Images of Padme's harrowing final minutes churning through his mind. Anakin stared blankly at the scene before him. Waterfalls filled the air with mist. Above the lush green landscape of Naboo, the sun was sinking in the sky. Fingering the gold rod that he had impulsively snatched from Qui-Gon, Anakin swayed slightly. He had bee so focused on the scene he was escaping that he had chosen his destination purely on impulse.
Now he was on Naboo, standing next to the vacation house by the lake where he and Padmé had shared that fateful meal. Still holding the gold rod in his hand, he walked cautiously toward the window. Inside sat two familiar figures, across the table from one another, eating dinner. One of these figures he had seen only in the mirror. He found himself gazing in pity at a younger Anakin, blissfully unaware of what the future held as he shyly flirted with Padmé.
Torn between her affection for the young Jedi padawan and her responsibilities as a Senator, Padmé struggled to avoid the emotional pitfalls that had eventually brought devastation to all that the youthful Anakin and Padmé had held dear. Anakin shuddered involuntarily, feeling an urge to protect Padmé from the young man who seemed to devour her with his eyes.
"Padmé," the former Darth Vader murmured, his eyes were fixed on the radiant young Senator from Naboo. For a moment, the intervening decades seemed to evaporate. But Padmé had eyes only for the young Jedi Padawan across the table from her. As Padmé smiled warmly, her companion began to show off.
Using a basic-level Jedi mind-trick, the youthful Anakin caused the fruit on Padmé's plate to move just beyond her reach. Looking on, from another dimension, the disembodied Anakin could see the tension—the subtle note of desperation in the youthful face of the Padawan. Padmé's worried look signaled her understanding that, by using the Force to show off, Anakin was breaking the rules. Yet she had no way of knowing that Anakin had, in fact, taken a first step toward cutting himself off from the source of his Jedi skills.
Inexorably, as a younger Anakin had proceeded further down that path, he had found that the natural, unthinking connection to the Force he enjoyed at this moment became more difficult to achieve. To maintain and advance his skills, Anakin had found himself casting about for other ways to tap into the energies that he had long taken for granted. Gradually, he had drifted toward the Dark Side, where he was able to use the very anger triggered by his sense of frustration and fear to advance his skill in manipulating the Force.
But, here on Naboo, excited by his proximity to Padmé, the youthful Anakin ignored the prickling of his conscience. With a painful flash of memory, the phantom Anakin recalled the mixture of elation and fear he had experienced at this moment. There had been a heady burst of excitement—accompanied by a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. In a fleeting moment of foresight, he had sensed that, in willfully deciding to pursue a private relationship with Padmé, he had embarked on a path that would cause him to be less open and trusting with the other Jedi, lest they sense his transgressions.
"Padmé!" the phantom Anakin called, yearning to warn her of the response that her smiles had set off in her young admirer. Focusing searchingly on Padmé's face, he willed her to hear him. But she gave no sign of awareness. Across the table, however, a younger Anakin wrapped his arms around himself, as if trying to ward off a sudden chill. A shadow seemed to have settled across the Jedi padawan's face, as if the older Anakin's nightmare of losing Padmé had somehow communicated itself to his younger self, blighting even this brief moment of happiness.
On impulse, the phantom Anakin reached out, touching Padmé's arm. But his hand passed through Padmé's flesh as if through air. With an anguished cry, he reached out again. No response. In panic, he clawed at the empty space around him, flailing, as if at the bars of an invisible cage. Then, suddenly, something caught hold of his hand.
"That's mine, as I remember," Qui-Gon said gruffly, as he plucked his time travel device from Anakin's grasp.
"What?!" Anakin roared. "How did you…?"
"The rods are made in pairs, lest a disoriented traveler get lost and not be able to find his way back," Qui-Gon responded quietly, holding up two identical rods of gold. "Obi-Wan found me. We used the mate of my rod to find you."
"Where is Obi-Wan…?" Anakin demanded, looking around angrily, his attention now fully focused on the dimension he shared with Qui-Gon.
Qui-Gon said nothing, but held out a gold time-transcending rod, as if attempting to hand it to someone. A patch of mist approached from the lake, obscuring Qui-Gon's hand. Then the mist faded away, leaving a clear view of the gathering sunset. But the gold rods that Qui-Gon had held out was now gone.
Anakin looked around warily. "Obi-Wan brought you here?
Qui-Gon nodded. "We can rejoin Obi-Wan later, if you wish."
"How did you find me?"
"Obi-Wan carries the mate of my time-transcending rod. So, when my rod was used by someone else, he knew that something was wrong. He used his rod to find me."
Anakin nodded absently, gazing longingly toward Padmé. "I've seen you and Obi-Wan communicate with the living. Why can't Padmé sense my presence?"
Qui-Gon smiled at the two figures sitting at the table. "Do you honestly think that anything could distract Padmé right now?" he chuckled.
"But he…" Anakin whispered, pointing hesitantly at his younger self, "he reacted to my attempts to reach out to Padmé…."
"Of course. 'He' is you. So, naturally, he was affected by your thoughts."
"If he is me, why can I stand here and watch him, the same as I am watching Padmé?"
"Because humans are multidimensional beings. Think about the dimensions of height, weight, and breadth. When you were in a physical body, you could not see the back of your head without a mirror. But, if you hit your head on something, it still hurt. If you lost blood from a wound on the back of your head, that loss of blood still affected you, even though you could not see the wound without using a tool like a mirror."
"This is not just a matter of using a mirror to look at the back of my head!"
"There is a thread of consciousness that connects all of the aspects of your own being. On a certain level, he is you, even though you may not always be aware of one another. Whenever you emit a powerful emotional energy, as you did just now, it will have an effect on all aspects of your being. You're just not often in a position to notice."
"It's Padmé I came here to see!"
"Of course, but it is yourself that you must heal, before you can be any help to Padmé. If the emotional energy that your younger self had received from you were more compassionate…"
"This is hopeless!" Anakin growled. "Let's get out of here…"
"If you wish. But it is not hopeless. I can show you how your daughter finally made peace with your memory…."
"Leia?"
"Yes," Qui-Gon answered, holding out the rod for Anakin to grasp.
This time the spinning sensation was more pronounced. It took Anakin several moments to open his eyes. Even before he had done so, he recognized the acrid scent of the dusty winds of Tatooine. When Anakin looked about him, he instantly recognized the barren landscape surrounding the hut where Obi-Wan had lived while Luke was gowing up. On the ridge beyond, a lone figure was pacing back and forth. Instinctively, Anakin sensed that this was Leia.
Purposefully, Anakin strode toward her, quickly leaving Qui-Gon behind. Relieved to be alone for a moment, Anakin enjoyed the sensation of perceiving the rocky hills directly--not through Darth Vader's goggle-eyed helmet. The lenses of that mask had filtered out any light that might have caused further injury to Vader's damaged eyes, but they also reddened the light. The implants in his inner ears had transmitted sound, but it always seemed as if he was listening to noises while under water. It was nice to be rid of the helmet. And the Emperor.
At the thought of Darth Sidious, rage again coursed through Anakin. For all those years, he had been imprisoned in a suit of body armor embedded with microchips that would allow the Emperor to cut off his life support systems at any time. Although Vader served as the public face of the Dark Side—intimidating, or destroying, all who might have stood in the Emperor's way--he had been but a prisoner, at his Master's call, within the armored cage that kept him alive.
As Anakin approached the lone figure on the ridge, he noticed and another had joined her. He grimaced, recognizing the smuggler Han Solo. Fortunately, Solo turned and went back inside the hut. Leia did not follow Han, but stood silently looking at the distant hills. In her hand was a battered datapad, blinking weakly.
Anakin approached cautiously, remembering Leia's reaction to his presence on Endor. His attention was drawn to the data pad. On the screen he saw an image of Obi-Wan. The datapad was asking for a password. Involuntarily, Anakin stiffened. How very different things might have been, had it not been for Obi-Wan! Even now, when he finally found himself alone with Leia, her thoughts seemed to be on Anakin's former Jedi master.
"Leia…" Anakin said softly, although he knew she could not hear.
"So many years…" Leia murmured to herself, staring back toward the hut, where she had apparently discovered the datapad. "How many sunsets did Obi-Wan watch from this ridge, feeling as helpless as I do now?"
Grimacing, Anakin approached closer. A tear rolled down Leia's cheek. She brushed it away, leaving a muddy smear where the teardrop had mixed with the blown dust that had settled on her face. Tatooine. Nothing stayed clean here for long. Leia's eyes had taken on a haunted look. Anakin remembered seeing that same trapped, haunted look on his mother's face when they were both slaves on Tatooine. How he has hated this place! Why had Leia come here?
Fearing that his presence might have triggered Leia's despairing mood, Anakin stumbled blindly down the rocky ravine where the sand people had attacked Luke. But, gradually, Anakin's steps slowed. How could he leave her like this? Longingly, Anakin turned and looked back. Once again, Leia had been joined by a second figure, a few years away. But this presence was indistinct, as if shrouded in mist. Leia seemed unaware of it.
Through the desert haze, Anakin could see that subtle energies were moving back and forth between the two figures. Protectively, Anakin moved in his daughter's direction. Predatory beings lurked in every crevice of this planet. To Anakin's surprise, however, going back up the ravine proved unaccountably difficult. An invisible force field seemed to slow his steps. Fearing for Leia, he peered up at her. She had straightened, but seemed calmer.
With an act of will, Anakin calmed his mind, becoming receptive to whatever energies might be emanating from the unknown figure. To his surprise, a clear image formed in his mind, not of Tatooine, but of a familiar fresco on the wall of the Jedi Temple, depicting emotional energies bouncing off of their target and returning to their sender. Wincing, Anakin found himself envisioning the twisted visage of Darth Sidous after his deadly duel with the Mace Windu, when the blue Force lightening that Darth Sidious had sent out had bounced back, dramatically transforming the visage of its creator.
Leia dropped the datapad on the ground. Her gaze again wandered to the horizon. "But what did Obi-Wan's worries and regrets accomplish?" Leia whispered softly. "By dwelling on the past, unable to forgive Vader, Obi-Wan just paralyzed himself."
Just then, Han reappeared in the doorway of the hut, staring at his chronometer. "The sandstorm seems to have stopped," he said gruffly. "We'd better be moving on."
Wordlessly, Leia nodded, stooping to pick up the datapad. They walked toward the landspeeder parked nearby. As Han revved up the landspeeder, Leia climbed in. Whatever the force field was that had impeded Anakin's progress earlier, it now seemed to have faded. Yet the indistinct presence on the ridge had not moved. Anakin climbed the ridge.
As he approached, the figure's outline became more solid. Anakin realized that the visitor inhabited the same dimension in which he now dwelt. It had only seemed hazy and insubstantial in comparison with the intransigent solidity of the physical world. As Anakin climbed, the figure turned toward him, as if quietly watching his approach.
"Who are you?" Anakin demanded, sensing something oddly familiar about the presence before him.
Gradually, the mist that had obscured the figure's features cleared. With a sense of shock, Anakin recognized the penetrating blue eyes.
"Obi-Wan!" he exclaimed, with a mixture of wonder and rage. For this was not the old man whom he had vanquished on the Death Star. This was the young master he had battled on Mustafar—the one who had inflicted the injuries that imprisoned Vader in his armored cage.
His former master bowed slightly in greeting but seemed distracted. "Leia found Schmi's electronic diary," Obi-Wan explained, as if replying to Anakin's unspoken thoughts. "She has been listening to the messages Schmi recorded, to give to you on your return to Tatooine."
Memories of his mother surged up at the mention of her name. "It was you who kept me from returning to rescue her!" Anakin barked, his mouth twisting as he recalled the manner of Schmi's death. Stored up regrets broke over him, like storm waves in a raging sea. Feeling shattered, desperate, Anakin turned his searing sense of frustration against his former master, using the Force to pound him with unspoken accusations, as if with blows.
Magnified through the Force, the backwash from Anakin's frenzied outpouring of rage was instantaneous. Perhaps he had triggered an upwelling of feelings that Obi-Wan had long suppressed. Images tied to Obi-Wan's kaleidoscopic emotions washed over Anakin: Padmé gasping as Anakin Force-choked her, Obi-Wan placing the infant Leia in Organa's arms, Beru smiling down at baby Luke, Padmé's tortured face as she gasped "There's still good in him…"
"I hate you!" Anakin screamed at Obi-Wan, pouring out his stored resentment toward the man who had maimed him, who had taken Padmé and his children away.
"I know" Obi-Wan responded with a resigned smile, a hint of wry humor stealing into his voice, "I think you have made that point before." The outpouring of images stopped.
Anakin struggled to call up the rage that he had habitually used as his shelter, but it did not come. "I hate you," Anakin said again, more softly, with less conviction.
"Perhaps your life would have been better had I not become part of it. Perhaps many would have been happier," Obi-Wan nodded.
These quiet words struck Anakin with unexpected effect, like a blow to the elbow that numbs the arm. Images of the day he had first met Obi-Wan flooded back. They had met not far from here. Would it have been better for the world if Anakin had lived out his days as a slave?
"Yes," Anakin said, staring at the floor. "It would have been better…for everyone." But, even as he said it, he involuntarily began to shake his head. To have not been a Jedi? To have known nothing but this dusty Outer Rim backwater of a planet? Raising his eyes, Anakin looked unsteadily at Obi-Wan. As his anger receded, an unfamiliar feeling replaced it.
"Thank you," he rasped grudgingly, "for what you did for Leia. I sensed in her the beginnings of a malaise similar to what I once felt…"
Obi-Wan smiled. A sense of warmth, which had once been so much a part of him that he hardly gave it a thought, stole through Anakin. But now it carried a poignancy that was all but unbearable, not unlike the sensation in a limb that had "gone to sleep" after the circulation had been temporarily cut off. As the sensation surged back, it was accompanied by a terrible ache. What could Anakin possibly do to erase all that had happened? Billions had died.
Just then, Anakin felt a hand on his arm. He turned. Qui-Gon had come up beside him. "I see that you were able to find Obi-Wan," he said amiably. "Want to go inside?"
Anakin shook his head, but found himself irresistibly drawn toward the small hut. How could Ob-Wan have lived here for all those years? The interior was a squalid mess. Everything of value had been long since stolen. The walls seemed to press down on him, still carrying the impression of Obi-Wan's grief-filled life of exile and isolation. Then a thought struck him.
"That's how you learned, isn't it? How to leave your body behind?" Anakin asked. "Like the pressure that gradually turns coal into diamond, the pressure you were under…"
Obi-Wan nodded. "As a Jedi, I assumed that I had achieved self-forgetfulness. Not really. But even grief and remorse eventually wear themselves out. I lost interest in my own mistakes. That left me free to explore beyond myself…"
"So, what happens now?" Anakin asked, relaxing somewhat.
"Luke needs your help," Qui-Gon answered quietly.