The flight to Tatooine didn't take long. Or at least it didn't feel like it. Everything just seemed to blend together now.
"You should stay on the ship," he had told Padme. "It's safer." But Padme had flat out refused to leave his side. Anakin loved her all the more for it, even at the same time as he knew that it was wrong and that she would be better off if she took the ship right then and there and left him for good.
Obi Wan and Ahsoka too insisted on accompanying him. He couldn't blame them; after what he had done, of course they felt the need to keep an eye on him.
It did not take long to find Lora either. Asking around in Mos Espa, Anakin quickly learned that she and Alia now worked in a cantina known as the Sanctuary. It was closed when he arrived, but the proprietor was at home in the attached apartment, and she directed him to one of the shelters down the road. One of a row of what used to be slave quarters.
When they got there, Anakin heard voices inside. He almost wished that they weren't home. That it had been more difficult to find them, had taken longer because he certainly wasn't ready for what came next.
Despite the protests of every bone in his body, Anakin raised his hand and knocked. The voices stopped, and a moment later, Lora opened the door, a look of mild surprise on her face that quickly shifted to panic as she took them in. "Anakin… What's wrong? Where's Kari?"
"She's…" Anakin stammered. But he couldn't say it. Because even as he knew it to be true, it just couldn't be.
Obi Wan cut in, perhaps taking pity or perhaps just impatient to get this done with. "Ma'am, I think it might be best if we sat down for this. May we come in?" It was calm, almost practiced the way Obi Wan said it, like he had done this before, and Anakin thought dully that he probably had.
Lora nodded and silently gestured inside. Her older daughter, Alia, watched wide eyed as they entered.
"Alia… why don't you go ask Garsa for some drinks for our guests," Lora said softly but firmly.
Alia frowned but then nodded, recognizing the dismissal. After watching Alia disappear through the front door, Lora pulled back a chair from a table that was the sole piece of furniture in the small room and sank down into it. Obi Wan and Ahsoka sat down across from her while Anakin stared intently at the floor.
"This won't be easy to hear ma'am, but there was an attack on the Jedi Temple, and your daughter was killed."
There it was. So simple for Obi Wan to say, and yet it made Anakin feel like his breath had been forcibly torn away from him. It was what came next that was the worst part though. The screams, the sobs, and later, when Alia returned, hearing the girl's cries too through the all too thin walls. And it was all Anakin's fault. He had caused them this pain. He wished several times in those minutes that seemed to stretch on for hours that he could simply cease to exist.
Having no other family nor property of her own, Lora agreed that they should bury Kari on the Lars farm, next to her grandmother, and they all returned to the ship a few hours before the suns set. Lora sobbed when she saw her daughter's dead body, and she hugged her living daughter tighter. "How did it happen?" she whispered through tears.
"It's my fault," Anakin choked out, knowing that she would hate him for it but that he owed her the truth.
Lora turned to look at him, and suddenly Anakin found he could no longer be silent. The words poured out finally, and Anakin told the whole story, leaving nothing out: Palpatine, the clones and their control chips, the fact that he had been the one leading the clones. By the time he was finished, tears were streaming down his face as well. "I'm so sorry. It's all my fault," he concluded.
But Lora shook her head. "No. You loved her. This is the work of slavers. They killed our daughter. Promise me you will make them pay."
Anakin knew better. It was his fault. He obviously hadn't explained well enough. But it was Palpatine's fault too, and Palpatine would pay. "I promise," he whispered.
They buried her that night. Anakin could think of nothing to say. Nothing adequate to describe just what an incredible, amazing, perfect miracle she had been. Nothing adequate to describe how dreadfully sorry he felt and would no doubt feel for the rest of his life. Nothing could possibly be enough. Lora too seemed to be beyond words. Alia spoke to her little sister though, and Ahsoka, Padme, and Obi Wan said a few words too.
As he watched his daughter lowered into the ground, Anakin looked at the other grave, only a few paces away, and then down at his lightsaber. He had thought it would make him powerful, powerful enough that he wouldn't fail the people he loved, but it didn't. It had not helped to save either of them. It had taken countless lives and never done any good. And now he had corrupted the crystal inside it beyond repair. It felt sick, twisted, and horrible. Just like him. For a moment, Anakin thought he should bury it too so that he could never hurt anyone else with it.
But then he remembered the promise he had made. He would make Palpatine pay for everything that was lost forever. He would need the dreadful weapon just a little longer then, before he could lay it to rest forever.