Chapter 11

"Until a person can say deeply and honestly, "I am what I am today because of the choices I made yesterday," that person cannot say, "I choose otherwise."

Stephen R. Covey

"When we forgive evil we do not excuse it, we do not tolerate it, we do not smother it. We look the evil full in the face, call it what it is, let its horror shock, stun and enrage us, and only then do we forgive it."

Lewis B. Smedes

The sound of the conference room door sliding open startles us, causing Anakin and I to jump apart almost guiltily. Funny, isn't it, how these habits are ingrained into our very being. Even after all this time, the habits learned during our all too brief time together still control our actions.

As this thought crosses my mind, I can't help but wonder . . . What other defenses are merely habit, and nothing more?

My eyes dart to the door, just in time to see Captain Piett's face suffuse with a rather interesting shade of red, and then blanche completely when his nervously shifting eyes light on the unconscious Admiral.

"We, . . . We have arrived, Milord," he says, his voice only slightly unsteady.

Anakin remains silent, his implacable gaze focused on the nervously shifting Captain.

Moving forward, I lay a hand on his arm once again, a subtle reminder. He looks at me, the harsh lighting glinting off the unreadable mask. The sense I get from him is odd . . . something I can't quite put my finger on.

The bond between us has been slowly strengthening since the moment he first touched me, like a rubber band growing tighter every moment, and now the perceptions I receive from him are clearer than before, but still like an image seen through foggy glass. There, but indistinct. It is through this bond that I feel a slight surge of disappointment.

My eyes widen involuntarily as I realize that Anakin was enjoying intimidating the Captain.

The look in my eyes must have been rather censorious, because the disappointment is quickly followed by a wave of resignation.

A small smile lurks about my lips as he turns to face the Captain once again. I can almost see him rolling his eyes in resignation. He was never one to surrender gracefully.

"Very well, Captain, I assume my shuttle is ready for launch," he says, his dark voice rumbling stiffly.

"Yes, Milord, it is waiting for you whenever you are ready."

"Good. After I leave, you are to transmit a quarantine warning. This vessel is on complete lock-down. No one is to leave or board this vessel, and no transmissions are to be sent or received. Do I make myself clear, Captain?"

"P... Perfectly, Milord." I can tell he wants to question this, but knows better then to push his luck.

Anakin nods curtly, before putting his arm to my back and gently escorting me past the Captain.

Just as the door is about to close behind us, he turns back.

"Captain, have someone throw Tarkin into a containment cell, he's overstepped himself one too many times."

The door closes on the baffled Captain, and Anakin once again escorts me through the gauntlet of curiously peering eyes that follow us across the room. Such is the feeling of being dissected that I breathe a small sigh of relief as the doors to the lift close behind us.

The lift comes to a stop and Anakin steps from it, pulling me along beside him. He appears to be lost in thought as he hurries me down the empty corridor, his grip on my arm firm but not uncomfortable. Still, I have had just about enough of being towed around like a child.

"Anakin!"

He doesn't respond to my use of his name, neither does he seem to be aware of the persistent tugging of my hand. His grip on me is too strong to be broken, even though his hand is not tightly closed about my arm, it's like a band of steel, immovable.

Concern and annoyance war within me as I alternately try pulling on my arm and calling to him. I even try to stop in place but nearly fall on my face as he continues forward.

We come to a stop before the lift, and still he doesn't acknowledge my persistent tugging. Finally I give into my frustration and deliver a sharp kick to his shin. That did it.

His head turns toward me sharply, and I can sense his shock and incredulity through our bond.

"Did you just kick me?"

I smile sweetly up at him before speaking in a deliberately saccharine tone. "Yes, and now that I have your attention would you kindly let go of my arm, and stop towing me around as though I were a child."

"My apologies," he says stiffly, as he releases my arm.

I'm tempted to ask him what is going on in that head of his, but I do not think he would tell me if I asked. He's become too good at keeping secrets.

The rest of the trip to the hanger passes in a blur of grey and white. Hallways and passages blurring into a muddled image in my mind. I can't help but wonder how Anakin ever manages to find his way in the stark corridors where one looks much the same as the other.

The hanger is not much different; high grey walls, sterile and cold like everything else I have encountered aboard the Executor. The various craft in the hanger bay lack the class and smooth lines from my time. All are in shades of black and grey, no art, no joy, no life. An icy shiver crawls down my spine, and I wrap my arms about myself, as though there was a sudden chill in the air.

Anakin comes to a stop at the ramp of one of the shuttles. Lke the rest it is an ugly shade of grey, all hard angles, and sharp lines.

I feel a measure of relief as Vader follows me up the ramp and it retracts. We are leaving this place, and to be honest I am glad. So much has been happening, and it is all still so very unreal.

Except for Anakin. He is real; the only thing I am certain of, and that frightens me more than it should. Even though my feelings about my husband have been becoming clearer, and less tangled, they are still so full of contradictions and hidden hurts that I do not know how I will respond to him from one moment to the next. There are times when I want to strike him, claw at him until I draw blood, and then there are times when I want to hold him to my bosom and soothe him as I would a child. There are times when I want to hurt him, to punish him for what he has done, to me, to the galaxy. But at the same time, I do not want to see him harmed and I know that if anyone were to try to harm him I would stand against them to my last breath.

And that's the crux of it I suppose. I love him. Blindly, madly, painfully, I love him. Love doesn't have conditions. It's not, 'I love you if', or 'I love you as long as'. It's, 'I love you'. No exceptions. No matter what lies between us, no matter what he has done, I still love him, and I know I always will.

I look up, startled at Anakin's touch on my arm. He gestures toward the copilot's seat silently, and I slowly sink into the soft cushions. He starts to reach over to fasten the safety belt, but I give him a reproving look and he steps back, instead busying himself with the pre-flight procedures.

The shuttle hums to life around us and the small vibrations course through me as Anakin's fingers nimbly fly across the controls. The shuttle slowly exits the hulking behemoth that is the Executor and Anakin executes a sharp turn bringing us up and over the grey hull.

And then... then Coruscant looms in front of us, a huge glittering jewel hanging in the sky.

I can feel a lump forming in my throat at the memory of what that world represents. Memories claw at my mind, bringing tears to my eyes, but I stubbornly push them back down inside of me. Now is not the time to wallow in pain and self-pity.

I turn, feeling Anakin's eyes on me. Through our bond I can tell that he is distracted, lost in his own thoughts.

"What?" I query softly.

"I was just thinking about the first time I saw you." He pauses for a moment before continuing.

"I thought you were the most beautiful creature I had ever seen. I was enamored with you from the first, and then . . . then you smiled at me. I will never forget that smile as long as I live. The image of you standing in that filthy little shop is as fresh in my mind as if it happened yesterday. We were separated not long after that, but ten years later we were reunited once again. For me it was as if nothing had changed, you were even more beautiful than I remembered. Then you smiled at me again, and you had my heart. And now . . . "

He pauses, whether to gather control, or to brace himself for what he is to say next, I could not say.

"Now, here we are, and another ten years have been stolen from us, and I'm realizing that I would do anything to have you smile at me like that again."

My heart clenches painfully in my chest. And I release a heavy sigh before speaking softly, "What do you want from me, Anakin?"

"I want you to forgive me. I want you to look at me the way you once did! I want everything to be as it was before . . . "

The anguish emanating from him in waves is nearly my undoing.

"Things can never be as they were, Anakin. There is too much that lies between us for things to ever be the way they were."

My words are not without regret.

"Do you think I don't know that? Do you think that I wouldn't take everything back if I could? I can't. This is me! This is what I've become!"

"This may be what you have become, Anakin, but it's not you. Your actions don't define you anymore now then they did then. You've made choices, and you're still making them. But you are not Vader, Anakin. If you were, I would not be sitting here right now. And yet, here I am, in spite of all logic, and all reason.

"By all rights I should have died in that pit Anakin . . . but I didn't. Against all logic, you found me, and you saved my life. So you're right, here we are ten years later, and the question, for me at least, is, what have you learned in those years, Anakin? Can you face what you've done? Can you move past it? Or are you going to stay on this course that Palpatine set you on all those years ago . . . "

"And if I do? If nothing can change, and this is really what I am? What then? What will you do then?"

I look at him, my own sorrow carefully masked behind a calm facade.

"You know the answer to that, Anakin. You knew before you even asked."

The gloved hand smashes down on the wall panel so heavily, that the panel rends around it.

"I won't lose you again," he says in a voice harsh with anger and pain.

My own throat constricts painfully, but the words still slip from my tongue, easy as water and sharp as glass.

"You lost me a long time ago."

"Don't say that!"

"Say what? The truth? You lost me the moment you made your choice. At the time we were both to busy denying the fact that our bond was slipping through our fingers to realize it had already been cut.

"Do you know what really caused me to pull away from you on Mustafar? Not what you had done, not what you were saying, though they most certainly contributed to it. It was the look in your eyes, it was knowing that you didn't just kill those people, you enjoyed it. There was a mad fever in your eyes, Anakin, and if I had stayed, if I had allowed myself to stay for even a moment, it would have consumed us both."

I pause for a moment, chest heaving with remembered pain and anger.

"You still cannot face what you have done, can you? You can't accept that what happened was no one's fault but your own."

He begins to speak then, desperately justifying himself, blaming everyone but himself for the mistakes of the past.

"No! No more of this, Anakin! You can't keep blaming everyone else for what you've done! It's always been someone else, Anakin. I won't deny that we all made mistakes, all of us. The Council, Obi-wan,myself. I will admit that readily. But you still chose, Anakin, YOU made the decision to do what you did. YOU chose to fall, YOU chose to murder the Jedi, YOU chose to choke me. Palpatine may have manipulated you, and yes I do think he deserves to pay for his part in all of this, but in the end, Anakin, it was still you. It always was."

He says nothing, and though I try, I cannot feel anything from him through his barriers. He turns from me and begins to man the controls once more, almost mechanically. He does not say another word, or so much as acknowledge my presence, as he brings us in through the atmosphere of Coruscant.

He skillfully brings us into a small landing strip, and set's the shuttle down with hardly a shudder. The ship powers down around us, and the silence is almost unbearable. Then, it breaks, and he says the one thing I never expected him to say.

"You're right..." he pauses, and I stare it him, shock evident on my features.

"It was my decision. I thought I was doing what was best for us, but I was just lying to myself. Maybe I knew from the first that I would lose you, only I didn't want to admit it. I made myself believe that I could save you, that I would be strong enough, and powerful enough to keep you safe...I was wrong. I still lost you. I still hurt you, and I destroyed everything we had... could have had.

'I don't know what else I can say to you. I was wrong. I think I've known that for a long time now, only I didn't want to admit it. If I admitted that I was wrong, then everything I did was for nothing. I guess I just realized that, whether I acknowledge it or not, it was still for nothing. There's nothing more I can say to you. I have no excuses that you haven't heard, no defenses."

The first shock passes, and I carefully get up from my seat and move toward him. Acting on instinct I reach out gently and pull off the top of his mask, and then the face plate. Taking his hand in mine I crouch before him. His head hangs in shame and tears run down his cheeks, a broken king sitting on a hollow throne.

Reaching up, I gently wipe the tears from his cheeks. He raises his head slightly, and his eyes peer into mine, the rich blue orbs clouded with bewilderment. My heart clenches painfully, and for a moment we're back in that dingy garage on Tatooine, and all I want to do is hold him.

His eyes continue to search my face almost desperately, and then he reaches for me, pulling me to him. His hand tangles in my hair, the other tight around my waist, as he balances me on his knees.

I gently press his head to my shoulder, my fingers stroking the back of his head soothingly, and let him cry out his guilt and remorse for what he has done. The wall has broken and what will happen now I do not know.

Perhaps it is only because of his reminder earlier, but my words from so long ago echo tauntingly in my mind.

"You'll always be that little boy I knew on Tattooine!"

Yet another thing I was wrong about. It seems the little boy I once knew, has finally become a man.