Thanks for reviewing everyone! I really appreciate it! This next chapter is corny in some places, but I like it better than the last few, which I was kind of disgusted with frankly. So please review and tell me what you think.
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"Leia?" I breathe numbly, "He's got--you mean--Leia?"
I am not aware of sitting down, of grabbing Padme's hand and pulling her down beside me. But I must have, because now she's crying into my shoulder, silent, body-shaking sobs, gripping my hand tightly.
"I'm so sorry," cries Senator Organa, losing all of his dignified demeanor, "We tried! We hid her as best we could until the last--but our army is so small--we are peaceful!" his eyes are wide with fear and pain as he continues, "We fought them, but they started killing civilians. My wife and I are under house-arrest, they say we're going to be--executed--for treason," his eyes flicker with fear as he mentions this, but the fear is gone, or buried, an imagined shadow--"They said they were taking her a safe place, but we don't know anything more--"
I break him off, "Did Palpatine come in himself and take her?" But I don't need to ask, I know he did, I know he would take her, probably crying, and soothe her, and poison her, and let her be soothed by the poison. Love her and kill her. It has always been his way.
He nods, "He came and grabbed her--said something about 'the "Organa" child needed to be saved from her parents.' I'm sure he knows, just the way he said it--"
"Of course he knows!" I growl, feeling my eyes glow with hatred "He's been searching the galaxy for her! Do you think he wouldn't know her when he found her?" I pull away from Padme, knock her hand aside, and stand up to pace in front of the projection. "You couldn't even protect one baby! You let him take her!" I rage at him, and want to release my rage.
The voice says, It's not his fault. And if he couldn't protect one baby--you killed dozens.
But I ignore it, and continue, "My daughter will die now, because your entire planet couldn't protect one baby from one old man! You worthless--"
"Anakin!" he protests, "I told you, he had an entire brigade, and they were killing civilians! We couldn't--we have a duty. To our people. One life isn't worth all that death, it isn't!"
"What is it was your wife?" I ask, shooting venom at him with every fiber of my being, "would you have just handed her over? Wouldn't you have fought if it was your wife?"
There is a seconds pause, barely audile, in which I stop, panting, brow drenched in cold sweat.
He raises his hand to his mouth, and looks down at the intricate tiles of the Alderiaan Palace. He looks up at me, a sad smile playing gently over his lips, though the last empty facade of anything but terror has long since faded from his eyes, "No," he says calmly, "not if it meant the deaths of more of our people. I wouldn't."
"Liar!" I shriek, an unhuman yell, the yell of a cornered beast, and the shadow of rage becomes too much to hold, and it pours out of me, pushing through the room, "you lie to me! Anyone--no one couldn't! You would save her, you would do anything! I know you would!"
"Anakin!" calls a voice from far away. She sounds scared, I should help her, but I can't see, everything is covered in smoke and fog.
I pour the darkness out of me, trying to find her, to touch her, for any sign she is really there--
"ANAKIN!"
And there, her voice has made a path for me, and I fight my way back, drowing, though the smoke, and there she is.
She clasps my hand fimly and pulls me down, and it is only when I see the crystal pools in her eyes that I recognize the burning sensation in my own. The tears roll down my cheek and mingle with sweat, carving a river through my stormy expression.
But when I'm almost lost again she's here to pull me back. "Anakin."
I breathe slowly, laboriously, making a concious effort with every breath. I raise my hand to my face and move it, listening to the hummings emanating from beneath the soft skin. Wretched. It is not human. I am not human. A foul thing. Machine.
I clench a fist, and unclench it. It is not real. Never can be real. A ghost. A shadow.
A soft moan escapes my lips. Leia. My beautiful girl, my angel, my star--kidnapped. Her starlight will be made to turn nova, but it will be she who chooses how.
Isn't it ironic that the biggest stars are the ones who make black holes?
I look up at the blue projection of Organa. "Thank you for alerting us," I stumble, trying to remember Jedi composure, Jedi calmness, and find I can. "I--I--have to go find Master Obi-Wan."
I push myself out of Padme's arms, and stagger out the door. The hallway I find myself in is a prism and it takes me back in and throws me back out and shows everyone everything that I am.
"Master!" I call, anguished, Obi-Wan can help, I know he can, he always could make the nightmares go away--"Master! Help--I need--Master!"
A door slides open and I lurch in, and make my way to the only piece of furniture in the room before I collapse on it, paralyzed by heart numbing fear of so many things--
"Leia," I breathe, "he's got Leia."
His eyes cloud with confusion then widen with understanding and horror. He strokes his beard, then sits down beside me. "Anakin," he murmurs, "I'm so sorry."
He puts a hand on my shoulder, and I turn away.
The room would seem silent to almost anyone who walked by, but I am a Jedi, and I hear the pounding fear that dances throughout the chamber and echoes off the walls. I hear the helplessness that radiates around me in waves and crashes into everything, becoming a panic that wanders pointlessly.
And none of it is his, because he is a Jedi, and he has no emotions.
"No you aren't," is my whispered answer, "not really. You can't really be sorry because you don't know what I'm feeling. Because you don't have feelings."
He pulls away from me as suddenly as though I'd slapped him, standing up and walking to a wall, his back to me.
"Do you really believe that?" he asks, pleads, "Is that really what you think?"
"It's true, isn't it?" I ask defiantly, daring him to say otherwise.
He finally turns around to look at me again, stroking his greying beard. "Of course not. I'm a Jedi, but I'm still human."
"But you don't...you don't love things the way I do--I'll do anything to get her home again, safe."
Obi-Wan stares at me, boring holes into me with his bright eyes. "Didn't you believe me?" he asks, an odd catch in his voice.
"Believe you?"
"On Mustafar. I said I loved you. And I meant it."
The feelings that fill me are too much--I can't deal with it right now. I'll leave it, I take care of it later, after I have Leia back.
"Then come with me. Help me get Leia back."
He doesn't answer. He doesn't need to. We walk out of the room and give ourselves to the Force, and allow it to guide us to her. As I strap myself into one of the few small Starfighters owned by the medical facility, and see Obi-Wan doing the same in his, I know that we will find her. We will.
We have to.