Chapter 11

The cold night wind blew turbulently across the lake, manipulating the cool waters with ease. Each passing wave that hit the darkened shore struck a chord of terror in Anakin's heart. It had been a happy day for him, a day of joyful play and laughter with the woman he loved. But each moment of happiness he felt left traces of a chilling reminder of what he had to lose. And what he had already lost.

As he stood on the balcony, he held his two hands up in the air, palms outstretched and facing the lake. He concentrated on the Force and tried to will the lake to calm and the waters to subside. Nothing happened. He tried again, this time pitting himself against the wind. It just seemed to blow harder onto his face. The waves, meanwhile, kept crashing into the land.

He was frustrated now. Anakin realized that he hated the wind, he hated the lake, and he hated the waves. He focused on his emotions, using it as a weapon against the forces of nature. Sparks began to form on the tips of his fingers. Just as they were beginning to extend themselves from his hands, Anakin felt a calming presence coming up behind him. The fire dimmed, but didn't extinguish, as it waited for its next chance to ignite.

"Can't sleep again," Anakin asked after he turned around to face Padme.

"You're up, too."

She walked up to the edge of the balcony, overlooking the lake and the inherent wind. Anakin in one smooth motion took off his robe and wrapped it around Padme, who breathed a sigh of contentment in response.

"Why can't you sleep?"

"Why can't you?"

"I asked you first."

Padme remained silent, instead choosing to adjust the hood of Anakin's robe as if to cover her eyes from the breeze.

"I just feel guilty about staying here while everyone else is slaving over me. My handmaidens and guards are probably working through the night trying to find my killers, and my family's still worried sick about me."

Anakin stepped forward and tentatively placed his arm around her back, bringing his fingers to rest on Padme's shoulder.

"You're a Queen, milady. Their job is to serve you. And you're parents, you told me that it was for the best, that you will return soon to see them."

"I did, didn't I?" Padme turned her head to wistfully look into her companion's eyes. "Do you ever get the feeling, Anakin, that things out there are happening and you just have no control over them?"

He released his grip on Padme's shoulder almost immediately and stumbled backwards as the question stuck him, collapsing finally in a corner under the alcove. Padme ran over to him in concern.

"Ani! Are you alright?"

"Every second of my life," Anakin whispered, barely paying any heed to her second question. "Every second of my life, I feel like the world is slipping by me, and I can't do anything but watch."

He clenched his teeth in between sentences.

"But I'm a Jedi. I'm supposed to have control! Even more than that, I'm the Chosen One, created by the Force itself. How can the Force be so helpless?"

"Ani, don't forget, you're just a kid."

"The Jedi don't seem to think so. Obi-Wan and the Masters push me harder than all the other Padawans in the Temple just because I'm supposed to bring balance to their stupid Force. What if I don't want to bring balance? What if I don't want to be the Chosen One? Why don't I have a say in this?"

Anakin was screaming now, with tears beginning to form in his eyes. Padme took a seat on the ground next to him and signaled him to continue. As unpleasant as it was, this was what she had wanted to hear from him from the very first day he returned to Naboo.

"I have…all of the burdens of being the Chosen One, without having any of its privileges. I hate the Jedi! I hate all of them! And I hate being the Chosen One!"

"Is this why you ran away?"

Anakin shook his head as his demeanor seemed to shift from anger to despair. Tears continued to run down his face, and he sniffled his nose a couple of times in order to clear his mind.

"I couldn't sleep. I had nightmares."

He hesitated.

"Of what?"

"My mother. She was in pain. She was suffering. I felt it as clearly as I feel the wind right now. Obi-Wan told me they were just dreams. I believed him at first, but the nightmares remained the same, every single night. Weeks passed, and I couldn't take it anymore. I sneaked out of my quarters one night and stole a starship."

"Was your mother OK?"

This time it was Padme who put her arm around him and clasped down on his hand, hoping to reassure him. She prayed for the best but feared knowingly that Anakin would confirm her darker suspicions. He, in turn, gave her a sardonic grin.

"She was actually freed. Can you believe that? Watto had sold her to a moisture farmer, who deactivated her chip the moment he bought her."

The smile turned into a frown.

"They were on their way to Mos Eisley, according to Watto. I found the remains of their speeder in the Dune Sea. The bodies of the moisture farmer and his son, I think, were already beyond rot."

Her grasp on his hand tightened.

"I knew she was still alive, Padme! I felt her. I felt her pain, her suffering. I don't know if I can explain this. I just felt it so intensely, I absorbed it. And the Force guided me to where she was.

"They held her in one of their camps, tied up to a post with her arms stretched out to both sides. They must have beaten her so hard, for so long, and yet, she was still alive. I cut my way into her tent in the middle of the night, and freed her."

Silence. She didn't try to rush him. Finally, he spoke again, his voice barely audible.

"She barely had the time to whisper to me that she loved me before she died."

It was as if she already knew, but still Padme's sucked in a mouthful of air in horror. She didn't let it out until he started whispering again.

"I just stood there for Sith knows how long. What was I supposed to do? My mother died. It felt like…the entire galaxy was dead to me. I didn't care about the Jedi anymore. I hated them. I hated them for not letting me save her."

"They deserve your hate, Ani. For that, they deserve anyone's hate."

Padme stated her words softly but resolutely as she remembered the kind and compassionate woman who let her son risk her life to help them escape. Shmi was just as responsible for Naboo's salvation as her son, the Gungans, the Royal Guard, and the Jedi. Padme regretted that she had not done more for her in the aftermath of the invasion. It just never crossed her mind with all of the rebuilding work she had to supervise.

Anakin soon sensed her guilt.

"It's not your fault, Padme. It's my fault for not leaving sooner, and it's the Jedi's. They pushed me, but then they refused to teach me what I needed to know. They held me back. I would have died if I didn't figure it out on my own."

"Figure what out?"

"The Tuskens soon found about my presence. I tried to kill as many as I could, but I was outnumbered. I lost my lightsaber somewhere during the fighting, so all I could do was run. I ran as fast as I could, but I got lost in the canyon. They had me cornered in a cave. The entire tribe was ready to kill me."

"I was ready to die. But I didn't want to. I wasn't afraid of death. I just hated them so much. I hated what they did to my mother, I hated that they had me beaten, and I hated the satisfaction they were going to get from my death. I don't know what happened next. Somehow, energy…lightning, started coming out of my fingers. It killed them all. Slowly. But it killed every last one of them."

"It saved me too," Padme reminded as she recounted the all too recent attempt on her life.

"But Obi-Wan didn't teach it to me, did he? He would rather have us both dead."

"I'm sure he doesn't wish any ill on us, Ani," Padme reasoned as her diplomatic wheels clicked into gear. "Look, a lot has happened in the last few weeks, and it's not your fault. Maybe I can help you work something out with the Jedi. I am a Queen, after all."

"It's too late for that, Padme. The Jedi probably want me dead too."

"Why?"

"I was standing in the middle of all the dead Tuskens, and I didn't even notice Master Mundi approach. He saw me there, his eyes grew wide, and I saw him pull out his lightsaber. I just ran until I found the speeder I had borrowed from Watto. He chased me through the canyon, but I knew the territory and I'm a better pilot. I steered the speeder through this really sharp turn. He continued after me. He didn't make the turn."

"I rode through the desert for weeks. All I wanted to do was to kill. I tracked down countless tribes of Tuskens, and I slaughtered them all with the Jedi Lightning."

He looked at Padme hesitantly, awaiting her judgment.

"Did it make you feel good?"

"No, but it took the pain away, at least for awhile. It was all I lived for, until one day I stumbled upon a tribe chasing these two kids, a boy and a girl…they couldn't have been older then nine or ten years old. I killed the Tuskens, but…as I looked into the eyes of those two kids, I knew I just didn't have it in me anymore. I couldn't live the rest of my life only because I wanted to kill."

"That's when you came here."

"Yes."

His confession complete, Anakin wiped away the remaining evidences of his crying and stood up.

"I understand Padme, if you want me to leave. After all, a Queen shouldn't be associated with a murderer."

"No," she protested. As she rose she returned to him his robe and wrapped both her arms around him. "I don't want you to leave."

Anakin's voice began to choke up again.

"Jedi aren't allowed to hate," he said weakly. "Why do I hate?"

"You're a human, Anakin. You're a just a boy who just lost his mother."

"So the Jedi are wrong then?"

She paused as she wondered whether it was her place to question the same esteemed order that had helped save her planet.

"Everyone can be right and wrong, from their point of view."

Anakin's blue eyes bore into hers, awaiting their final closure.

"And from my point of view, the Jedi were wrong to keep you from your mother, and I'll defend that to my dying breath."

He fell back onto the ground without a word, pulling Padme down along with him. It didn't matter than he was breaking down in front of his beloved, soiling her dress with his tears. He would offer her his awkward apology and eternal gratitude later; right now Anakin just needed the unconditional acceptance and comfort of another human being.

"Two minutes until we come out of hyperspace."

Obi-Wan barely heard the words of Master Gallia in his failed attempts to meditate. He cursed at their destination: the lush, green planet of Naboo.

"I have already lost a Master here," he said to himself. "Am I going to lose a Padawan also?"

"They are not yours to lose, Master Kenobi. Have you forgotten that?"

He did not have an answer.

"A great Knight you are, Master Kenobi, but even the wisest of us most not forget to heed the Jedi Code."

"You speak of my supposed attachments," he said unemotionally. Adi nodded in response. "Is it wrong for me to care about my Padawan? To have a bond with him?"

"No, but he is your Padawan only if he chooses to be. Skywalker has made his choice evident. He was never yours, Master Kenobi. Treat him as such."

"It's your intention for me to kill him in cold blood, then."

"Perhaps he can still be saved."

The sound of the ship's systems interrupted their conversation, and Adi Gallia left to take her place in the cockpit. Obi-Wan followed her and buckled himself into the chair next to her.

"But," she continued, "don't let your emotions lead you to faith in him that he does not deserve."

The sight of the droid control ship and the bulk of the Trade Federation fleet proved to be ominously familiar to Obi-Wan as their ship emerged out of hyperspace.

"Holy Mother of Yoda!"

"I was under the impression," Master Gallia said calmly but sharply, "that the Trade Federation had been demilitarized." She banked their fighter sharply to the right to avoid colliding with a droid vessel. Taking notice of the intruder, the automated ship swerved around to begin its pursuit.

"We must report this to the Council as soon as possible," Obi-Wan shouted as he activated their ship's weapons.

"This will definitely make our mission harder."

The Jedi vessel shook as a blast from the droid fighter scraped their hull.

"I just hope," Obi-Wan muttered under his breath, "that my Padawan isn't responsible for all this."

The crying had stopped. His body sprawled across the floor while his head lay still in her lap. Guessing that he was asleep, she yawned in exhaustion. It was all too much to think about, and a part of her refused to believe the innocent boy dozing under her gaze had killed countless people.

No, not people, Padme told herself. From what she had heard about them, the Tusken Raiders were more animal than man. She asked herself what she would have done had her mother been taken away from her in such a gruesome fashion. If she had even half the powers Anakin had, Padme imagine that few people would want to be the object of her wrath. She may be a Queen and a noted diplomat, but in her heart Padme knew that she was first and foremost a daughter and a sister. An aunt too, she reminded herself. Had she been neglecting that role for too long now?

Putting aside her own guilt, Padme resolved that she was in no place to judge Anakin. She had not been a slave, she had not been taken from her family, and she had not returned to them only to see them die in her arms. It was a wonder of the Force itself that Anakin still had to strength to go on living.

He needed help though, she could not deny that. It would take years for his scars to heal, if they ever healed at all. And she pledged to do whatever she could to help him. Padme wished that he could always be the boy she saw today, laughing as he ran around the Shaaks in the meadow, shivering after his first dip into a watery lake, and sloppily wiping his mouth after gorging on the plentiful servings the staff provided. Anakin had the potential to be so happy, and yet in the blink of an eye he would turn into the quiet, brooding creature that she encountered in those first days of their reunion. But then she understood his motives now; in fact, Padme berated herself for being too hard on his moods back when they were in the palace.

The wind had died down now, and as she leaned her back onto the stone wall, Padme felt a comforting warmth creep up her body as she fell asleep.

He stood under the waterfall. It was a soft trickle at first, and the drips of the smooth liquid tickled and massaged his skin. The downpour quickly grew intense. Within seconds, the water was beating down on him, and he struggled to keep his feet. His knees soon began to give away, and he felt his left foot slipping on the rocky surface below him. He fell face-forward onto the muddy surface, the water still pounding on his back. There was nothing he could do now. He closed his eyes and waited for the ordeal to be over.

His back felt like it was on fire. He opened his eyes and saw that the waves of water had transformed into fiery tendrils. The world around him was burning. There were other people in the area, all running about with no direction. Some were screaming in fear while others were shouting in anger. He saw a small group trapped in the onslaught. Anakin's eyes grew wide when he recognized their identities.

They burned.

The high-pitched cry of an infant pierced sharply through the fire before it was silenced.

A sudden impact. And then darkness.

He awoke to find that his entire wardrobe was drenched with sweat. Padme stirred immediately, and Anakin also recoiled in embarrassment when he realized that he had passed out in front of her. The fiery echoes of his dream rapidly pushed away any thoughts of humiliation, however, and Anakin urgently shook the Queen awake.

"Padme! Padme! Wake up!"

"Ani?" She was shocked to see the petrified look on his face. "Ani, what's wrong?"

"Danger! I…I saw it! We have to go back to Varykino, before it's too late!"

Well, that's the chapter. I hope you enjoyed it. We're fast approaching the climax of this story though, and I would definitely appreciate it a lot if you let me know what you think of it and how you like the direction it is going in. Thanks for reading!