Title: Waiting for Absolution

Author: The Musical Jedi

Characters: Obi-Wan, Anakin, Padmé

Genre: AU, Angst, Quasi-Obidala

Timeframe: AOTC through ROTS timeframe

Disclaimer: These characters, their galaxy, and all things recognizable as Star Wars belong to George Lucas. If OCs do appear, they belong to me. I make no profit from this. Thank you, Mr. Lucas, for letting us play in your sandbox, and for creating such a grand sandbox to begin with.

Author's Notes: This is an idea that got stuck in my head when I wrote Sacrifice. It's actually amusing to me in a sad kind of way; I used to swear I'd never write an Obidala, but this one just won't leave me alone. Though, before you all begin leaving in droves, this isn't going to be your average Obidala. Also, as a word to the mush lovers out there, Disney this is not. It's going to be a dark world. I guess in the end this is my attempt to answer my own question: Who, in the end, answers for the hubris of the Jedi who break the rules? Perhaps the draw to love is, in the end, self-destructive.

Please, please give me feedback.

And now without further ado:

Waiting for Absolution

And now the purple dusk of twilight time
Steals across the meadows of my heart
High up in the sky the little stars climb
Always reminding me that we're apart

You wander down the lane and far away
Leaving me a song that will not die
Love is now the stardust of yesterday
The music of the years gone by

Sometimes I wonder why I spend
The lonely night dreaming of a song
The melody haunts my reverie
And I am once again with you
When our love was new
And each kiss an inspiration
But that was long ago
Now my consolation
Is in the stardust of a song

Beside a garden wall
When stars are bright
You are in my arms
The nightingale tells his fairy tale
A paradise where roses bloom
Though I dream in vain
In my heart it will remain
My stardust melody
The memory of love's refrain

Stardust, Nat King Cole

Prologue

Out on the fringes of the Jundland Wastes, I am still surprised that even here, in what seems like the middle of nowhere, on the farthest outflung arm of the galaxy, I can still be caught unaware by the harsh beauty of the binary sunset. I have seen thousands of planets, probably more than most sentients even imagine exist, some with beauty that is verdant and obvious, other with a more subtle touch to the grandeur afforded to their landscape, flora, and fauna. Here on Tatooine, however, it always seems like the landscape is too harsh to yield to beauty. There are no hints of fecundity to cling to in the blazing heat or chilling nights. No breath-taking vistas, impressive waterfalls, or teasing forests. Just sand as far as the eye can see.

But here, there is a time in the evening, when the first sun has just begun to dip below the horizon, when colors bathe the browns, turning them to crimsons and amethysts and ceruleans. These shades, which I can see from the front door of the small shelter I now call home, serve to remind me in ways that I can't really articulate of the life I once led, a life so completely different, it's hard to imagine that I am still the same person, that the young man who grew up on Coruscant evolved into the old wizard who haunts the sands of the Wastes and does little but cultivate rumors which are traded as avidly as goods in the small towns that dot the landscape.

Part of me wonders what the gossip is tonight. I can remember being in the Temple and hearing what the Jedi would discuss, being aware of the hushed tones that would drift down the halls even there. Rumors abounded when Anakin came to the Temple, and I think every being there, except for me, had the discussion with someone as to whether or not he was the Chosen One. Rumors about my being the Sith killer. Rumors about the Nubian queen, who later became a Senator. All of this a focus before the Clone Wars absorbed all conversation and leeched the light-heartedness from the Order.

What happened to those days?

Crimson fades to amethyst as the first sun dips below the horizon, and I can feel the chill begin to seep into my old bones. I take a deep breath, enjoying the crispness of the air, savoring this moment of comfort, where the air is not too hot, but hasn't dropped to the point of invoking shivers. I close my eyes and expand my senses, searching out beyond my small home, across the Wastes, into the farming area. Out there, I find the boy I'm looking at, a weak point in the Force, but steady. I check every evening, feeling this source slowly grow as the boy grows, an instinctive reaching, searching, that is so much like his father, I find it hard to breath.

Abruptly, I break off the connection. Moments are safe, instants where I can change the ebb of the Force, but if I linger too long, the flux would become noticeable as something manipulated and not just a natural eddy within the Force's movement.

I try not to linger on many things these days.

I turn away from the suns and amble behind my small home, moving away from the crest which conceals it. There, I can see the empty expanse of sky that seems to this dusty, sleepy planet. With my eyes, I pick out systems I know, ones that I have traveled to, as well as others I have heard of. Even in the falling darkness I can pick out the hazy band streaking the sky, the Mid Rim of the Galaxy, behind which hides the Core.

Somewhere, behind that band, lost in its own haze of power and emotion – which I helped to create – is Coruscant, the only place I've ever really called home.

In my mind, locked in memories I can't complete block out, I see the Temple, the last time I saw that beautiful building, dark smoke curling from the central building. Although I was klicks away, lost among the crowds of the Entertainment District, I could almost smell the acrid stench, taste the ashes on my tongue.

I felt the heat as many of my comrades did, brave sentients who, in the end, paid the ultimate price for a crime they didn't commit.

Yoda has seen – had known – what was to come, and he had wisely sent me away, giving me a task I couldn't refuse.

I should have been there.

Tatooine has finally managed to make me see the kind of patience that the Jedi were always striving for, but none in the Order, save Yoda, could ever accomplish. There is a kind of serenity inherent in the lifestyle of a hermit that appeals to the Jedi raised in me – although it serves to make the man restless. It is hard to keep focus on the one last task before me, when I have been presented with such a commodity of time. There are long stretches of the day where I have learned to quiet my mind and meditate on the path that brought me here – to Tatooine that first time – and to this point in my existence.

In the end, it's a story I can't keep myself from analyzing; like a favorite story demanded by the Younglings, I know the characters intimately. I have seen the choices they made over and over again, reflected on what should have been done, as opposed to what has happened. I've tried to find meaning within the motivations, figured out where the fairy tale when sour.

I can only tell it to myself, over and over again. Pick apart the points where I could have made different decisions, points where I could have saved the Galaxy from what it has become.

Saved my Padawan from what he is now.

Saved Padmé from the fate she met in the end.

It is the ultimate penance, I suppose. I'll must wait – and remember – until the boy – Anakin and Padmé's son – is old enough to understand.

I have to be the one to explain to him.

Maybe by then I'll understand too.

Perhaps by then I will have forgiven myself.