Chapter 12: Remember Me

Anakin and Obi-Wan stood before the High Council regarding their meeting to receive permission to travel to Icylian to rescue the Mother Confessor and Padme. Anakin felt nervous wondering if the Council would allow this or not and now knew exactly how Padme felt when she had to stand in front of all the legendary Masters and Justices.

Anakin was afraid that Obi-Wan and he might be too late if they delay any further as the Council members were discussing the possible solutions to the problem at hand.

Finally, Master Windu spoke out, "Masters Kenobi and Skywalker you have told us that the Mother Confessor was kidnapped and her apprentice Padme reported this to you?"

"Yes, Master," Anakin said for the umpteenth time feeling frustrated that they were being held up and the longer they waited the more in danger he could feel Padme getting in.

"Yes, Master Windu, but don't you think this is dangerous? Masters Kenobi and Skywalker are needed here and could be deported anytime to the Outer Rim. I'm sure Caharin Jinn was over exaggerating when she told you the Mother Confessor was kidnapped," Master Olin countered back.

Anakin's blue eyes turned a dark shade of gray glaring at Ferus Olin and were practically shooting daggers through him. He didn't like Olin, not one bit.

Anakin turned his icy blue eyes away from Master Olin and addressed the Council, "My fellow Council members, it is imperative that we find the Mother Confessor and her apprentice as they are important in our cause. Master Olin's disregard for other life is thoroughly disgusting and just goes to show how deeply his hatred runs. And here I thought that Jedi shall not know hatred, isn't that right Master Olin?"

Master Olin turned a bright red, now the one shooting daggers at Anakin's form.

Master Yoda who had been quiet the entire time finally gave his word, "Speak I will with Master Olin at a later time. But important it is to find the Mother Confessor and her apprentice it is."

The Council members all looked at each other and nodded their confirmation and Master Yoda replied, "Give you permission the Council does to rescue the Mother Confessor and her apprentice."

Both Jedi Masters sighed relieved knowing full well that they could count on Master Yoda to sway the vote in their favor.

"Dismissed you are now. Go and find them you must," Master Yoda replied.

Both Anakin and Obi-Wan walked outside to the docking bay and prepared their starfighters and their droids. Anakin was busy trying to put finishing touches on the hyperdrive leak, while Obi-Wan was standing next to him handing the wrench.

Obi-Wan broke the silence sensing his former Padawan's troubling mind and said, "Don't worry Anakin we'll find them. The Mother Confessor might have been kidnapped, but she won't let anything happen to her until the time is right. And as for Padme, she's a resourceful girl and will figure out a way to get out of the situation.

Anakin sighed heavily, "You're right. I know Padme won't do anything stupid, she'll wait for us and then we'll go and find those two."

"She reminds of Qui-Gon in so many ways," Obi-Wan spoke softly remembering back when his former Master had been alive and then suddenly hearing of his death at the hands of the Sith. They had been a perfect team much like Anakin and he were now, and had defeated Darth Maul together. Little did he know it was to be a bittersweet victory and Qui-Gon would lose his life in an all too short five years. Sometimes he wondered what went wrong and why he couldn't sense that Qui-Gon had loved. Had his former Master not trusted him enough to let him on his secret? Sometimes when he looked at Padme he could Qui-Gon's eyes in her and it made him want to look away in pain knowing that Padme was a living reminder of his late Master. "Master I wish you here right now and could help us to stop this evil."

But wishful thinking wouldn't bring Qui-Gon back. The only thing Obi-Wan and Anakin could rely on now was hope.

Darkness.

It was everywhere and it seemed to want to control me. It called to me to embrace it, to let the pain control me. But I didn't want it to control me. I wanted to be free of it.

I opened my groggy chocolate eyes, wondering what had last happened, when I last remembered that the Icylians had been chasing me and had managed to knock me out unconscious. I saw that Force binders bound my hands and feet and I was tied up in a chair.

I looked around in the lightly dimmed room, which was quite spacious with only the barest of furnitures; there was a worktable and a few chairs scattered around the room. My eyes then settled on the far wall and I gasped looking at the things hanging off of it.

It was various torture devices.

I surveyed my surroundings some more and saw the Mother Confessor was also tied to a chair with Force binders. She looked beaten up pretty badly with her head hanging down and I frantically shouted, "Mother Confessor! Are you alright?"

She looked up at me and smiled slightly responding, "Yes, I'm fine Padme. Are you all right? I was beginning to wonder when you would wake up."

"Yeah, I'm alright. Mother Confessor where the heck are we?"

A deep, masculine voice answered my question, "Well, it seems the little Confessor is awake, eh? You're on Icylian in my secret hideout."

I perked my ears so that I could try to decipher the voice that I had just heard. I knew I had heard that voice somewhere before. But where? Who was this man and what did he want with us? My conscious told me that I should know this voice anywhere, but for some reason I couldn't figure out who it belonged to even though I knew I heard it before.

"Who are you? What do you want with us?" I questioned our masked kidnapper.

Then he stepped out of the shadows and it felt like my worst nightmare was coming true.

No! It couldn't be him! After all these years, I had prayed that I would never have to see his face again and relive the horrors of my past. I suddenly felt a wave of nausea hit me as I was transported back to a time sixteen years when I had first met him…

I was playing in the fields in the backyard of our Mountain Country home as it was a beautiful spring day with all the birds chirping and the shaaks were grazing in the meadows. The flowers were starting to bloom and I was picking some of my favorite flowers, lotus flowers, for my mother.

I heard my mother calling me to come inside to eat lunch even though it was quite early before my grandparents came home from their trip to the Theed market. I skipped all the way in to the house carrying my lotus flowers for my mother and presented them to her, "Here you go mommy. I picked this flowers just for you."

"Why thank you my sweet little girl. Do you know that your father named you after these flowers?" My mother asked me.

I shaked my head no laughing that I was named after such a pretty flower and replied, "But mommy I don't look like a flower so why did daddy name me after it?"

My mother laughed quietly, "Well, sweetheart you don't have to look like a flower to be named after it. It was just that the lotus flowers had just bloomed and it was the first thing your daddy saw and decided that it was something good as they bloom for eternity so he named you after it."

I nodded my head not quite understanding for a five-year-old and went to wash my hands when the sound of the doorbell shrieking was heard in the background.

My mother went to the door to answer it and was met by some strange looking man who was wearing some horrible looking costume that consumed his entire body and I couldn't even see his face.

His armor was blue and white and carried a variety of weapons.

I might have been only a child, but I knew who he was.

He was a bounty hunter.

And we were about to become the hunted.

My mother screamed when he pulled out his blaster and motioned for her to follow him and she turned around screaming at me, "Padme run! Hide somewhere!"

I ran as fast as my short legs would carry me with my short brown curls bouncing on my shoulders towards the living room and quickly hid underneath the table.

I heard the man's horrible voice. It sounded like a droid's and he looked like one too only he was bigger and much more experienced. I saw my mother coming into the living room with the bounty hunter in tow nervously wringing her hands together.

The bounty hunter took out his blaster and aimed it at my mother's head.

I gasped thinking these kinds of things on happened on holos and not in real life, but here it was happening.

The bounty hunter angrily shouted, "Tell me where the hidden plans are! I want to know where your Jedi husband hid them!"

My mother sobbed quietly and replied, " I don't know what you're talking about! Please just leave us be!"

"Listen lady, you better tell me now or I blow your head off!" He threatened.

"Go ahead, but you'll never get anything out of me! I don't know anything about what you're looking for," She calmly replied.

"Well, then I guess this is the end of your life then isn't it lady? You're a fool for trying to protect the Jedi secrets," The bounty hunter growled.

I watched in horror as the mysterious bounty hunter loaded his blaster as my mother bravely stood up tall and unafraid.

Her eyes betrayed no emotion.

I realized at that moment that she was going to die.

As I was contemplating this I saw my mother leap away and jumped around the couch to hide as the blaster fire nearly missed her. She got out and took a lamp from the coffee table and tried to deflect the shots that were rapidly fired in her direction and managed to get close enough to the bounty hunter that she grabbed his hand to throw the blaster out of it.

It then became a bitter struggle between the two as one fought to do his job, while the other fought to protect me.

The two fell to the floor as my mother grabbed the lamp and hit his hand knocking the blaster far away and she tried to choke him with it. The bounty hunter was too strong and managed to throw my mother off and both raced towards the blaster.

It was a race against time to see who would get it first and whoever did would live.

The bounty hunter was faster and tripped my mother and with lightening speed grabbed the blaster, turned around, and fired two shots.

That's when I heard myself screaming seeing my mother slowly fall to the ground clutching her chest.

The bounty hunter laughed, "Well, it seems that you won't tell me the hidden plans now will you?"

"So it looks like you'll have to die as I can't let anyone else know now can I?" He mocked.

The bounty hunter laughed again and started to leave and I could hear the front door shutting closed and that's when I crawled out from under the table.

I slowly crawled towards my mother as I could hear her breathing becoming faster as she fought to get the precious oxygen into her lungs. I could see her blood seeping through the carpet as it created a red stain that I realized would never fade and last forever.

I quietly whispered, "Mommy? Mommy? Are you alright?"

My mother looked towards me opening her brown eyes and smiled slightly, "Yes, Padme love I think I'll be alright. Don't worry everything's going to be okay."

I knew that my mother was lying at that point because I could feel it through the Force even though I had no formal training.

I could feel her pain.

I could feel her fear.

I could feel that she was going to die.

I held my mother's head in my lap as I looked down at her as her blood started to stain my dress, my hands, and my legs. I held her in my arms for I don't know how long, but I felt that time was stopping and that I was being given a few more precious moments before my mother would slip into the netherworld of the Force where my father awaited her. I started to cry knowing that this was it that it was really the end and I told myself that I wouldn't cry I would be strong for my mother.

But I couldn't hold back the tears that threatened to spill out of my brown eyes. I looked down at her eyes and saw tears forming too sliding sideways towards her ears.

"Don't cry my sweet child. Shh…everything will soon be…set…straight…" She gasped as my mother was fighting for her life.

"No mama! Please don't leave me! I'm scared; I don't want to face the bad thing. He hurt you and papa!" I wailed letting my tears flow freely down my chubby face.

"No mama don't leave me…don't leave. I need you here. I need you to help me, I don't know how to stop this, make it stop, please please…"

"Let me go my sweet angel, let me go…only then I'll be able to leave this place and be with your father. Just let go and everything will be alright…remember that I… will watch over you no matter what… and also… remember… to fulfill your destiny. I see great things for you young one…one day you'll make your father and I very proud. I love… "

"NOOOO! Mama come back! I love you, please don't leave me by myself! I can't do this, please come back…please, please…"

I watched as she slipped away from me, out of my reach.

At that moment my grandparents came rushing through the house tearing it down and saw my mother's body on the carpet in my bloody lap.

I looked up at them with wide eyes not being able to believe what had just happened.

Then it was all a blur as my grandfather picked my mother up and carried her to the speeder rushing her to the nearest med center. I don't remember much after that as I was in a deep trance from the shock of losing my mother.

My grandmother had called the Mother Confessor letting her know of what had happened and she quickly came over within hours from her latest mission on the Nubian moon of Bilia.

When she walked in through the door with my grandfather I knew that nothing could be done. I was still sitting on the floor of the living room on the same carpet where the horrible assassination occurred with my blood-splattered clothes still on.

I must've looked a mess to the Mother Confessor as she gently kneeled towards me with my grandparents watching on.

The first thing she said was ever so softly, "I'm so, so sorry Padme. You're mother's gone, Padme, accept it."

I looked up at her disgusted that she could say such a thing to me and looked away not knowing what to say. What was I supposed to say? Nothing was left to say anymore.

I didn't sleep that night as I saw a new day had dawned.

The sun rose the same way it always did on Naboo with the sun peaking through the mountains and gradually embracing the entire planet with its warmth.

And it almost, almost seemed like that tragedy had never even happened.

But it did.

I was numb still and my grandmother had forced me to bathe, dress properly, and eat something before we attended my mother's funeral.

My mother's funeral.

I had never thought in my wildest dreams that this was the way it was going to end.

She wasn't supposed to die this way; no one deserved to die this way.

No child should ever have to watch their parents die as I had to.

I quietly sat in the armchair dressed in a long-sleeved and knee length black tunic, loose, baggy fitting black pants that flared and cuffed towards the bottom, a black scarf tied around my shoulders covering my head, and black shoes.

I heard the Mother Confessor and my grandmother calling me to ride to the Mountain Country Cemetery where my mother would be buried next to my father for all eternity.

When we got there, the holy man was already there waiting for us, smiling in kind towards me to start the procession.

I stood there numb, staring at my mother's beautiful face that only yesterday had been laughing and smiling with me when we were in the meadow picking flowers.

Small lotus flowers adorned her chocolate curls that cascaded around her face in a circular path.

I didn't hear the holy man recite the prayers of goodwill only able to stare at my mother's face hoping she'd wake up any moment now and we could go home. This was all too much for a five-year-old to take in and I promised myself that I wouldn't cry.

I found that amazingly easy to do as all the tears I had shed had made me eyes run dry. I was thankful for that for I might of started bawling and not being able to stop.

I felt the hand of the Mother Confessor on my shoulder as the two men who had accompanied the holy man close the top of the casket to prepare her burial.

I looked one last time at my mother knowing that this would indeed be the last time I looked upon her face in the living galaxy.

I would never hear my mother's voice, or see her smile, or watch her eyes twinkle with happiness.

The casket top closed and the men lowered her into the ground and started to bury the dirt on to of her.

That's when I felt my heart breaking.

It felt like someone had stabbed me a thousand times as I watched my mother being lowered, helplessly wanting to cry out to stop, stop now, and come back.

But she wasn't going to come back, ever.

I didn't understand at that time why fate had been so cruel to me. First my father had died at the hands of Count Dooku in my arms and now three months later when we all were still trying to heal the wounds of my father's death, my mother was dead. The wounds had been reopened again and it felt as if they would never close, and I would bleed every drop of blood until it amounted to the amount my mother had bled.

I hated this, I hated my life, I hated fate. I hated the galaxy that I had been left an orphan and now had nowhere to go. Life wasn't fair because it wasn't supposed to happen. Why did it happen to me? What wrongs had I committed that made my mama go away? Now I had lost her too after I promised my father that I would take care of her.

I failed her just as I failed my father.

I was a failure. I guess this was meant to happen. I probably deserved this punishment for my faults, but I wished that fate hadn't punished my parents.

I hadn't felt this overwhelming sadness at my father's funeral making me feel guilty. But that was because I hadn't known him as well as I had known my mother. My father was always away on Coruscant training Anakin and not to arouse any suspicion that he had broken the code. But my mother was special as she taught me so much and most importantly loved me. She never let me be deprived of my father's love as she had more then enough to make up for it.

I couldn't save her anymore then I could've saved my father.

She was truly gone and I was truly left alone in this galaxy with a war in the horizon.

I looked up at the Mother Confessor as we watched the burial and asked her, "What's gonna happen to me now?"

She turned her head towards me with glossy eyes and replied back, "You will become a Confessor. I promise."