Disclaimer: I don't own Star Wars. That privelge belongs to Mr. Lucas.
A/n: Yup, another Episode 3 one-shot. What can I say? I apparently enjoy Episode 3 related stories, particularly exploring Anakin's anguish. Anyways, I had a few minutes in between projects to submit something, so here it is. Enjoy. (And anyone else going through thier own Week of Evil, consider this a tiny break from all the projects and/or homework).
There is an instant that could have changed it all.
One, small moment, as his hands clutch at volcanic ash and the pain is incredible and insurmountable, when he looks up at the man who did this to him. The message in his eyes is so clear it is as if he has spoken his thoughts out loud.
Please… help me… he thinks.
He wants to reverse it all, to take it back, change his actions. Go back to when they were Padawan and Master, friend and friend, brother and brother, like father and son. Go back to before something inside snapped, before it broke, shattered into a million pieces, never to be retrieved or repaired. Go back to before he made this choice, this awful, terrible, choice.
His eyes are pleading and sorrow-filled and he wants so badly to cry out that he's sorry – for he really, truly is! – and please, please don't let me die…
And his former Master looks sorry too, with eyes also showing deep sorrow and despair. He never wanted it to end this way, never ever thought it would be this way. If his Padawan will just say the words, and really mean them, he will scramble down the ashy slope and help him in an instant. Gather his broken body and rush him to the nearest medical facility and help him live, help him get it back to the way things were. He'll get them back to be friends, brothers, back to an unstoppable team, back to being Skywalker and Kenobi, heroes of the Clone War…
But it is only an instant.
In the next, the hatred and anger and darkness well up inside the Padawan – who is no longer a Padawan. He thinks of how blind his Master always was to the Padawan's power and strength, to the corrupted Jedi and their sinister ways. He thinks how he was so nearly a part of their evil, how he saw the evil Jedi manipulating the Republic he used to stand so strong for. He thinks how it had for long been his greatest life ambition to become a Master like the one standing above him now. The anger is red and hot and overwhelming.
He remembers the moment when the Master descended the ramp of the ship his wife had driven. His nightmares sear through his mind and the fury explodes out of him, because he knows that every last person who he ever cared about has betrayed him.
He screams the pure hatred pumping through his body, and it's coupled with the pounding physical pain. He stares up at the Master, who is out of reach, looking down with pity and intense grief.
The instant that could have changed everything is lost forever.
A/n: That's what I think, anyways, based on Hayden's performance in that heart-wrenching scene in Ep 3. Any, every and all reviews are much appreciated. :D