Chapter 21. The Gift
"Anakin, stop."
He looked behind him to find that Padmé had sunk to her knees on the stony slope they had been climbing for some time. He went back and crouched down beside her.
"This isn't going to work, is it?" she asked looking straight into his eyes.
"No," he admitted. "I don't think so."
"Then let's just stop," she said softly. Grief was weighing on her so heavily that she could barely put one foot in front of the other. After a desperate night together in the forest clearing they had resolutely spent the day continuing Anakin's plan of trying to teach Padmé to use the Force to shield herself. A few simple experiments had made it clear that while she had learned a good deal, nothing would change the basic reality of their situation. For the last two hours, walking up the forested slopes of the Stonefoot Mountain, Padmé had begun to accept the truth.
She turned around to face the valley below and foothills and plains beyond. The setting sun cast long fingers of gold and red over the rolling landscape. Anakin sat down behind her and enfolded her in his arms.
"So this is the end." Padmé forced herself to say it out loud.
"I can't think of another way out," he conceded unhappily.
"Unless…unless you stay here. With me."
Anakin groaned. "You know I would, if it would help. You know I would. But it would be worse for you." They had been though this before. "You would very quickly lose your independence. If I go now you will recover, in time."
"So…" Padmé said, trying to form a picture of the rest of her life, "we go our separate ways. You return to the Temple and finish your training. I continue in the Senate. We inhabit the same Galaxy. We often live and work on Coruscant at the same time. But we never see each other again."
"It's either that," Anakin said grimly, "or we do see each other. But we never get really close. And I'm always heavily shielded around you."
It sounded like a vision of eternal darkness and misery.
"I can't imagine living like that," Padmé said.
"Neither can I."
As the sun moved closer to the horizon darkness gathered quickly.
"I don't know how to do this," she whispered after a while. She reached up and grasped his gloved right hand. "I envy this hand. It doesn't feel." Sorrow was like a stone weighing on her heart.
Anakin was struggling with his own demons. Denial and distraction usually kept them at bay. But he could no longer deny the truth. And worst of all, there seemed to be no comfort from his old friend, anger. There was no one to blame, except maybe himself, and all the rage in the world would not make things the way he wanted them to be. Unleashed, his demon voices rose to the surface and taunted him with his fears and his failings. There was nowhere to hide.
"Anakin," Padmé said after a while. "Let down the rest of your shielding. Please."
"I…I shouldn't. It's only going to be worse for you."
"One last time. I want to remember what it's like to be one, not two."
Anakin hesitated. He wanted to, but this was probably the worst part of the problem: this merging where the boundaries between them fell away.
"I want your soul," she said fiercely. "I want to know everything that is inside of you."
"All that pain?" he asked. "Is that what you want?"
"I just want you. All of you."
Anakin succumbed. He couldn't deny her anything. Slowly he let go of his mental shielding and allowed the Force to flow between them without barriers. He adjusted his breathing until the rhythm matched hers perfectly. Gradually he adjusted his heartbeat until their pulses were indistinguishable. More and more barriers opened. He released his mind and his feelings until they were experiencing each other's thoughts and emotions as their own. He let go. He let go. He let go.
He let go more than he ever had before.
Padmé willingly received everything he gave her. She took on his grief and his love and his drive to make everything better and his rage at being powerless. She let herself drown in his love and passion for her and rejoiced at his devotion to his mother, and Balé and Obi-Wan. She accepted his contradictions and judged nothing. She even faced off against his darkest demons – fear and loneliness. His fear was not difficult to face. It was much like her own – a desperate fear of losing her. Of failure. Of letting people down. Of not being good enough. These were fears Padmé understood well.
The hardest demon to face was his loneliness. She had never experienced it in such depth. She understood with crushing clarity that without her, he would have no one. No one at all.
For his part Anakin could only lose himself in her love for him. It was vast. It was pure. And it filled every empty space he had ever had inside.
After a time Anakin could feel Padmé's consciousness slipping away into a kind of meditative trance. It was an overwhelming experience for her and one she could not hold onto for long. He continued to hold her carefully, body and mind, acutely conscious of what it would feel like to her when he withdrew. And when he went away altogether.
Obi-Wan had been right. He could not protect her.
I have harmed her, he thought. The person I love most in the world. I have harmed her and I cannot keep her from more pain.
Why should she be the one to suffer? He would take all the pain on himself if he only could. If only the Force didn't follow him always.
Stay, he said to it. Stay with her.
The Force flowed and surged between them, knowing no boundaries. Making no distinctions.
Stay, he said again, willing the vague outline of an etheric boundary between himself and Padmé.
The flow of the Force changed, circling back to Padmé when it reached the barrier.
Intrigued, Anakin went exploring. He strengthened the boundary. It wavered. He began to shut down various energy points in his own body. With each one the flow pattern changed again, gradually remaining more and more within her and withdrawing from him.
Stay with her, he directed. I don't need you. Without her I don't need anything.
Encouraged by his initial success he continued to shut down and create barriers against the Force, damming it and closing it off and forcing it to flow and remain where he wished. He could feel the Force leaving him bit by bit, and gradually he began to lose his ability to work with it. He struggled to close down more access points and strengthen the barrier before he lost consciousness completely. He was deeply satisfied with his work.
Leave me, he ordered. Stay with her.
A stiff breeze arose on the mountainside, whirling around the two unconscious figures that lay in each other's arms, ruffling their clothing and whipping the leaves from the trees. Neither one responded to it.
Anakin found himself drifting. He couldn't remember where he was or what he was doing. He had a sense of urgency, but didn't know why.
Anakin. He heard a familiar voice.
Anakin, listen to me.
Master Jinn. Where are you?
Anakin. You have a job to do.
Why did you leave me, Master? I have missed you.
Anakin. There is a third way. Your job is to find the third way. The way of balance.
I don't know how, Master.
Go back to the Temple. Learn about the Living Force. It will show you your path.
I want to stay here with you, Master. Please.
Promise you will return to the Temple.
Anakin hesitated.
Promise!
I promise.
Anakin. Breathe!
I don't want to. I like it here.
Anakin! Take a breath! Now!
Anakin obeyed, as he had always obeyed Master Jinn, and immediately regretted it. It felt as though his lungs were filling with fire.
Breathe, Anakin! Keep breathing!
The pain was horrific. But he did it again. And again. Each one was worse than the last.
Master Jinn? May I stop now?
There was no answer. His lungs seemed to have developed a mind of their own and he could no longer stop breathing. He just had to endure it.
* * * * *
Padmé woke up feeling disoriented. It was completely dark and a bright moon had risen, casting everything around her in an eerie light. She felt stiff, and there was a cold, insistent breeze whirling around her face. It seemed to be the thing that had woken her up.
"Anakin?"
There was no answer. She reached for him and recoiled. He felt cold as ice.
Padmé threw herself on him, taking his face in her hands. His skin was cold and dry and he was unnaturally still. Her fingers slid down his face to his throat, searching for a pulse. There was none. She put her hands on his chest. There was no movement.
"Anakin!"
She tried shaking him, but there was no response. In the moonlight her golden boy looked gray and lifeless. She was horrified.
Padmé suddenly thought to look at her hands. She could see a bright golden sheath of light dancing around them. It was brighter than she had ever seen it before. A hideous thought made her dive for his hand and look for the sheath of light that had always been there. She could not see one.
Oh, Anakin, what have you done? she thought desperately as she tilted his head back and started giving him the kiss of life. She had no way of knowing how long he had gone without breathing.
You can't be dead, she thought frantically as she set up a rhythm to try to resuscitate him. I won't let you be!
She felt desperation set in when he still didn't respond after a few cycles. Anakin. Breathe! she thought furiously.
Then he gasped. It was an awful, painful sound. She kept going, and was rewarded with some more horrific gasps. Little by little his lungs took over. When it felt safe to let him breathe on his own she scrambled around for his cloak and her sleeping sack and wrapped him in them as best she could. He had a faint, irregular heartbeat and that horrible, ragged breathing but she couldn't seem to get him warmer. Desperately she wrapped herself around him under the covers to add her warmth to his. Only then did she notice that his breathing eased a bit and he warmed a little to her touch. She remained there, not daring to move, and not knowing how to get help.
* * * * *
"Two degrees north," Sabé shouted to Captain Typho over the noise of the hover ship. She clutched the data pad on which she had superimposed the readout from the infrared scan onto the night map. They weren't far.
"What are they doing here?" Typho yelled back to her. "This is Stonefoot Mountain."
Sabé had hesitated for a long time to enlighten the good Captain about his beloved mistress' Jedi-related activities. She was sure he couldn't handle knowing the truth. It would shatter his orderly world.
On the other hand, the whole situation had gone wildly out of control. Typho's help would be required in many ways. He had to know. It was better that he heard it from her than from someone else. What if they found them in a compromising situation on the mountain? The poor man would fall apart.
She explained it to him as best she could over the rhythmic pounding of the engine. Typho was appalled.
Separately, they both imagined how furious Padmé would be that they had tracked her down.
"There!" Sabé shouted and the Captain's stunned attention had to be diverted to finding a suitable landing site. It was difficult, even though they were using one of the smaller hover ships.
Whatever Sabé had expected to find, reality bore no resemblance to it. As soon as the hover ship landed Padmé ran to it like a wild woman. Instead of being angry at having been tracked and found she was desperately relieved. "Get on the COM! she shouted. "Alert the medical center that we are bringing in an emergency!"
"Now come here and help me!" she ordered when the call had been made.
It took the efforts of the Captain and both women to carry Anakin's all but lifeless form across the stony terrain and load it onto the hover ship. The entire time Padmé said nothing to either Sabé or Captain Typho unless she was giving an order. Neither one could come up with a plausible explanation of what had happened. Nor was one forthcoming.
"Go." Ordered Padmé when they were all on board. "Best speed." Sabé helped her mistress wrap Anakin in all the available blankets, and then sat back while Padmé arranged herself beside him and held his hand between her own two.
Padmé didn't say a word to her the entire journey. Sabé didn't press her. Anakin looked and sounded like death itself. The Captain thought it best to keep his mind completely on his work.
Everything has changed, Sabé thought, looking at her Mistress' anguished face. Nothing will ever be the same again. All the way home she wondered what would happen to them all now.
* * * * *
Master Yoda opened his eyes wide, certain of what he had seen but astounded that it was possible.
He sent out a powerful message through the Force calling the Council together. Its urgency was so great that throughout the Temple and elsewhere in Coruscant eleven Jedi lurched into awareness and practically fell over themselves to arrive at the Council chamber as quickly as possible.
In a remarkably short period of time the entire Council had assembled. All eyes turned to Master Yoda.
"Successfully performed a Life-Force transference, Padawan Skywalker has," he said without introduction.
There was a stunned silence in the Chamber.
"You know this?" Mace Windu asked.
"I know this," Master Yoda said firmly. That was enough evidence for all the Council members.
"He is dead, then," said Ki-Adi-Mundi.
"He lives still," countered Yoda. "Barely, but he lives."
Eleven Council members practically stopped breathing with shock. There was a long silence while they each tried to absorb the information in their own way.
"Who is the recipient?" Mace Windu finally asked.
"Senator Amidala of Naboo," said Yoda, gravely.
A murmur rippled around the chamber.
"Do we know why?" Mace persisted.
The ancient Master closed his eyes for a while. "Clouded, the reasons are."
"He must be the Chosen One," declared Ki-Adi-Mundi. "The Life-Force transference has only been performed three times in Jedi history. And each time it claimed the life of the giver."
"Yet he lives," said Master Yoda. "He lives."
"Obi-Wan must bring him to us immediately."
Mace Windu spoke up. "Obi-Wan Kenobi lies severely injured as a result of an attack meant for Skywalker. An attack that bears the hallmark of the Sith" He paused before adding the next piece of information. "A new kind of harmonic Force-disruptor was used in the attack."
"Know what Skywalker is, do the Sith," Yoda concluded grimly. "Great danger for him. Great danger for us all."
The Jedi Council chamber filled with a deep silence as each Council member reflected on the profound implications of the news.
"The winds of change are rising," Master Windu said finally.
Then set sail, said Qui-Gon Jinn from within the Force. Set sail.
Only Master Yoda heard him.