It was as though a bug was twitching it's way around her skin, causing her nerves to flare with a
ticking itch. She couldn't stand still. She was sure that both Luke and Leia could feel her agitations, after all they were the children born to the Jedi's own vaunted Chosen One. After several hours of attempting to sooth them, she had left them in the care of Dorme, and had decided to walk off whatever was causing her skin to burn.
She wore a simple gown, a long fur-lined robe kept her warm in the space-cold ship, and she had
swept her hair in a simple braid that ran down the length of her back. A far cry from her usual
aggrandized wardrobe. So much about her had changed since the Republic had fallen and had taken the heart of her husband with it.
As she walked down the ship's expressionless corridors, she toyed briefly about asking Obi-Wan and Yoda to allow her to see Anakin. It would not be the first time she had made the plea nor would it be the first time for it to be turned down. Obi-Wan stressing how important it was that Anakin stabilize before he could see her. Then there was the very obvious fact that she was no longer pregnant, that the tiny children she and Anakin had created had been born and were now being blocked from him.
"Padme," Bail pulled her from her reverie. He stood in front of a transparasteel viewport that
looked in on the cargo hold of his starcruiser. "How are you feeling?"
"Stronger," she answered, sidling next to him and flickering her liquid brown-eyed gaze to the
viewport. Her mouth turned down in a frown as she saw Ben Jade working through acrobatic
maneuvers with Master Yoda.
She had watched the young Jedi Padawan closely, since he had arrived with Anakin and Obi-Wan. It had struck her as strange the way both Jedi Masters, Yoda and Obi-Wan, sought confidence with the young man. And there was no doubt in her mind that he had convinced them to leave Dagobah and depart to whatever secret location she was not privy to. Then there had been his strange desire to see her children. The way he had gazed at Luke with such longing in his eyes. What would a Jedi Padawan see in such a small child?
"He's quite impressive isn't he," Bail pointed out, as Ben levered himself into a one-arm hand-stand.
A heartbeat later, training probes encircled him. "Yes, very impressive," she murmured, eyeing the sill form that miraculously remained upright.
Bail must have heard the dubious tone to her voice. "You don't like him?"
"I don't trust him," Padme admitted, bunching her arms into the thickness of her robe.
If she had exclaimed she was the Sith itself, Bail's expression couldn't have been more surprised
then it was now. Bail revered the Jedi, held them to a light and greatness that she was sure any of
them would feel uncomfortable under. Yet, he quickly recovered from his surprise. No doubt, in
the wake of Anakin's betrayal, realizing how easy it was during these dark times, for even the light in one so young to be snuffed out.
"What makes you question him?" Bail asked.
She shook her head, feeling that itching crawl. "It's nothing I can pinpoint. He appears to have an unlikely sway over the Jedi," she answered, thinking of Palpatine and how terribly he had
manipulated her. "And hiss arrival is timed too coincidentally with Anakin's retrieval. He's incredibly strong, even I can see that."
"And yet?"
Suddenly Ben leapt out of his handstand, even as the probe droids simultaneously fired on him, his lightsaber igniting in his hand as he spun out of their direction, an azure ambient light. "And
yet...vulnerable," she thought out loud as she observed his strong strokes.
"Reminds me of Anakin at that age," Obi-Wan said, suddenly behind her. He too gazed upon the
young Jedi with a fond smile on his face. Was she right to believe that he was being manipulated
by a young man who reminded him too much of the boy he had lost? "The strength and the
vulnerability."
"You would know that better then I," she commented with feigned nonchalance. "After all he
entrusts you with all his little secrets," she snipped snidely.
Obi-Wan's eyes held such a baleful glare at that moment. "I would not speak of secrets if I were you m'lady." His meaning was so implicit that it made Padme take a step back from him. How easily he had cut her with such simple words.
Bail frowned at the both of them, caught between friendship. "It was truly good fortune that you
were able to rescue him, Obi-Wan."
An enigmatic smile graced the bearded face. "An act of the Force."
"I want to see Anakin," Padme burst in.
"We've already discussed this," Obi-Wan countered. "Not until both Yoda and I feel that is safe to you and the children. Once Anakin knows you are with us and the children have been born,
Palpatine could possibly know it. How long do you think it will take for him to come after them,
especially with Anakin in his condition? Do you really want to put them in that sort of danger?"
She returned his pointed gaze with a fiery one of her own. "And how do you know we can trust this Jade? How do you know, he hasn't already sold out my twins? You? And Anakin?"
"I know," Obi-Wan affirmed simply. "Perhaps if you could learn to trust me, this wouldn't be an
issue."
"As you always trusted me," she shot back, heatedly.
"It would seem, I had merit in my distrust, m'lady," he replied, his tone matching hers. "It was not only Anakin who betrayed me."
She gasped, tears springing to her eyes. Obi-Wan had been a friend to her during the long years of the Clone Wars. From Anakin, she'd learned that he had covered for the two of them, somewhat unknowingly, in the last three years. In his own way, Obi-Wan had loved them both. How hard it must be for him now, with her recriminations and Anakin's blatant rebellion. Yet she could not help her distrust of the situation.
Palpatine had been charming, a father figure to help her alone with rough courses of diplomacy. He had sprung the seeds of the Dark Side in Anakin, cultivated it until her husband was nearly
unrecognizable, and had driven the galaxy from a place of peace and justice, into a universe of
tyranny. It would not be difficult to turn a young boy into the seeds of their destruction.
"I..." she breathed. "Obi-Wan.. I.."
She was cut off by the sound of a whirring door. Ben and Yoda walked out into the corridor, Ben
pulling his tunic over his bare chest. For a brief moment she caught a tatoo on his upper right arm. Circular, black and faded, it contained some sort of creature on it, unlike anything she'd ever seen before.
Ben's oceanic eyes looked between the three adults and narrowed in scrutiny. "What's wrong? Is it Luke? Leia? Has Anakin done something?"
Again, Padme could not ignore the nature of Ben's questions. He paid too much attention to her
small family. "No, Ben, just a small disagreement," Obi-Wan answered, avoiding Padme's
questioning eyes. He knew what lay beneath Ben Jade's facade, yet he would not answer her
questions about the boy.
Ben deflated with relief, his shoulders slumping longer then they should have. It was these moments that Padme felt an undeniable urge to wrap her arms around the boy, to protect him from whatever bowed his back. Silent manipulation came in all sorts of forms. Palpatine had played the caring grandfather. Did Ben play the vulnerable child?
"Eat. Go eat," Yoda urged the young Jedi. "No more will I teach you today."
"I think I'll join you, Ben," Obi-Wan said. "Bail, Master Yoda, m'lady."
"You must allow her to know the truth," Obi-Wan said, as he forked his rice.
Ben chewed and swallowed a mouthful. He grabbed his recycled water and let it rinse the residue in his mouth. The training session with Master Yoda had left him drained, yet for the first time in a long while, he felt the poison threading in his own blood retreat. He wasn't cured, but it was a step in holding off the pain.
"And how will I convince her of the truth, when Anakin still doubts it?" Ben pressed. "It's not like I can show her the future, what would have been. She dies in that version. My father never even knew her. And why stop at Padme. Why not tell Bail, the whole Jedi Order. They'll have me locked up with Anakin. I'm too young to go insane."
"Where do you get this flippancy?" Obi-Wan asked, shaking his head ruefully.
"My mother," Ben answered, and the jocular tone fled his voice. "She could flay the hide off a Hutt with her tongue. Not the prettiest mental picture. But she wasn't one for finery. She loved ships, though. As a wedding present my father built her a ship. Of course, the Vong eventually tore it apart. It seemed impossible my father had any duties as a Jedi, considering the starcuriser's they went through." Suddenly, Ben was aware of his memory trip. He gave Obi-Wan a chagrin look. "Sorry, I sometimes fear that I'll forget them entirely."
Obi-Wan looked down at his food, a sadness falling over him. "Anakin, once said something similar to me. He feared forgetting his mother."
"You spoke with him the other day," Ben ventured, watching the older man's features.
"I did," the Jedi Master said simply, a hundred meanings in those two short words.
Ben took another pull of water. "How did it go?"
Shrugging, the Jedi Master scratched his beard in delayed thought. "Better then the two of us trying to kill each other."
"I let him die," Ben said bluntly.
Questioningly, Obi-Wan cocked an eyebrow at him. "You let who die?"
"My father," Ben answered, pushing his rice from him. "I wasn't the most obedient son or
apprentice. I had my own thoughts and I voiced them often. My father was good to hear me out and weather my tantrums. But when the Yuuzhan Vong were so close upon us there was never a greater time I wanted to disobey. I even pulled my lightsaber on him." Ben snorted at Obi-Wan's wide-eyed expression. "Doesn't make much sense does it? But I wanted him to live and I thought I could force him to come with me."
"He told me I had to survive and he pulled the only thing that I could not ignore," Ben continued.
"The Force. He taught me to trust in it's will, to follow the goodness in it's guidance. He knew both paths, so did my mother, they knew the light from the dark and they instilled it in me. When I reached out for it, it knew. It told me I had to go one. I had to be the one to survive. So I got on our ship and I took off and I left my father to be slaughtered."
He saw the sympathy on Obi-Wan's face, the need to come up with something to sooth away the
pain. "It is always difficult to loose the one's who raise us."
"I didn't tell you that, to get you to feel sorry for me, Obi-Wan. I told you the truth, because there's a lesson in it. The very foundation of my father's Order. Love is the most powerful feeling in the galaxy, it can be he greatest strength and the most debilitating of weaknesses. But it can be tempered by the Force. I loved my father," Ben closed his eyes as pain welled up inside of him. "But my loyalty was to the Force. A loyalty my father's love instilled in me"
"The truth is Obi-Wan. Every feeling from love to hate to feigned indifference has it's dangers. We choose how we use them. We choose whether they become the things that bare us up or the banes that tear us down."
He older Jedi looked into his eyes. "Is this what your father had that I did not? Is this what aided
him in bringing Anakin back, where I failed?"
Ben shook his head. "I don't know. You and Master Yoda were both instrumental in my father's
training. Perhaps you've only missed the truest meaning of your lessons. And I hope in that you find the way to my grandfather. The galaxy depends on it."