Chapter 6. Meetings

Anakin pried open the ceiling panel and dropped quietly onto a thickly carpeted floor. Padmé's cabin was certainly more luxurious than the ones on the other side of the ship. The room was dimly lit and it took a moment for his eyes to adjust. There wasn't a sound except for the faint, deep background thrum of the engines. He seemed to be in an empty bedroom.

Noiselessly he moved to the curving cabin wall, and slid along it through the deepest shadows toward an opening. It led to another room, evidently a sitting room, with a few tables and chairs and some wardrobes. The light was a bit brighter here.

Padmé was curled up in one of the chairs, wrapped in a dark cloak. After a few moments of listening he could make out regular breathing. He crept closer and found her asleep with her cheek resting on her hand. An almost untouched dinner tray sat on a low table at her side.

Anakin's throat tightened into a knot that tasted like tears. He was unprepared for the intensity of the feelings that swept over him at finally having her to himself. He couldn't remember a time when he hadn't been fighting his way toward Padmé in some way or another. Now his single-minded journey was over and longing turned into a desire so powerful that it swept him down to his knees in front of her. There he stayed for a while, just watching her sleep.


Bit by bit he let his head sink into her lap in complete surrender. It was the only place in the world where he felt at peace.

Padmé knew he was there even before she woke. Her hand found his cropped hair and slid gently over it, down the soft skin of his neck and under the edge of his shirt as she curled forward to embrace him.

"I'm sorry I'm late," he said into her lap. "Have you been waiting long?"

"A long time. It feels like forever." Her arms moved down around his shoulders and held him. He felt the knot begin to loosen. Far away the ship's engines pounded like a faint heartbeat. On top of that the silence in the room was profound.

Anakin reached up and gently began to draw her closer to his heart. "Is it possible that we actually have a moment of peace?"

She rested her head against his shoulder. "I am going to pretend that all those people have gone away. I only want to be with you."

"You're worried." He stroked her hair, her cheek, her throat. He had waited an eternity just to touch her.

"I walked into a trap. I don't know how to get out of it."

Still kneeling on the floor he wrapped her tightly in his embrace, as if to shelter her from the world. "I won't let you marry him. You won't have to." He was fierce.

She wanted to believe him. Sometimes it seemed to her he could do anything.

She made a last gesture toward her duties before giving up all thought of them. "Have you checked the ship?  Is everything all right?"

"It is for now." He stood up and reached down to gather her into his arms. "Your guests are surprisingly nervous considering that they appear to have the upper hand. Did you know that they have someone watching your door?  To see who goes in and out."

Padmé wrapped one arm around his neck and trailed the other hand along his face and across his lips as he carried her slowly toward the threshold of the other room. He drank in the feel and the warmth and the scent of her.

"Then how did you get in?"

"Sorcery," he said, with a faint smile.

Inside the bedroom Padmé noticed the open ceiling panel.

"I see," she said. "Sorcery." Burying her face in his neck, she said, "You don't have to listen to their nonsense. Just ignore it."

Using the Force to close the panel again so he didn't have to let go of her, Anakin decided that it was best to wait until later to mention what he was doing tomorrow.

* * * * *

Another unbidden vision came to the ancient Jedi Master like a waking dream. Its power and urgency held him fast while a thousand pictures unrolled in his mind with the clarity of a holofilm. It was unlike any vision he had experienced before. He could do nothing to stop the flood of images.

They began in ancient times at the dawn of the Jedi Order. The face of every Jedi who had ever lived flashed before his inner eye. Some he recognized from pictures and studies in the archives. Some he had never seen or imagined. Many he had known personally because of his great age. But he knew with absolute certainty that they were all his Jedi forbears, and that he was seeing the face of each and every one.

On and on the faces went in a dizzying progression through the centuries. They saw him. They knew him. He knew them. Faster and faster the images past, and yet he could distinguish and acknowledge each one:  Each face. Each life. They reached out to him with their thoughts, their deeds, and their struggles. "See me!" they seemed to cry out. "Know me!" Three, four, five centuries passed and still the flood came. He was filled beyond filling with their faces and the strength of their collective being.

As the images continued Yoda began to realize with a rising sense of despair and disbelief that all of the faces had one thing in common.

Fear. Every face showed fear.

This is not possible, he thought as the centuries of beings continued to reveal themselves to him. Jedi do not fear. Some of the greatest Jedi in the history of the Order passed before his awareness. Yet in this vision they were all afraid.

Yoda began to repeat the litany that he had passed on to generation after generation of younglings.

Fear leads to anger.

Anger leads to hate.

Hate leads to suffering and to the Dark Side.

The vision continued to the present. All the living Jedi were there. All of them were afraid.

Except one.

The vision faded. The ancient Master sat for long time.

A gentle tap on his door roused him and Obi-Wan slipped into the room.

"I am sorry to disturb you Master Yoda, but I must speak with you."

"Decided you have," the Old One observed wearily, still full of the grief and horror of his vision. "Follow your Padawan you will."

"I kept my promise to you, Master," Obi-Wan said, humbly. "I have thought about it. I have meditated on it." He looked up and in his eyes the old Master saw reflected in them the long line of the young man's Jedi predecessors back to the beginning. "I cannot and will not give up on him."

Master Yoda sat in weary silence for a long time. So young is he, he thought. Such a heavy burden he carries. And yet he knew from his vision that the burden was shared by all those who had come before. By every Jedi who ever had been and who was now.

This one, he thought. This one. Before him sat the young Jedi whose face had been without fear in his vision. He felt an outpouring of the deepest love for the younger man – the unequivocal love of the Force for all things that live and strive.

"Stop you, I will not. Heavy my heart is at the burden you take on."

"I took up this responsibility long ago, Master. I cannot put it down."

Fortunate the boy is, thought Yoda, to have this one as his Master. Know it, he may not.

"Go, then, Jedi Knight," Yoda said, grieving.

Obi-Wan stood up, bowed, and slipped back out the door.

Meditating further, Yoda realized that two faces had not appeared in his vision.

His own, and that of Obi-Wan's Padawan.

* * * * *

Elsewhere in the dark, deep night Padmé was awake.

"Anakin?" she whispered.

"Here." He reached for her.

"Anakin, do you believe in destiny?"

It took him a long time to answer. First he had to get past the clutch of bitterness he always felt at the word. It always seemed to come hand in hand with another hated set of words:  The Chosen One. That indefinable, unproven, random epithet that had catapulted him into the Jedi Order and followed him like a dark cloud ever since. Did he believe in destiny?  He didn't know. How could one know?

Finally he said, "The Jedi teach that destiny is a river that flows inexorably from its source to its end in the sea, where it loses itself in the larger cycle of the world. The end is inevitable. The fact that it will flow to the sea is inevitable. But in the river itself there are an infinite number of paths to that end. At every bend, at every rock and obstruction there are numerous decision points. New flows. Counterpoints. Diversions."

"So that is our free will?  The ability to choose the path, but not the ultimate outcome?

"I suppose."

She felt his resistance. "Do you believe that?"

There was another long silence. An intense silence that seemed alive with possibilities.

"I don't want to believe that the outcome is pre-ordained," he finally said. The realization was a revelation to him. Fervently went on, "I want to believe in free will. That we can change things and make them better. That the paths we choose are our own, and lead to new places."

"You believe in freedom, then."

"Yes." He turned the thought over and over in his mind. "In freedom." Then he paused. "Why do you ask?"

"I keep feeling that some kind of destiny – some Force – has flung us together."

He moved closer. "Why does it have to be destiny?"

"Anakin, the Galaxy is vast. What are the chances of our finding each other if there weren't something else working toward it? Some kind of power or Force?"

The will of the Force. Destiny.

Anakin realized he wanted none of it.

The believer in freedom wrapped himself around the believer in destiny so that she couldn't have moved if she tried.

"I would have found you anywhere," he said.

* * * * *

It was always night in space. Padmé would have been content to let it go on forever. But the daily cycles of planetary life were imposed as inexorably on the ship as they were at home, and so at a time that purported to be early morning Sabé tried as discretely as possible to make her presence known to her Mistress.

Anakin heard her soft taps on the door from the sitting room immediately and decided it was time to go. By the time Padmé woke up and heard them he was dressed.

"No!" she said, making a grab for him. "Don't go."

Sabé heard her voice and called out, "My Lady?  May I come in?"

"I have to," Anakin whispered. "Sabé's here."

"Oh, don't mind her," Padmé said, making another grab for him. "She got you in here in the first place, didn't she?"

He caught her hand and kissed it. "Yes, but I can get myself out."

"My Lady?"

Padmé continued to ignore her Handmaiden, intent as she was on keeping Anakin there for just a little longer. "Why are you in such a hurry?"

"Ready or not, I'm coming in," said Sabé firmly. The door slid open. Anakin disappeared into the fresher.

Sabé stopped short when she saw her Mistress. "Ye Gods," she burst out. "How do you look!"

Padmé scowled at her. "What are you talking about?"

It wasn't just the disarray, Sabé thought. It was her face, her lips, and the look in her eyes. She looked like a woman who had been…"Gods."

"I don't know how to say it," Sabé said with complete honesty. "You look …" she struggled to find the right words. "You look …"

"Ravishing," Anakin said, coming out of the fresher. "She looks ravishing." He looked the same as always, although perhaps with less of an edge.

"More like ravished," Sabé muttered as Padmé looked at her indignantly. "What am I going to do with you?  You can't go out looking like that! And what's that thing on your neck?"

Padmé looked at Anakin. He mouthed something that looked like "Sorry." Then, quickly, to Sabé, "Which way out?"

Sabé jerked her thumb upward. "You had better hurry." He started to open the ceiling panel.

"Wait," Padmé demanded. "What is going on?"

Sabé looked at Anakin accusingly. "You didn't tell her."

He was unabashed. "I didn't get around to it."

Sabé put her hands on her hips. "Well, My Lady, your glittering bridegroom has challenged our young Jedi here to a swordfight. An exhibition match. This morning. In the dining salon. The whole ship is coming."

Padmé was horrified.

"Don't worry," Sabé hurried to reassure her. "It's not about you. Your secret is safe. It seems to be about Jedi scum and sorcery."

"Coming?" Anakin asked Padmé ingenuously.

"Under no circumstances," Padmé said, outraged, "will I condone such a display on my ship. And in the middle of negotiations! I forbid it."

"Anakin can't back down," Sabé said. "Our warrior friends would take it as a sign of weakness and come straight in for the kill. He's actually doing us a favor." She grinned at Anakin. "Provided he wins, of course." She leaned conspiratorially toward Padmé. "He's not allowed to use sorcery, you see."

"This is an outrage," said the Senator, tight-lipped.

Anakin bent down to kiss her, then looked straight into her yes. "Don't worry, Senator," he said, "I have your best interests at heart." His eyes said, trust me. And then he disappeared through the opening in the ceiling, pulling the panel gently shut behind him.

Padmé stared at the place where he had disappeared.

"Come on," said Sabé to her mistress. "There's not much time to get you decent."

"Don't bother," Padmé said darkly. "I'm not going."

"Perhaps not," said Sabé firmly, "but I am. I wouldn't miss it for the world." She looked speculatively at her Mistress. "Perhaps I can find something with a veil…."

"Out," said the Senator. "Get out now." And she buried her head in a pillow.