Up These Stairs

by Takianna

From Anakin's POV. I was really struck by the stairs to the jedi temple. This is a short and sweet little one shot that I wrote.

I watched as you walked down these stairs, amber light silhouetting you against the evening sky. In one moment, you knew what you had to do, while I still struggled with my place in a group who never would trust me. In your innocence, I should've listened to what you said, but I found myself wanting to be accepted.

I wanted to prove them wrong.

I trusted you Ahsoka. From the moment you were deemed as my padawan, I knew that you were someone I could be myself around. You knew I was the "chosen one" but you didn't remind of it. You were a child who needed my guidance and I wasn't sure that I was the most qualified to give you what you needed. Surely Master Kenobi was far more qualified, but Master Yoda knew that I needed you.

Down these stairs was your future. It was a future that made me jealous and made my heartbreak. I was too attached, too weak, to really let you go. I held on with everything I had, begging you to forgive the council one more time.

I made mistakes. Mistakes that have led me here, to these stairs. Once again I stand before a temple, which doesn't want me to be a part of them. A temple and order that continues to shun me in a way that I cannot and will not stand for anymore.

You were right, Ahsoka, when you said that you knew that I wanted to leave the order. I was selfish. I wanted to be with the love of my life. I wanted to live a life that the jedi would never give me. They wanted me for their own gain. They wanted me for the power that they thought I would bring to them.

They wanted to use me. I have let them for far too long.

I see it now. I see where I need to go and the path is straight. It will make all the things right that I could never change with my own two hands. I am ashamed that I never listened to what you were really saying. I believe if I would've left when I had considered it, then all of this would've never taken place.

I would be happy and the future would be clear.

Down these stairs was something I could never reach. It was a life where I was just Anakin. I wasn't the "chosen one" and I didn't have to save anyone from anything. It was a life I could've chosen to live, just as you chose to live yours. You were an example that in the middle of chaos, I was unable to follow.

Up these stairs, lies the people who hold tight to their power. They want everything to be their way, Ahsoka, and I can't let that happen. There is a war to end. A war that was perpetrated just to bring about the end of the jedi. I have never lied to myself about what this war really was and now I am going to end the war in the only way I know how.

So tonight, as the sky grows darker and the galaxy around us is plunged into the depths of darkness, I will go up these stairs and make them all pay for what they did to you and to me.