Anakin sighed.

"I'm sure she'd appreciate it if you talked to her," he said. "Later. We need to focus on the problem at hand."

Ahsoka was quiet, and then, "Yes, Master."

• • •

ARTIE WAS ASLEEP WHEN ANAKIN DECIDED TO USE THE SHIP AS A BATTERING RAM, and her rest certainly did not last long after that.

She bolted awake with the panicked notion that they were being shot out of the air. She threw herself out of the narrow bed carved into the hull's wall and tried to gain her footing, but it was near impossible; the cruiser bucked and swooped to such drastic degrees that they nearly suspended themselves upside-down, only to straighten and slam into something below them. These were not the maneuvers of someone avoiding an onslaught but of someone perpetuating one. As best she could with only one hand for support, Artie stumbled her way back into the cockpit to find Anakin in the pilot's seat, which did not surprise her. She braced herself in the doorframe and peered through the viewport and tried to gain some understanding of what was happening, but Anakin flew them so quickly and so wildly that she couldn't make much sense of it; she surmised that he was trying very purposefully to crash the ship, which did not surprise her either.

"We found them," Ahsoka said over her shoulder. "Eval, Cad Bane, and Hardeen."

"They're not getting away," Anakin said.

Artie could feel his maddened adrenaline pounding in her chest, and it energized her. She allowed his feelings and instincts to become hers, and she swelled with the resolve they gave her. Anakin's convictions carried her farther than her own, and at a time like this she did not feel ashamed of letting them push her forward.

Anakin jumped to his feet. "Take over!" he commanded Ahsoka, who seized the controls at once. Her face was stricken with alarm, but she kept herself together. Anakin rushed past Artie without a word, but she tore after him anyway. They bounded through the ship's hull and he opened a starboard hatch.

"Stay here," he told her.

"No. You're not going in alone."

"Artie — "

"Don't bring me along next time, then!" she cried. "What do you think I'm here to do?"

Anakin stared at her fiercely, then whipped around and leaped out of the cruiser. Artie followed without much thought. Orondia soared beneath them, a stinking fuel refinery with fumes that made the atmosphere sting any exposed skin. The Force moved around her graciously and guided her landing, setting her on the wing of a massive ship looming directly beneath them. She got the full picture at last; Anakin had rammed Hardeen's ship into submission and sought to cut them all down once and for all, mid-flight if need be. He'd bounded ahead of her, off to the races before she'd even stood up, and Artie heard the blasterfire resounding around her before she saw it. She found gaining her balance with the ship gliding at breakneck speed troublesome. She took out her lightsaber and ignited it, crouched low, and jumped. The Force launched her high above the ship's bridge and Artie landed on top of it, smack behind Anakin, who was already busy fighting for his life.

Artie had heard about the bounty hunter Cad Bane long ago from Anakin and had seen him in holopics, but never in the flesh. She knew that early in the war Bane had stolen a Kyber memory crystal from the Temple, which was something no livid thing should have been able to do. Artie had since held a certain grudging respect for Bane and wondered if he and Lysander had ever met because it seemed to her like they would keep the same deplorable company.

Now, though, Cad Bane stood before her a real man rather than a hologram. His eyes were red as blood and took up most of his leathery blue face; he wore a wide-brimmed hat and a glittering assortment of weapons on his lean person, and with twin pistols gripped expertly in his hands he fired on Anakin with no relent and included Artie in the onslaught without missing a beat. She slashed away his blaster bolts and Anakin continued on the offensive, and it seemed having both of them against him was too much for Bane to handle. He snarled in rage and smashed the controls on a panel on his wrist; a small thruster ignited on the sole of his right boot and propelled him backward, and he kept on shooting as he rocketed unsteadily away. Anakin tore after him. Bane flipped off the top of the cruiser's bridge and landed hard on the bow, driving hard and fast to put some space between himself and them, but Anakin gained all the ground there was to be had. Whoever was piloting seemed to realize this, too. The ship lurched forward suddenly, and Anakin was thrown off-balance; he regained himself, but not a second later they jerked sharply to the right and he stumbled again. Anakin threw a furious look back at the viewport, and Artie was struck with an idea. Still perched atop the bridge, she flipped her lightsaber in her hand and thrust it through the ship's roof.

At first, this caused more chaos than she'd intended. The ship swerved as the pilot struggled to right them while Artie got to work sawing a hole into their cockpit ceiling. Ahsoka hovered overhead, bobbing as close as she dared to the enemy ship. Artie said a silent prayer that the Padawan knew she was there. Molten durasteel singed her sleeves as she carved herself an opening. Her effort overwhelmed the bandages on her left hand and she felt her cuts open and begin to trickle blood. In the corner of her eye, Artie saw Anakin unable to find his footing, losing his advantage against Bane, but she couldn't worry about it then. She pushed her pain and Anakin's peril aside; if he could hold out until she made it through, she could take control from Hardeen and steady their course.

Artie's makeshift hatch was complete. She rose, kicked in the cut piece of durasteel, and dropped through the hole it left behind.

She landed in a taut crouch; she laid eyes on Moralo Eval first — a Phindian male with scaly, reptilian skin the color of bile and a cone-shaped, elongated skull — but the Force cried out that this was not the threat to concern herself with.

With not a half-second to spare, Artie dodged Rako Hardeen's incoming fist.

She danced out of his way in time to see Eval scramble into the pilot's chair and the ship righted itself, for the moment. Artie backed up slowly, lightsaber angled at Hardeen's chest. She took in his face — those sunken eyes and that hard, twisted mouth. She hated him. She hated him. She could not remember ever telling Anakin it would be wrong to kill this man. He deserved death ten times over. A hundred times. For murdering Obi-Wan, for eviscerating Anakin, for costing the Republic one of its most effective generals. He had made the lives of so many people Artie loved just that much more excruciating. He was going to pay the price for it in full.

Artie swiped at him, but he darted out of the way. Hardeen was quick on the draw and he fired two shots at her; she deflected one through the viewport (earning a shriek from Eval) and the other into a blinking panel wall behind them, causing it to erupt in a furious flurry of white sparks. The ship engine sputtered, and they jerked viciously. The panel began to smoke. Hardeen raised his blaster again, but Artie anticipated it. She dove to the floor and aimed a kick to the side of his knee. Hardeen buckled, shouting in pain and rage, but he collected himself quicker than Artie was ready for; he whipped around and thrust out his boot and the kick caught her in the chin. She fell back hard, lightsaber sheathing and tumbling out of her fingers. She tasted blood on her tongue and in the back of her throat. Her face felt warm and wet.

Bristling with rage, Artie felt the Force change around her. Around Hardeen. Its watchfulness turned to goading, to provocation. Take him, it seemed to say. He's here — finish it. You can. Her heart beat so hard she could feel it in her fingertips, against her temples. The Force swelled and crested like a wave overhead; Artie was, momentarily, overwhelmed by what she felt she had the power to do. She looked into Hardeen's face and for a split-second, he seemed disturbed. She climbed to her feet. She summoned her lightsaber.

Sorry, Anakin, Artie thought grimly before she plunged her blade into the control panel wall. An alarm sounded, and they began to abruptly lose altitude. So much for steadying the course.

Eval swore at her and pulled and pressed desperately at different controls on his console, but it was no use. In a savage surge of resolve Artie turned on Hardeen, and with a great leap she tackled him straight through the viewport, and they exploded onto the bow and in a shower of transparisteel shards just as both ships lost control and went careening into the rocky Orondian surface.

Artie tumbled off the side of the ship and slammed hard into the dusty ground. Her momentum kept her rolling and rolling through the dirt. When she finally stopped, she could hear nothing but a shrill ringing in her ears, see nothing but a billion stars swirling above her amid black and empty space. She wiped her nose and her sleeve came back newly bloodied. Still dizzy, she reached through the Force in desperate search of Anakin and Ahsoka. It was times like these that she wished she had grown up knowing she was Force-sensitive, that she had had those early years to grow and live in it; Artie sensed them both, but their presences were faint, and she could not determine if this was the fault of her own unpolished abilities or an indicator that Anakin and his Padawan were dying from the crash.

Hardeen gathered his wits twenty feet away. He got unsteadily to his feet. When he noticed Artie, he grabbed his blaster and pointed it between her eyes.

"This is not your fight," he said roughly. Blood trickled from his nose. "I don't want to hurt you. Stay down."

Artie laughed out loud. She ignited her lightsaber and its white blade cut through the air. She breathed in deeply, sharply, and charged.

She knew she didn't have long until her body gave out; every movement was excruciating and she was bleeding from several different injuries. Hardeen fired a volley of blaster bolts at her, but his aim was not much better in the open than in the cockpit. Or maybe he was just toying with her. Maybe he'd sharpen up suddenly and land one right through her head. Artie's lip curled as she slashed and deflected, unable to gain any ground. Her skin was singed, and with each parry the smell of burning hair and clothes grew stronger. She coughed. Against her greatest efforts, tears spilled down her cheeks as her eyes burned from blood and the smoke-choked atmosphere.

A lucky bolt scraped her arm. Artie cried out. The next instant Hardeen was on her, and he threw her to the ground. He seized her by the shoulders and slammed her back into the dirt as she fought to free herself. "Stay down!" he shouted again.

An arc of blue light appeared in Artie's peripheral and she knew immediately who it was, and she felt weak with relief. Anakin dove at Hardeen, who released Artie and rolled away because it was that or get sliced in half. Artie heard their struggle, but she didn't have time to look where they'd gone. As soon as she was on her feet again, gunfire tore the air. She thrust her blade behind her to block the shot she could not turn in time to ward off, then twisted around and beat three more out of the air. Cad Bane stood fifteen feet from her. Harsh shadow hit his gaunt face, making it seem like there was only a skull beneath that wide-brimmed hat. He had a pair of cybernetic breathing tubes fastened to the hollows of his cheeks. His red eyes narrowed.

"Never fought you before," he said. The tubes put a slight buzz beneath his low voice.

"No," Artie agreed.

"But I have seen you."

She nodded. She clutched at her side, breathing hard. "I bet."

"It was a good bounty they had on you," Bane said thoughtfully. "Maybe I would've chased it, if I didn't hate Tatooine so much."

Artie wiped grime away from her eyes and raised her lightsaber. "I can't say I blame you."

"Stand aside. Let me have Skywalker."

"I can't do that. Your friend killed one of his."

Bane's blue face twisted. "Fine. You'll die pointlessly."

"I know," Artie sighed, and lunged at him.

Bane dodged her jab and fired another volley. Artie twisted around the bolts, but he was an infinitely quicker, better shot than Hardeen. To evade him sapped the dregs of Artie's fortitude. She darted and weaved and slashed, but each felt like it would be the last. She caught a glimpse of her left hand and saw her bandages were soaked through and blood slid down her wrist and arm in tiny red streams. Artie begged the Force for strength, because her own was failing fast. She felt one last surge of power engulf her like a closing fist. She swiped at Bane and struck one of his pistols and it crumpled to useless, melted pieces in his hand. He sneered and tossed it aside; he threw out his arm and pressed a control on his wrist cuff, and a thin cable shot from the vambrace to wrap like a tourniquet around Artie's right arm. Her lightsaber sheathed and fell from her grasp. Bane jerked her forward and she stumbled close enough for him to slam the butt of his other blaster across her face. She collapsed in the dirt at his feet, skirting on the edges of unconsciousness. The cable relinquished its hold with a snap! and Artie sensed Bane leave her.

Coughing, she rolled onto her back and gave herself a few seconds to recuperate. She touched her jaw testily and surmised Bane had not pistol-whipped any of her teeth loose. She did not want to even look at her hand. Her cheeks and lips felt stiff and crusted with dried blood, and her mouth still bled from Hardeen's kick. Artie suddenly felt the tide turn in Anakin's struggle with Hardeen, and not in his favor. With a groan, she climbed to her feet. She stood with her hands on her knees for five seconds, breathing in deeply and slowly, before straightening. She was off.

A dense, acrid fog had settled over the crash site and made seeing even ten feet in front of her difficult. A shadow appeared in the near distance, murky, small. Artie pushed through all her physical and mental blindness to find that it was only Ahsoka; relief flooded her, and she whistled one clear note. The shadow came barreling for her and the next minute the Padawan emerged from the fog, looking a little beat-up but otherwise unharmed.

"Artie," she gasped. "Thank goodness. Are you — " Ahsoka broke off. Artie felt her panic, felt its reason. They locked eyes, and Ahsoka cried, "Go!"

They turned and ran for a cliff ledge a few yards ahead of them where lay Hardeen's shipwreck. Artie knew without truly knowing that Anakin was at the top, incapacitated from what it felt like. She and Ahsoka leaped up the cliff's face with lightsabers bursting open in time to fight off an eruption of blaster fire aimed at an unconscious Anakin. He lay unmoving in the dirt. Ahsoka bowed over him with vicious protectiveness, teeth bared, weapons at the ready. She looked geared to kill. Artie planted herself between them and Hardeen and Cad Bane, who leveled his remaining blaster to her chest. She set her jaw and banished her pain. She lifted her blade.

A third figure came ambling out of their battered cruiser, a long-barreled sniper rifle on their back: Moralo Eval, whom Artie had assumed until then had died in the crash.

"The ship is still operational," he announced. "I got it working again. Let's get out of here."

He turned on his heel and dashed away. Hardeen looked to Bane, who stared coolly at Artie and Ahsoka as he holstered his pistol.

"You're lucky we're in a hurry, ladies," he drawled. "We'll have to dance another time."

Bane left them. Only Hardeen remained, and he looked on with something like concern in his dust-coated face, before darting back and clambering back onto their ship. Artie sheathed her lightsaber and dropped to the ground. She laid down flat and draped her arm over her eyes. She felt the ship shuddering to life, the craggy ground tremoring beneath her back. She heard it lift off. Each pulse of her heart pushed new waves of pain through every inch of her. She could not even find the strength to go to Anakin; she felt his presence in the Force, and that had to be enough for right then. She wanted to sleep, but Anakin and Ahsoka were speaking hushedly behind her, and something Anakin said dragged Artie right out of her stupor:

"That's why I felt a connection," she heard him murmur. She lowered her arm and turned her head. Anakin had managed to sit up.

"I — I don't understand," Ahsoka said. She crouched earnestly beside him, eyes blown with worry.

"I don't really, either," Anakin replied. His voice was distant, disbelieving. "But I . . . I feel it. Obi-Wan is . . . Obi-Wan is alive."

note.
wow. hi everyone. i realize it's been a legitimate year since this was last updated. i'd be lying if i said that wasn't because i was dreading writing this fight sequence (i still think it's terrible, but i cant procrastinate any longer). i've missed this fic so much, and i swear i have not abandoned it. i still have very big plans and hope to get at least one more update out this week (p.s. if you have a favorite clone wars arc post-season 4 that you'd like to see in this fic, drop it here! i need help choosing where to go next). thank you all so incredibly much for your patience.

i am currently very active on ao3 and have been slowly posting this story there as well. there are very slight but i think very permissible changes made there that i am testing out, mostly clean-up, but if you're interested in that it is available on my ao3 of the same name as my account here. my most active story on ao3 right now is an rdr2 fic that i'm extremely proud of so far, if you'd like to check that out as well.

lastly, i know things have been quite dark and depressing with this story for a while. after the conclusion of this arc i'm going to include some more lighthearted chapters, maybe a little smut, maybe artie getting drunk at a wedding. whose wedding? not telling ;)

thank you all so much for reading! happy new year!!