He shivered in the clear night air, feeling a cold that had nothing to do with the chill breeze. Tears ran down his face, freezing his heart as he looked up at the stars, shining pinpricks in the velvet sky.
You couldn't see the stars on Coruscant, the home of the Jedi Temple. But she had always treasured nights like this. The clear, invigorating air, the shimmering stars flickering on and off over thousands of light-years, and the beautiful, wide-open spaces. She would have loved a night like this.
She had spoken fondly of her homeworld over the thirty-odd years he had known her, but for all her talk, Mirial was not an extraordinary planet. It was definitely not the kind of place he had expected that his gorgeous friend would have come from. It was cold, dry, and altogether too windy for his taste.
But that was an opinion he held only until the sun went down. The sky exploded in the most beautiful aurora he had ever seen. The colors were reflected in the ice across the frozen lands, making the most impressive display he had ever seen.
It was hard for him, coming here. His Padawan had advised it. "It'll make you feel better about losing her," the young student had told him. "Trust me."
He sighed, thinking about the boy. No, man. A man. It was so hard for him to wrap himself around the fact that his Padawan was no longer his little boy. He was a completely self-sufficient, adult human man. He didn't need his Master anymore.
The Master wrapped his arms around himself. Cold. He was so cold. Why did it have to be her? Why, he found himself thinking guiltily, couldn't it have been any other Jedi in the Order? He realized with a start that would have even given up his Padawan if it meant he could still have her? He knew it was selfish and he hated himself for it. She would never have thought things like that. She had poured her heart and soul into doing things for others, not herself.
He could name thousands of things that she had done for him. He couldn't think of one that he had done for her. He couldn't even think of one thing that he had gone out of his way to do for her.
He hadn't been worthy of her. He couldn't recall ever seeing her do something good for herself, either. Maybe if she had, she wouldn't have died. If she had taken a break, she would never have gotten weak enough to contract that illness. If she had stopped her work for just a day, she might have gotten better.
But she hadn't. She had filled each hour visiting the children at the orphanage, checking on her injured friends, taking a shift in the medical wing, attending meetings for the Council, helping Jocasta Nu in the Archives, training clones, quizzing her Padawan over the material on the next test… at the end, she was getting only three or four hours of sleep a night. Less if she was on a mission. Often, if she was away from the Temple, she spent the nights discussing strategies with the clone commanders, and her days fighting off the Separatists. Sometimes in reverse order.
It had gotten to the point where the Council removed her from active duty. They refused to assign her any missions, took her off all the committees. She was pale, paler even than he was, and that was saying something. It had torn his heart apart to watch her Padawan walk through the halls of the Temple, wearing her Master's lightsaber next to her own.
"She gave it to me," the Padawan would whisper if someone asked her. "Just until she gets better. That's all. Then she gets it back."
But they all knew she would never get better. She knew it. Her Padawan knew it. The Council knew it. He knew it.
"I could have tried a little harder to keep her in bed," he told himself. "It's my fault. I could have done any number of things. But I didn't."
He had been by her when she died. He wished he could say that they had been in her apartment, that she was in her bed and he was beside her, holding her hand as she slipped away. He wasn't.
She had come to the garden, come to make sure he was okay after suffering a blaster wound on his last mission. She had collapsed right there in the middle of the walkway, and he had just barely caught her before she hit the ground. She had looked up at him, her intense, vivid eyes going pale. And she had whispered, "I love you."
That was all. She was gone. He had screamed, screamed as if someone was ripping out his heart. In a way, someone had. But she had taken it with her into the Force. Then he had grabbed her, pressed his lips against hers. "I love you, too," he had whispered, tears streaming down his face. He turned away enough that he wasn't crying on his friend.
His hands had curled into fists and he had screamed again. "Please, somebody! Somebody! Help! Help! Help…" his voice trailed off into the tears. Vaguely he was aware of pounding feet, someone else screaming, hands picking him up. Then the world went black.
He had woken up in the medical ward. "Where is she?" was his first question.
The Padawan by his bed, her Padawan, he realized, shook her head. "She's gone," she whispered. The girl had no tears. She was in denial, shock. Tears would come later.
"What? No," he said faintly. "It's not true. You're lying to me. It's not true. She's isn't gone. She isn't. She's fine. It isn't true. You're lying. I can't believe you would do that. She's fine. I just talked to her yesterday. She's okay. She isn't even sick. That was all just an act. She's not gone."
The Padawan had gone and gotten someone, he had no idea who. He couldn't remember. But that was all he had said for weeks. He had repeated it over and over ever since she had died. In fact, until he had come here, that was all he would say. "She isn't dead. She's not."
But he had a secret, too. He was dying. He had known he was, ever since she had. That was how close they were. One could not live while the other died. His sickness was not evident; an autopsy would reveal only a male human, about thirty-four standard years of age, in perfect physical condition. His was an illness of the heart.
He had come here to die. He was never going home. He wasn't even going to make it back to his hotel tonight. The cold spread through his veins, straight to his heart. He closed his eyes, sitting back on the stone bench behind him. "I love you," he whispered. "I love you."