Title: Labyrinth
Author: Jedi Rita
Rated: PG-13
Chapter Eleven
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Desperate, Anakin called out, "Hey! Wait for me!"
The blue eyes, warm like the Tatooine sky, locked onto him, firm but full of compassion and concern. "Anakin, stay where you are. You'll be safe there."
"But I --"
"Stay in the cockpit!"
Anakin hunkered down in the pilot's seat, frightened, watching as Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan turned and walked away. But hadn't Qui-Gon told him to watch and learn? How could he learn if Qui-Gon wasn't there? He hated to disobey, but he knew he couldn't remain behind. Qui-Gon was injured, and he needed Anakin's help. "I'll save you, Master!" he cried out. "I'll come back and rescue you!"
He scrambled out of the cockpit and ran after Qui-Gon, chasing down endless dark corridors. He was lost. He didn't know how to get out. But he could feel Qui-Gon's presence, his master's need. He would find him. He had to.
He ran out into a large chamber. It had once been a shopping area, but now it was abandoned. Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan were fighting the bounty hunters. Anakin wanted to help them, but he didn't know what to do. "Master, you will train me, won't you? I want to be your padawan!"
But it wasn't Qui-Gon who turned. It was Obi-Wan, his face contorted with hate. "He can only have one padawan. He is my master, not yours. He will never be yours."
Anakin screamed, for when Obi-Wan had turned away from Qui-Gon, he had left his master exposed. The bounty hunter, his red and black tattooed face impassive, raised his lightsaber and plunged it into Qui-Gon's heart, while Obi-Wan just stood by and watched.
Grief ripped through Anakin's body, with talons as sharp as a hawk bat's. Horrified, he turned on Obi-Wan. "How could you? You could have saved him, but you let him die!"
Obi-Wan shook his head helplessly, his sad eyes brown, like Shmi's. "I wasn't fast enough. I tried, but I couldn't get there in time."
Desperate, Anakin begged, "What will happen to me now?"
Obi-Wan looked on him with compassion. "The Council have granted me permission to train you. You will be a Jedi, I promise."
But what was such a promise worth, coming from one who had let his own master be killed? Obi-Wan had never wanted him before, why did he want to train him now?
Anakin held up his lightsaber. He had built it with his own hands. No one had believed he could build it so fast. Most students had to try several times over a period of months before they finally succeeded in constructing a live saber, but Anakin had always been good at building things, and he had known exactly what to do. It had only taken him three days, and he knew it would work. He pushed the activation stud, and the blade sang into life, deep red, the color of Qui-Gon's blood. He didn't need training. He had all the power he could ever want.
He pointed his blade at Kenobi. "When we last met, I was but the learner. Now, I am the Master!"
Obi-Wan met his gaze, his eyes blue again, but not warm like the Tatooine sky. They were colder than deep space. "You are only a master of evil."
Snarling, Anakin ran at Obi-Wan, the blood-red blade slashing at his chest. Obi-Wan collapsed, dead. Anakin stood over him, power coursing through him, so strong, so fierce, so uncontrollable he thought he would explode. Raw energy tore through him, ripping muscle from bone, boiling the blood in his veins, peeling the skin from his body. It felt like he was on fire. He couldn't take it any more. He would die.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Anakin jolted awake, jerking upright, gasping desperately for breath. His heart pounded so hard he thought it would burst through his ribcage. He couldn't see anything. His eyes had been burned away. He raised trembling hands to his ravaged face, but his fingers touched smooth skin, not the charred flesh that he expected. He ran his hands over his face, feeling his intact features, his hair, his braid. His hair and Obi-Wan's. He shuddered violently. Obi-Wan had killed his master. Obi-Wan had done nothing, had stood by while Qui-Gon was cut down.
/No, that's not true!/ Obi-Wan had tried to save Qui-Gon but couldn't get there in time. One night not long after Qui-Gon's death, Obi-Wan had sat Anakin down and told him the whole story of what had happened that awful day, how desperately he had wanted to save Qui-Gon, just as Anakin had wanted to save Obi-Wan from the bounty hunters. Like Obi-Wan, Anakin couldn't get there in time. He could do nothing to help.
But that had been his own fault, hadn't it? A moment of carelessness, an unforgivable moment of bravado, of a desire for vengeance, and Anakin had almost cost Obi-Wan his life. Is that also what had happened on Naboo? It couldn't be. It just couldn't be. Obi-Wan had loved Qui-Gon. He loved Anakin now, as Anakin loved him.
Didn't he?
Anakin trembled violently, horrified, ill. He staggered unsteadily to his feet, struggling to free himself from the dream's spell, to remember where he was. The ground level of Coruscant. Bail and Jar Jar lay asleep nearby, he could hear their even breathing in the darkness. Padme was on watch. Obi- Wan was wounded somewhere. /And it's my fault./
The dark beast returned, screaming inside him. Anakin clutched desperately at his head, wanting to crack open his skull and tear the beast out of his brain. This couldn't be! None of it was true! It was a nightmare, a nightmare only. He had had enough of them to know. They had become his nightly companions, those horrible dreams of loss, of betrayal, of hatred, of revenge. Anakin had taught himself how to forget them, how to lock them away, to feed them to the beast who swallowed them eagerly, so that Anakin could not remember them by the time he jolted awake. But even the beast was not strong enough to devour this dream, and without the beast's help, how could he control himself?
Anakin stumbled out of the room, away from the others so the darkness inside him couldn't harm them. Master Yoda spoke so sanctimoniously about anger, fear, aggression, but he had no idea what they really were. None of the Jedi did. Anakin, however, knew them like the sound of his own breathing, the taste of his own sweat, the beating of his own heart.
His feet carried him down the hall, his face buried in his hands. He walked blindly, like a drunkard, not a Jedi, knocking into the walls, tripping over his own feet, finally stumbling over a pile of debris and falling to his hands and knees. He curled up on the ground, hugging his knees to his chest. /Master, I need you! Help me, please!/ he cried silently. He didn't know if he was calling for Obi-Wan or Qui-Gon, but it didn't really matter. Neither of them could help him. No one could. It would be better for everyone if he just disappeared into the labyrinth and never re-emerged. It would be better for everyone if he just died.
He didn't know how long he lay there, but he slowly became aware of a gentle warmth penetrating all the way to his inner dark core, melting away his fear, tugging gently at the fierce grip the beast held on his soul. It wasn't his Mas-ter. It wasn't his mother. But he knew that touch.
Slowly he opened his eyes. A luminous face shone above him, lit by an inner light. That face was so beautiful, but its beauty had nothing to do with
physical appearance. She was an angel. He'd known it the first moment he'd laid eyes on her. She was an ethereal creature of strength, of goodness, of light. Her healing touch spread through him, an anti-venom to the beast's dark poison.
Padme had been keeping her watch out in the hallway. She had seen Anakin stumble out of the room where they had made camp. She could sense his anguish, and she had followed him. "Are you all right?" she asked.
Her voice fell on him like droplets of liquid gold, seeping into his cold skin the way Tatooine's twin suns gently burned away the nighttime chill. He rose, melting into her arms, into safety, into peace. His breathing was ragged, choked, but he did not cry. Anakin Skywalker never cried.
She held him, stroking his hair, rubbing his back, rocking him the way her mother used to rock her. Slowly his breathing grew even, and she could feel him begin to relax, just a little bit.
"You're worried about Obi-Wan."
He said nothing, unable to answer.
Padme continued, "I know it was hard for you to leave him behind. But soon we'll be out of here, and we'll get back to him with help. He'll be all right."
His grip on her tightened. He wanted to give in to her, to tell her the whole truth. But how could he? She wouldn't understand, and she would hate him. Even his angel couldn't save him from the beast.
Padme reached into her shirt and pulled out her pendant. She held it up in the faint light for him to see. "Do you remember this?"
Astonished, Anakin recognized the necklace he had carved for her all those years ago.
"I wear it every single day," she told him. "I never take it off. It reminds me that in the darkest hour of my life, someone helped me, someone I had only just met. And he helped me not out of a sense of duty or for reward but purely from a generous heart. I have never forgotten you, Ani. I owe you everything. I will always be your friend."
Had he really once been so pure? Anakin could hardly remember the boy he'd been back then, sheltered from the horrors of slavery by his mother, eager to help the beautiful stranger who had walked into Watto's shop. Could she be his salvation now?
"I had a dream" he began, his voice seizing up. He never told anyone about the dreams. "We fought, Obi-Wan and me. We were dueling with our lightsabers." He drew in a long, ragged breath. "I slashed him in the chest. I killed him."
Padme remained silent for several moments. "You blame yourself for his injury."
"Shouldn't I? It was my fault."
"It's always easier to see afterward what we should have done, but we were being attacked by three bounty hunters on bikes. That's a lot even for two Jedi to handle. You didn't want Obi-Wan to be hurt."
And was one Sith Lord too much for two Jedi to handle as well? He remembered how fiercely the dark warrior had fought on Tatooine. If Qui-Gon hadn't been able to leap into the ship, he would have been killed. Maybe Obi-Wan couldn't have saved Qui-Gon after all.
But the same could not be said of Anakin. "A Jedi should never lose focus like I did. I should never have abandoned Obi-Wan's flank. It's all my fault. If he dies --" He squeezed his eyes shut, the terror of the dream washing over him once more, drowning out his hope. In the dream, both his masters had died. There had been no one left to save him from his own power. "If Obi-Wan dies, no one else will train me."
"That's not true --"
"Yes it is," he bitterly protested. "None of them wanted me to be trained in the first place." He heard again Mace's cool voice, saw his granite eyes, as he pronounced the verdict in the Council room. /He will not be trained./ In the end they had rescinded their decision, but only under pressure. They gave in because Obi-Wan had promised to defy them. Obi-Wan, who had never trusted him, had pledged his support once Qui-Gon was gone. Anakin's heart bled with the need to believe in Obi-Wan. His fingers reached for his braid. /We are bound together. I do not doubt you, any more than I doubt myself./ He wanted so desperately to believe, but he could not. /If I doubt myself, Master, does that mean I can't trust you?/
The beast gnawed relentlessly at his heart. /This is your destiny,/ the icy voice rang in his chest. /You cannot escape it./ Anakin groaned. "Everyone I love, everyone who loves me, I lose them."
"Not everyone, Ani," Padme said gently. "I'm still here."
He shivered, and honesty compelled him to say, "I'll only betray you, too."
"No, you won't." The way she said it, it didn't sound like a belief or a conviction, but like a fact, as immutable as the rising and setting of the suns. "I know you. You would never betray me."
Her cool lips pressed against his burning forehead, and she rested her cheek against his. Her touch was like cool water at mid-day, like a song in tired ears, like the release of a long-held breath, like the stars anchored in the sky. She believed in him. She could save him. And slowly, hesitantly, he allowed himself to believe her, too, to believe that it would be all right, that he wouldn't drive her away as he had his mother and Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan.
But the beast in his heart knew better. Because in his dream, in that instant before the fire overcame him, he had killed Obi-Wan. And his black soul had rejoiced.
Author: Jedi Rita
Rated: PG-13
Chapter Eleven
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Desperate, Anakin called out, "Hey! Wait for me!"
The blue eyes, warm like the Tatooine sky, locked onto him, firm but full of compassion and concern. "Anakin, stay where you are. You'll be safe there."
"But I --"
"Stay in the cockpit!"
Anakin hunkered down in the pilot's seat, frightened, watching as Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan turned and walked away. But hadn't Qui-Gon told him to watch and learn? How could he learn if Qui-Gon wasn't there? He hated to disobey, but he knew he couldn't remain behind. Qui-Gon was injured, and he needed Anakin's help. "I'll save you, Master!" he cried out. "I'll come back and rescue you!"
He scrambled out of the cockpit and ran after Qui-Gon, chasing down endless dark corridors. He was lost. He didn't know how to get out. But he could feel Qui-Gon's presence, his master's need. He would find him. He had to.
He ran out into a large chamber. It had once been a shopping area, but now it was abandoned. Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan were fighting the bounty hunters. Anakin wanted to help them, but he didn't know what to do. "Master, you will train me, won't you? I want to be your padawan!"
But it wasn't Qui-Gon who turned. It was Obi-Wan, his face contorted with hate. "He can only have one padawan. He is my master, not yours. He will never be yours."
Anakin screamed, for when Obi-Wan had turned away from Qui-Gon, he had left his master exposed. The bounty hunter, his red and black tattooed face impassive, raised his lightsaber and plunged it into Qui-Gon's heart, while Obi-Wan just stood by and watched.
Grief ripped through Anakin's body, with talons as sharp as a hawk bat's. Horrified, he turned on Obi-Wan. "How could you? You could have saved him, but you let him die!"
Obi-Wan shook his head helplessly, his sad eyes brown, like Shmi's. "I wasn't fast enough. I tried, but I couldn't get there in time."
Desperate, Anakin begged, "What will happen to me now?"
Obi-Wan looked on him with compassion. "The Council have granted me permission to train you. You will be a Jedi, I promise."
But what was such a promise worth, coming from one who had let his own master be killed? Obi-Wan had never wanted him before, why did he want to train him now?
Anakin held up his lightsaber. He had built it with his own hands. No one had believed he could build it so fast. Most students had to try several times over a period of months before they finally succeeded in constructing a live saber, but Anakin had always been good at building things, and he had known exactly what to do. It had only taken him three days, and he knew it would work. He pushed the activation stud, and the blade sang into life, deep red, the color of Qui-Gon's blood. He didn't need training. He had all the power he could ever want.
He pointed his blade at Kenobi. "When we last met, I was but the learner. Now, I am the Master!"
Obi-Wan met his gaze, his eyes blue again, but not warm like the Tatooine sky. They were colder than deep space. "You are only a master of evil."
Snarling, Anakin ran at Obi-Wan, the blood-red blade slashing at his chest. Obi-Wan collapsed, dead. Anakin stood over him, power coursing through him, so strong, so fierce, so uncontrollable he thought he would explode. Raw energy tore through him, ripping muscle from bone, boiling the blood in his veins, peeling the skin from his body. It felt like he was on fire. He couldn't take it any more. He would die.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Anakin jolted awake, jerking upright, gasping desperately for breath. His heart pounded so hard he thought it would burst through his ribcage. He couldn't see anything. His eyes had been burned away. He raised trembling hands to his ravaged face, but his fingers touched smooth skin, not the charred flesh that he expected. He ran his hands over his face, feeling his intact features, his hair, his braid. His hair and Obi-Wan's. He shuddered violently. Obi-Wan had killed his master. Obi-Wan had done nothing, had stood by while Qui-Gon was cut down.
/No, that's not true!/ Obi-Wan had tried to save Qui-Gon but couldn't get there in time. One night not long after Qui-Gon's death, Obi-Wan had sat Anakin down and told him the whole story of what had happened that awful day, how desperately he had wanted to save Qui-Gon, just as Anakin had wanted to save Obi-Wan from the bounty hunters. Like Obi-Wan, Anakin couldn't get there in time. He could do nothing to help.
But that had been his own fault, hadn't it? A moment of carelessness, an unforgivable moment of bravado, of a desire for vengeance, and Anakin had almost cost Obi-Wan his life. Is that also what had happened on Naboo? It couldn't be. It just couldn't be. Obi-Wan had loved Qui-Gon. He loved Anakin now, as Anakin loved him.
Didn't he?
Anakin trembled violently, horrified, ill. He staggered unsteadily to his feet, struggling to free himself from the dream's spell, to remember where he was. The ground level of Coruscant. Bail and Jar Jar lay asleep nearby, he could hear their even breathing in the darkness. Padme was on watch. Obi- Wan was wounded somewhere. /And it's my fault./
The dark beast returned, screaming inside him. Anakin clutched desperately at his head, wanting to crack open his skull and tear the beast out of his brain. This couldn't be! None of it was true! It was a nightmare, a nightmare only. He had had enough of them to know. They had become his nightly companions, those horrible dreams of loss, of betrayal, of hatred, of revenge. Anakin had taught himself how to forget them, how to lock them away, to feed them to the beast who swallowed them eagerly, so that Anakin could not remember them by the time he jolted awake. But even the beast was not strong enough to devour this dream, and without the beast's help, how could he control himself?
Anakin stumbled out of the room, away from the others so the darkness inside him couldn't harm them. Master Yoda spoke so sanctimoniously about anger, fear, aggression, but he had no idea what they really were. None of the Jedi did. Anakin, however, knew them like the sound of his own breathing, the taste of his own sweat, the beating of his own heart.
His feet carried him down the hall, his face buried in his hands. He walked blindly, like a drunkard, not a Jedi, knocking into the walls, tripping over his own feet, finally stumbling over a pile of debris and falling to his hands and knees. He curled up on the ground, hugging his knees to his chest. /Master, I need you! Help me, please!/ he cried silently. He didn't know if he was calling for Obi-Wan or Qui-Gon, but it didn't really matter. Neither of them could help him. No one could. It would be better for everyone if he just disappeared into the labyrinth and never re-emerged. It would be better for everyone if he just died.
He didn't know how long he lay there, but he slowly became aware of a gentle warmth penetrating all the way to his inner dark core, melting away his fear, tugging gently at the fierce grip the beast held on his soul. It wasn't his Mas-ter. It wasn't his mother. But he knew that touch.
Slowly he opened his eyes. A luminous face shone above him, lit by an inner light. That face was so beautiful, but its beauty had nothing to do with
physical appearance. She was an angel. He'd known it the first moment he'd laid eyes on her. She was an ethereal creature of strength, of goodness, of light. Her healing touch spread through him, an anti-venom to the beast's dark poison.
Padme had been keeping her watch out in the hallway. She had seen Anakin stumble out of the room where they had made camp. She could sense his anguish, and she had followed him. "Are you all right?" she asked.
Her voice fell on him like droplets of liquid gold, seeping into his cold skin the way Tatooine's twin suns gently burned away the nighttime chill. He rose, melting into her arms, into safety, into peace. His breathing was ragged, choked, but he did not cry. Anakin Skywalker never cried.
She held him, stroking his hair, rubbing his back, rocking him the way her mother used to rock her. Slowly his breathing grew even, and she could feel him begin to relax, just a little bit.
"You're worried about Obi-Wan."
He said nothing, unable to answer.
Padme continued, "I know it was hard for you to leave him behind. But soon we'll be out of here, and we'll get back to him with help. He'll be all right."
His grip on her tightened. He wanted to give in to her, to tell her the whole truth. But how could he? She wouldn't understand, and she would hate him. Even his angel couldn't save him from the beast.
Padme reached into her shirt and pulled out her pendant. She held it up in the faint light for him to see. "Do you remember this?"
Astonished, Anakin recognized the necklace he had carved for her all those years ago.
"I wear it every single day," she told him. "I never take it off. It reminds me that in the darkest hour of my life, someone helped me, someone I had only just met. And he helped me not out of a sense of duty or for reward but purely from a generous heart. I have never forgotten you, Ani. I owe you everything. I will always be your friend."
Had he really once been so pure? Anakin could hardly remember the boy he'd been back then, sheltered from the horrors of slavery by his mother, eager to help the beautiful stranger who had walked into Watto's shop. Could she be his salvation now?
"I had a dream" he began, his voice seizing up. He never told anyone about the dreams. "We fought, Obi-Wan and me. We were dueling with our lightsabers." He drew in a long, ragged breath. "I slashed him in the chest. I killed him."
Padme remained silent for several moments. "You blame yourself for his injury."
"Shouldn't I? It was my fault."
"It's always easier to see afterward what we should have done, but we were being attacked by three bounty hunters on bikes. That's a lot even for two Jedi to handle. You didn't want Obi-Wan to be hurt."
And was one Sith Lord too much for two Jedi to handle as well? He remembered how fiercely the dark warrior had fought on Tatooine. If Qui-Gon hadn't been able to leap into the ship, he would have been killed. Maybe Obi-Wan couldn't have saved Qui-Gon after all.
But the same could not be said of Anakin. "A Jedi should never lose focus like I did. I should never have abandoned Obi-Wan's flank. It's all my fault. If he dies --" He squeezed his eyes shut, the terror of the dream washing over him once more, drowning out his hope. In the dream, both his masters had died. There had been no one left to save him from his own power. "If Obi-Wan dies, no one else will train me."
"That's not true --"
"Yes it is," he bitterly protested. "None of them wanted me to be trained in the first place." He heard again Mace's cool voice, saw his granite eyes, as he pronounced the verdict in the Council room. /He will not be trained./ In the end they had rescinded their decision, but only under pressure. They gave in because Obi-Wan had promised to defy them. Obi-Wan, who had never trusted him, had pledged his support once Qui-Gon was gone. Anakin's heart bled with the need to believe in Obi-Wan. His fingers reached for his braid. /We are bound together. I do not doubt you, any more than I doubt myself./ He wanted so desperately to believe, but he could not. /If I doubt myself, Master, does that mean I can't trust you?/
The beast gnawed relentlessly at his heart. /This is your destiny,/ the icy voice rang in his chest. /You cannot escape it./ Anakin groaned. "Everyone I love, everyone who loves me, I lose them."
"Not everyone, Ani," Padme said gently. "I'm still here."
He shivered, and honesty compelled him to say, "I'll only betray you, too."
"No, you won't." The way she said it, it didn't sound like a belief or a conviction, but like a fact, as immutable as the rising and setting of the suns. "I know you. You would never betray me."
Her cool lips pressed against his burning forehead, and she rested her cheek against his. Her touch was like cool water at mid-day, like a song in tired ears, like the release of a long-held breath, like the stars anchored in the sky. She believed in him. She could save him. And slowly, hesitantly, he allowed himself to believe her, too, to believe that it would be all right, that he wouldn't drive her away as he had his mother and Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan.
But the beast in his heart knew better. Because in his dream, in that instant before the fire overcame him, he had killed Obi-Wan. And his black soul had rejoiced.