Disclaimer: Everything belongs to George. Hisra is my own invention, though.
Warnings: This fic is rated for military violence, disturbing imagery, and implications.
Note: If you're curious about the title, just google Psalm 137. :)
Psalm 137
The air is pulsing like a heartbeat.
He's standing in front of the Council Chamber doors, and he knows what he'll find on the other side. And he can't make himself open them. He stares at the doors, face screwed up and desperate, thinking Padmé Padmé Padmé, but they still won't open.
He tries to ignore the beat. He closes his eyes against it and concentrates on his breathing. Too fast and skittering at the edges. And then something clangs in the hall behind him and he jumps, and when he comes down again he's back on Hisra.
Even before he opens his eyes again he knows it's Hisra, because of the smell. It's a burnt black putrid smell, heavy and thick like a fog and almost as visible. He clasps the lightsaber in his hand more firmly to stop the shaking.
He's standing on a dusty, bombed out street, just a few meters away from the remains of a market. The world is a jumble of shattered duracrete and grimy, ragged edges of cloth that once adorned the brightly colored market stalls. There are bodies scattered here and there beneath the rubble, strangely misshapen, like figures drawn all in edges and angles. Some of the bodies appear to be moving, but he can't hear anything. The world is perfectly silent.
Less than a meter away there is a girl. She's all twisted up at impossible angles, like a game of string-fingers he used to play with Kitster when he was young. Her eyes are still open, the luminous green of her people dulled by dust, and her face is perfectly blank.
Her left leg ends in a jagged tear. He shouldn't be as startled as he is—he saw her foot two blocks earlier.
He knows that Obi-Wan is coming up behind him, and he tries to look away from the girl, to act like a Jedi. Calm, cool, compassionate but unaffected. But he doesn't manage it soon enough.
"I'm sorry, Anakin," Obi-Wan says softly, hand squeezing his shoulder.
He still doesn't look away from the girl. "It shouldn't have happened," he says, and hates himself for the way his voice cracks. "We shouldn't have done it."
He feels more than sees Obi-Wan look away, and for a moment he almost thinks his former master might agree with him. But then the Jedi mask is back and Obi-Wan says, gently but firmly, "We're at war, Anakin. Sometimes there is collateral damage. You can't blame yourself."
He lets out a shaky breath and turns to face Obi-Wan, but Obi-Wan isn't there. He realizes he's not on Hisra either; he's standing in front of the Council Chamber doors, waiting for something. He tries to remember what he's doing here. It's hard, because he can still smell Hisra, and if he closes his eyes he's afraid he might be there again.
He takes another deep breath, tries to calm himself by thinking of Padmé. And then he remembers. Padmé. Of course. He knows what he has to do.
He glares down at his traitorous shaking hands and moves forward to open the door.
The children are standing on the other side, almost as though they've been waiting for him. They look up at him with absolute certainty and the kind of trust they have only for the Masters. He thinks of the little girl on Hisra with her perfectly blank face and the jagged end of her leg where her foot used to be.
"Master Skywalker, there are too many of them!" says a little blond boy who looks almost like…
But no, he's not thinking about that. Sometimes, Master Obi-Wan says, but he doesn't complete the thought, and Anakin is left feeling strangely numb.
"What are we going to do?" the boy whispers.
He looks down at the child, and at the others behind him. He thinks about Padmé. He thinks about the padawans he knew in the war, and imagines what these children will become. He thinks about what it would be like, what it would be worth, to really end this war.
Sometimes there is collateral damage.