"Absolutely not!"
The Council and many Jedi Knights were preparing to go to the gala for the Senate, and everyone was excited about something to distract them. Everyone except Anakin, who apparently was not allowed to attend!
"The Council needs someone to watch over the Temple, Anakin," Obi-Wan insisted. "We can't be there to respond if there are any emergencies."
"Master Luminara is already going to be here with Master Ti, why can't she be a first responder?" Anakin was furious. Chancellor Palpatine was supposed to put in a special request for him to be there, so why wasn't the Council letting him go? (Perhaps because Palpatine had recommended the opposite? But who needed to know that anyway?)
"Master Unduli needs to make sure that Master Ti is safe, she can't leave her side."
"Even Padawans are going!"
"Only the Padawans whose masters are also going. Don't worry, it's just a party."
"Yes. Padawans whose masters are also going," Anakin muttered under his breath. Obi-Wan hadn't been facing him, so he didn't see the dangerous glint in his eyes.
"Quit your complaining, Anakin. Just hold down the Temple until the evening passes. It won't be that hard."
"Whatever," Anakin stormed off and went up to the roof. He didn't want to talk to Obi-Wan or anyone else.
He watched the parade of Jedi walk down the steps, the same steps that Ahsoka had walked down one year ago. From so high up it looked like a sea of browns, topped with the heads of the Jedi Council, almost all of the Knights, and several Padawans. Anakin watched them long after he couldn't see them, seething even though none of them were there to see it.
They don't trust me, he thought. They don't think I can handle it.
Of course, they don't. They didn't trust you, or her. Not enough to help her. Trust? When have they ever trusted you?
I just wanted to go to protect Padmé, protect the Chancellor. Is that too impossible? Is it wrong to help people? Can I not be trusted with that?
They think you're too reckless, they think it's not worth it. They thought SHE wasn't worth it.
They never do! To them, she was just another Padawan. She was expendable. They didn't value her.
How dare they turn her away.
All of these thoughts and more flooded into his mind. There was no shutting them out, no turning them away. As the sun crossed the sky, Anakin kept to himself, his emotion and anger festering inside him. He stayed on the roof for a long time, long enough to hear the music start from the hotel downtown. The gala had begun.
Without him.
He looked back at the stairs, wishing now more than ever that Ahsoka would walk up them. If he couldn't see Padmé and the Chancellor was busy at the gala, the least he could do was see her, but no.
He jumped off the roof and stood on the steps. If he was still long enough he could pretend that the past year hadn't happened, that Ahsoka was still inside the Temple. Yet when he opened his eyes, the image of her back was seared into his eyes. Anakin couldn't see anything but her walking away. His failure etched into a single image. First, it was his mother's dead body hanging limp in his arms, and now it was Ahsoka walking away. The people he cared about and wanted to protect were leaving him.
Anakin walked back into the Temple, unable to stand out there any longer. He walked through the silent halls that held the quarters of the Padawans. He sat outside the door Ahsoka used to sleep behind, but now was inhabited by another Padawan. It was as close as he could get to her now.
It was at least an hour or so before someone came walking down that hall. Anakin stood up, assuming it was a Padawan who needed something from their room, but it wasn't. Instead, Luminara approached, looking for something or someone. It must have been Anakin because when her eyes fell on him, they locked onto his figure. She held eye contact with him for a moment, then looked across the hall, where, conveniently, Barriss' quarters had been.
"It's odd, isn't it?" She spoke quietly, as to not startle Anakin. "Knowing that they aren't behind the door, I mean."
Anakin turned to Ahsoka's old door. "It's like if you open it, they'll be standing right behind it like they never left."
Luminara nodded. "Like nothing ever happened."
He nodded and sighed under his breath, before turning to the Jedi Master. "I thought I was the only one who thought about it."
The Mirialan shook her head. "No, I'm afraid not. Although, it is true that you were the only one courageous enough to help your Padawan."
Anakin stared at her. She was gazing at Barriss' old door, wistfully. He hadn't really thought about what effect the trial and her ex-Padawan's sentence had had on her until now. He felt slightly guilty for it.
"If you feel responsible about what happened to her, it wasn't your choice."
Luminara shook her head. "You knew Ahsoka well enough to know that she was innocent, and you never doubted her for a second. Me? I thought I could say that about Barriss, but look at what she has done." She closed her eyes. "I was ignorant of my student. That is my true crime, and for it, I should have been punished as she was."
Anakin didn't know what to say. There wasn't much he could say, really. Ahsoka had never betrayed him.
Until now, his head told him, if she is the Inquisitor.
"It's scary when you think you know someone," he said suddenly, and Luminara looked at him. "And then they turn out to be someone else."
Luminara stared at the Chosen One, afraid. "Do you truly think the Inquisitor is your Padawan?" She asked, in a small and weakened voice. If there was no hope for Ahsoka, then...
"I don't know," Anakin confessed. "One minute I think she is, the next I don't. If it is her, then I don't know what to do. She's not the same anymore."
Shocked, Luminara said the only thing that came to her mind. "I saw the photos."
Anakin shook his head. "It's not just that. Ahsoka was never so...so..." he couldn't find the word.
"Dangerous?" The Jedi Master offered.
Anakin smiled weakly. "She was always dangerous. We all are."
Luminara nodded slowly. It was true, every Jedi had the capacity to be extremely dangerous when they wanted to be. They just chose to be merciful, and they chose to be peaceful.
"Skywalker," she began, almost whispering. "What is the best-case scenario for her, and the Inquisitor?"
Anakin diverted his gaze, and his vision went out of focus. He didn't know, he didn't know. How could he know?
"That's she's safe, wherever she is," he finally answered, "but how, I can't answer that."
Luminara looked down. "No one can answer anything anymore. Not even the Council has managed to come up with a single answer in weeks." She walked away. "What happened to our Order?"
Anakin didn't follow her. Instead, he leaned against Ahsoka's door again and contemplated the question himself. It seemed like a lifetime ago that he trusted the Council. Now, everything was secrets and mysteries and doubt and fear. Even Yoda seemed worried, and Anakin didn't know what to do. His visions weren't really helping, his dreams were nightmares, he might as well be insane, like Master Ti.
Shaak Ti. Anakin's mind reeled, and he connected the dots he hadn't seen until now.
Luminara had made it out into the main foyer, where Shaak liked to look at the carvings on the pillars and the walls. It was good for her, it helped keep her thinking without her having to talk. She loved tracing the carvings with a delicate set of fingers, and she pointed to the ones that meant the most to her. It was Luminara's favorite thing to do with her, in these tense hours.
She stood behind the Togruta, watching her examine a carving on one of the pillars closest to the stairs leading out of the Temple. It is cruel, she thought, that Tia and I should stay together, but Barriss should betray Ahsoka. Shaak found her favorite carving on the pillar, a Togrutan Jedi dueling with a Sith. She pointed to it, and Luminara smiled. She was about to point to her own favorite carving, an ancient Master who was a Mirialan when Shaak pointed over her shoulder.
"Sky!"
Luminara turned and saw Skywalker running up behind her.
"Master!" He exclaimed, slowing to a stop in front of the two friends. "Master Ti lost her mind because of the vision, right?"
Luminara turned to Shaak momentarily, afraid that Anakin might trigger her panic, but she seemed interested and focused on him.
"...Yes, she was meditating with some Younglings."
"And whatever she saw was important enough to make them forget, and her not be able to tell us?"
"That's the prevailing theory."
"Then does she not have the answers that we've been looking for?" Anakin turned to Shaak. "Can you help us?"
Shaak stared at Anakin, and Luminara braced herself for another one of her shutdowns. Instead, Shaak looked around, and walked out of the Temple, onto the steps. Luminara stayed close behind her, and Anakin followed the two Masters.
She looked around the horizon, searching for the place she had seen in the vision. When her eyes finally landed on the Senate Building, she pointed.
"Shadow," she told them. "Shadow hides it."
Anakin looked on at the legislative headquarters. "What is it hiding?" he asked her.
Shaak only shook her head. "No, no." Luminara rested a hand on her shoulder, not wanting her to break on the front steps of the Temple.
Anakin realized that he had everything he could go on from her right now. She couldn't say anything else, not without losing her mind. Whatever other answers she had were locked away in her mind.
"Come on, Shaak," Luminara said soothingly. "Let's go back inside."
The two women started back up the steps, and Anakin made to follow them, but he felt a shift, a Dark shift in the Force, somewhere on his right. He stopped and turned, before seeing the danger and rushing to hide the Masters.
"Quick," he warned them. "They're here."
Although she was curious, Luminara didn't ask and guided Shaak further inside and behind a pillar. Anakin drew his lightsaber but did not ignite it, and he tracked the Darkness through the Force, waiting for it to come closer. It never did, though. Instead, it passed the Temple and continued on a straight path...
...right towards the Senate Building.
"Skywalker," Luminara whispered, once a few seconds had passed. "Who's here?"
"Both of them," he answered, "Dooku and the Inquisitor. Get everyone into the safe rooms, then send a message to the Council. I'm going after them."
"Wait, Skywalker! You can't just go!"
He started down the steps, walking into the sunset. "They're heading for the Senate Building, I have to make sure no one gets hurt," he protested.
"Everyone should be at the gala, should they not?"
Anakin paused, and he noticed he was standing in the same spot he had last spoken to Ahsoka. Oh, how he hated this day.
He reached out into the Force, searching for anyone who might still be in there. He sensed only one, but it was the most important one possible.
"The Chancellor is still in there," he told Luminara. "I have to make sure they don't hurt him or take anything from the vaults."
Luminara was about to order him to stay when Shaak yelled out beside her. "SHADOW! SHADOW!"
Both Knight and Master turned to her, and they saw the true fear in her face. She cowered behind Luminara, whimpering, and repeating over and over again, "Shadow...shadow..."
Wrapping her arms around Shaak, she nodded at Skywalker. "Go. Stop the shadows, both of them."
Anakin returned the nod and took off sprinting down the steps, hoping it wouldn't be the last time.
He had to save the Chancellor.