A/N: Thank you Rachella for reviewing.


Chapter Fifty-two

Be Strong

There was smoke rising up into the sky when they neared Padmé's neighborhood.

All that was left when Anakin and Padmé ran off the Naboo Cruiser was rubble. Pieces of dura-crete, the broken up pieces of tile from her house's roof.

Ryoo was standing amidst the destruction, her dress tattered. Her face covered in ash. Some of her hair had burned off and was shorter on one side.

Padmé knelt and the little girl ran into her arms.

"Where's your sister?" Padmé asked, trying and failing to control the tears welling up in her eyes.

"I don't know."

Padmé looked up and Anakin was digging through the debris with his bare hands.

"Ani, you're only one person. You can't look through all this on your own."

"Yes, I can."

He stood and closed his eyes, trying to map out the area in his mind. Steadying his thoughts so he could pick up any force signatures from the area. Padmé watched curiously, running her hands through Ryoo's long brown hair.

"Can you sense anything?"

"They're here. But their force signatures have blended into each other. I don't know where to look."

"There must be a concentration of energy somewhere. They wouldn't have got very far from each other."

'Hello! Can anyone hear me?!" He yelled.

There was no answer.

Queen Jamillia's security team appeared.

"Senator Amidala."

"Oh thank goodness."

"Was your family here when the house went down?"

"Yes."

"Alright, let's start the search."

The team of about 10 began to dig through the piles of broken duracrete.

Anakin was tired, his usual endless energy fading with the stress of the day. But he refused to give up. He remembered Obi-wan's bits of wisdom. The Jedi Master's unbreakable bond with the force. It wasn't easy for Anakin to ignore all the spiritual pain he felt, all of the pain he was surrounded with.

It had never been easy for him to focus his efforts onto one simple task. He was too easily distracted. But he didn't have any other options. And so he focused, his palms facing the sky. Summoning the power of the force. His teeth clenched, brows furrowed. Beads of sweat spotted his forehead.

The enormous pieces of dura-crete rose into the air.

He managed to lift a third of the debris and throw it aside, before he fell onto his knees in exhaustion.

The seconds passed like years. The afternoon powder blue sky was beginning to turn into the deep cobalt of dusk and Anakin knew they would probably call off the search soon.

One of the members of the rescue team waved his hand. They had found something.

Anakin jumped over various pieces of debris.

When he neared the rescue worker, he saw a little chubby face. Pooja. She was alive, but unconscious. There was a gash on her forehead. He helped the worker dig. The instant they had taken all the debris off her, Anakin picked her up.

"Pooja. Sweetheart. Wake up."

She was unresponsive. There was a medic and they took the little girl from him, attaching various tubes to her small body. A make-shift ventilator. Some fluids.

He had always prided himself on being strong. On moving forward when everything was falling apart. Gods know he did that on Tatooine. Whenever Shmi fell ill and he feared for her life.

There had been so many times when she got infections from cuts from working herself too hard. Her fever soaring. When he was a slave and a child and all alone and there was no one to help him if she died.

How he had wanted to fall apart. And how he knew he couldn't. How he knew he had to be strong for her. Take on double the work so Watto wouldn't punish her.

He had been so resilient. But he couldn't anymore. He was digging still, caught up in the motions. So focused he could barely feel the tears on his face.

He could hear the whimpering of a woman.

"Jobal."

Her voice was broken, "Ana-kin."

He coughed, the ash building up in his lungs.

Jobal was weak, but he could see the questions in her eyes. The question every mother always had for her children.

"Padmé is fine." He said.

She was on a stretcher and the medics carried her away. Padmé was by the woman's side, holding her hand.

Sola and Ruwee were still missing.

Anakin wanted to keep going, his mind was screaming at him to go on. But he felt so painfully human in that moment. He didn't feel like a Jedi. He didn't feel like the Chosen One. He felt like a man at the end of his rope.

He walked back towards the medics. They steadied him and offered some water.

He looked over at Padmé and her incomplete family.

She looked back at him. It was like looking in a mirror. He knew his face looked so much like hers in that moment. The face of exhaustion and defeat and confusion.

The rescue workers were huddled in one area among the debris and he knew they had found something.

Sola stepped out of the rubble like a phoenix rising out of the ashes. Her face and hair were caked in ash. She looked bruised, but she stepped out of the destruction as if nothing happened.

It shouldn't have surprised Anakin. She was so feisty.

He had hope for an instance. That everything was going to end up all right.

But that was before he saw the medics trying to revive Ruwee. That was before he saw the medics clothes soaked in blood. That was before he saw them walk back with the man's lifeless body solemnly, shaking their heads.

"Daddy!" Padmé wept.

She was the mature one of the couple. Every day he had known her, she was the wise one. The one who had everything together.

But in that moment, Padmé was no more than a child. A hopeless, helpless child who didn't know what to do. Who couldn't do anything but cry.

Their voices were muffled and distant as Anakin fell back into the recesses of his mind. His face was in his hands and his eyes were shut.

And there was nothing.

Nothing but pain.