A/N: Suggested music to have on standby: The first 50 seconds or so of "Yoda's Theme" from TESB. You'll know when.

Chapter 38. The Hangar

Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

- Alfred Lord Tennyson

Only the trooper who'd been with me since the first gunship moved quicker than I did. The three others followed closely behind, but they stalled when my footsteps unexpectedly slowed.

Is that…?

Was it just my imagination, or did I hear the ignition of a ship roaring to life? It was difficult to make out in the concert of several boots meeting the dock and the loud rumble of our own transport but— yes! The sound of a second engine was emanating from our immediate left.

But… that can't be.

I moaned somewhere primal, somewhere entrenched within an inner canyon so deep that human ears cannot hear its echoes.

A starship— coned, similar to the escorts that separated me from Anakin— burst through the circular opening in the mountain wall. It moved fast, but not fast enough for me miss the silver hair of the human passenger.

Dooku had reached his ship. Dooku was still alive. The Count who was set to face two brave Jedi— young men who would fight to their deaths to stop him— was about to fly into orbit.

Noooo!

The word shred through me like a molten knife tearing through soul's flesh. If there was ever a dark moment in my existence when I felt unadulterated hatred at another, it was in those crimson seconds.

The pull to enter the hangar was extreme. I so badly wanted to resume my run— to go within and learn that what all signs were pointing to wasn't true— but I clenched my teeth and unleashed my blaster on the escaping ship. If I were to discover the unimaginable inside, I would never forgive myself for letting the chance for avenging literally pass me by. But my inner storm proved distracting, and my aim reflected as much. The troopers firing beside me likewise failed to make an impact. Too late did I realize the vessel's shields had surely already been activated.

Something in the rapid glint of Dooku's amber ship when the sun reflected off it mimicked a flame's flicker. I suddenly remembered the heat of his former Padawan's funeral pyre. I riotously shoved down the mental image of Anakin's long form on a similar altar.

I turned and ran around the sole trooper in front of me. My body rejoiced in finally being allowed to follow the magnetic pull, but my mind feared what I might be about to find, and thus it took preventative measures to protect me which I did it not ask for. It turned the muscles in my legs to dense, weighted columns even as my blood propelled them with liquid fire. Walking up the steep summit of the dune had been easier than this charge. Like then, I pushed myself forward. Under the archway, into the dark; frantic. I gave myself no time to prepare for the worst.

The entry corridor was curved, preventing an immediate view of the hangar. Thrust abruptly into dim lighting, other senses rushed to come alive while my eyes adjusted. I could smell the discharge of electrical sparks and smoke. Something else was in my nostrils— thick, unsettled dust. So intent was my pace that I nearly ran straight into a chaotic field of natural debris in the middle of my path. Chunks of misplaced rock, some the size of small boulders, covered the ground not far from the entrance. The Obstacle Course of Death in the factory had prepared me well; I dodged the rubble quickly as I continued to run.

Small pockets of light cascaded from the ceiling of the wide, black mouth of the bay. There was movement ahead under one of their beams.

Alive!

Standing!

"Anakin!"

So much wrapped in the short exclamation of his name. Bone-melting relief. Confusion. Concern.

Obi-Wan was aiding him in their punctuated rise from the floor. My sun god, his features twisted by pain, was pushing himself up with his left hand… his only…

Somewhere in my awareness, it instantly registered. But denial is powerful; my surface-level consciousness told my eyes they were wrong. It was a trick of the shadows, a fault of my sight still adjusting to the dimness of the hangar.

Anakin's face shone with sweat, but those eyes were alive and blazing. They beckoned me to come to him more expressively and desperately than any outstretched arms possibly could. My muscles released their stone weight and my feet flew. I could not get to him fast enough. I would've pushed aside every single member of the Jedi Council— every member of the entire Order— had they been foolish enough to stand as a physical barrier between us.

A second before I reached him, Obi-Wan, having finished helping him up, shifted his weight away. Light broke through between their bodies. The small but significant window made explicit what only a fraction of my brain had been willing to see.

Ani's right arm was gone.

My seeking fingers found his shoulder first, then his heated neck, and then I was flush up against him, pressing our reunited hearts together. Anakin, my towering human skyscraper— ever before the epitome of stability and commanding posture— swayed precariously in my embrace. To feel him, of all people, struggle with the simple effort to stand straight undid me as much as anything else.

His lips leaned in and hovered close, clearing wanting to culminate our reunion with a kiss. The celebration and staggering relief of his being alive might've pushed me to follow suit, save for the sudden hiss of strain that escaped my parted mouth. Anakin's remaining hand had landed on my lacerated back.

I hid my face behind his cheek. I didn't want him to see my pain when he was clearly grappling with so much of his own already.

For a moment hung on the hallways of eternity, we just stood there, the realm of an entire galaxy once more shrunk down to an orbiting pair of beating hearts.

Smoke from our crash back to reality infiltrated my nose first. Even if my eyes had continued to reject what they'd seen, my nostrils could not. The stomach-churning odor of burned flesh was pungent. Against the sanity of my wishes, I again remembered Qui-Gon Jinn's funeral pyre.

Ani's voice shook even more than his torso did. "Are you alright? When I saw you fall, I thought the worst." He was breathing in short snatches for air. I pulled back to study his tortured face. "I almost—" His eyes briefly darted to the present company a few steps away, and whatever he was about to say was aborted.

"I'm alright," I soothed, stroking the nape of his neck. I barely held back a sob when my fingers felt those signature curls. "I got the wind knocked out of me, and I was out of it for a little bit, but I'm alright."

"I'm sorry." Anakin's eyes screamed remorse behind their thickening glaze of tears. "I'm so sorry. I didn't want to leave you there. But Dooku—"

"I know, Ani," I stretched on my toes and pressed him to me again. My cheek slid alongside his, and I whispered into his ear earnestly, "I know." To my surprise, he tensed against me. I pulled back and searched his eyes questioningly. Cobalt pools looked at me with apology, but his features were cast in pain. The wrinkled skin of his forehead was damp with profuse sweat. "Ani?"

"It spasmed," he whispered. "It just— it just spasmed."

I shook my head, not understanding.

"Sit down, Obi-Wan. Rest, you must."

My head whipped to look to my left. I'd completely forgotten about Obi-Wan again. But I hadn't even realized Master Yoda was there.

He looked troubled, exhausted, and older than I'd ever seen him. His three-prong grip held to his cane as if it were the only thing holding him up. I momentarily thought to call out to him— to go help him. But Anakin's weight was reliant on my support, and my priority remained as it was. The beige, hunched figure of Obi-Wan Kenobi had been shuffling towards the diminutive Master. He had a hand around his left upper arm while he leaned far over onto his right leg. There was an ominous scorch mark several inches long in the fabric covering his left thigh. It felt correct to assume a similar burn would be found under his fingers' hold.

"I think I just might, Master." Obi-Wan released an audible, strained exhale as he folded his good leg under him and carefully lowered himself into a sit. "The impetus to walk may have been slightly premature."

The continuation of Anakin's heartbeat assured, I finally took in the full state of the dueling grounds. Just a meter from our right was a mammoth, industrial tube of some kind. At its farthest end, wild sparks jumped and cackled from a circular table of savaged circuits. My jaw nearly dropped as I looked around the hangar and realized the heavy structure was not an abstract piece of architecture designed to lay this way, but a support column ripped off its base. Its bottom was crushed in along its entire length— not just at the end— as if the whole thing had come down at once with equal force. The close proximity of the column to where Anakin and Obi-Wan had been laying sent an anxiety-ridden chill down my spine.

Around us, wall features far higher than any hand can reach had been torn from their hinges. I looked above the many large rocks I'd leapt around and saw their original home— a hole in the ceiling, made as if a giant's hand had crudely dug it out. A faint rain of red sediment continued to fall from sinister cracks splintering out from the hole. There were black marks on the surrounding gray floor not far from us, too long and oddly placed to be from blaster fire. Lightsaber burns had been scorched into concrete.

Back towards the entrance, a thick power cable as round as my head was seared cleanly in two, lying on the flooring like two silver snakes gone dormant. I vaguely remembered running over one of the halves in my race to get to Anakin. The four troopers from our transport were standing watch near the rock rubble, their blasters up and aimed at any threat that may seek to finish the job Dooku had abandoned.

As my eyes finished their sweep of the scene, a sense of fearful awe came over me. Even if I and a half-dozen troopers had arrived with our blasters to help, we would've only been in the way. This was an arena stage reserved for those among us with supernatural power. Evidence of that fact was in every direction I looked. Regular mortals could only be spectators to whatever godlike feats had transpired here.

My focus returned to the man who was— willingly or not— relaying more and more of his weight upon me. His broken face was a dueling ground of its own. Fleetingly, I looked at the black wound just above where his elbow once was and then met his eye. "You're alive." Despite my intent to sound strong, my voice shook beyond my control. "At the end of the day, that's all that matters."

His jaw clenched tighter in response. He stole a grim glance himself at the stump where the rest of his arm used to extend from. Anakin didn't have to say anything for me to know he didn't agree.

I shifted my stance to accommodate him better, turning to the side so he could drape his left arm across my shoulders. I leaned down briefly to set my blaster upon the floor and leave it there forever, as far as I was concerned. Then my hands moved to Ani's torso to help hold him up. He emitted no protest to my right hand on his back, but he inhaled violently when I placed just tender pressure on his lower chest.

"Anakin?" Obi-Wan's concern was evident in his tone. He'd sat in profile on the floor, and now he was staring at his weakened apprentice like he was gearing up to stand and provide aid to him once again.

The younger man actually shrugged casually, though the motion cost him another grimace. He looked at me. "Are my eyes any bluer?"

I frowned, confused. Then I watched as Obi-Wan's face went from blank to his eyebrows shooting up in alarm. It was that look of panic before he turned towards Yoda that set off the first warning sirens in my head.

"Master," Obi-Wan rushed. "My Padawan took a direct hit of Dooku's Force lightning."

Yoda's moss-green eyes flashed from Kenobi's face to Anakin's. It was one of the few times in my life when I've ever seen the Grand Master look stricken.

Lightning?

That can't mean what I think it means.

Multiple things began happening at once. Obi-Wan was scrambling to push himself to his feet. Yoda was suddenly looking at me intently. "Senator Amidala, lie Skywalker down, we must."

"Get a medical capsule, immediately!" Obi-Wan aimed his shout at the troopers stationed on the other side of the hangar.

Yoda was still talking at me, but my head was spinning even before he said, "No small matter is electrocution."

At my side, Ani shook head and winced through short breaths. "I don't think lying down again is a great idea."

Obi-Wan was emphatic. "Anakin, if you faint, the Senator might not be able to catch you and I'm—" he hobbled nearer in great discomfort— "I'm not in my best form to cushion your fall either."

Faint?!

"Here— Ani," I was already progressing into a high crouch. The fear of not knowing what exactly was going on sent my voice into an unnaturally high pitch. "Let's get you down."

"We need assistance over here!" Obi-Wan was yelling now at the three troopers who weren't placing a comm request like their fourth member was. His vulnerable eyes flew back in our direction to search Anakin's face, and in that moment, I witnessed something telling in his. I saw a chilling glimpse of the young man of ten years ago— the distraught apprentice, who lost his Master in a teamed-duel and was terrified of history repeating itself with his Padawan.

"Masters—" Anakin hoarsely shot the word out as he awkwardly moved with me in a strained descent. We landed in an upright sit; his legs sprawled out in front of him. Evidently not finding that position comfortable enough, he bent his right knee in. "I think my ribs—" his face contorted again. "I'm not doing very well. I might—" his breath hitched, "—pass out from the pain."

I immediately removed my light touch from the front of his chest. "Your ribs?!"

Obi-Wan was leaning at the waist over us. Sweat and exhaustion blanketed his face as much as it did Anakin's, though he'd plainly put his own pain to the side. "His ribs might be bruised."

"Broken, more like it," Anakin muttered behind clenched teeth. "I can feel them— ahh— stabbing me with every breath."

I examined Obi-Wan's face, bewildered. My assumption of Anakin's wounding had been solely centered around his mutilated arm. "Why would his ribs be hurt?"

"He was thrown into a wall." A hesitant pause. "Twice."

"Technically, the second time was when— ahh— I landed."

My eyes went wide. I looked quickly between master and apprentice. "Did this happen before or after he was electrocuted?!"

Obi-Wan sighed. "During."

I stared at Anakin in rising panic. He hadn't seen my face yet when, sounding more annoyed than anything, he mumbled, "His Force push at my chest didn't help." Then he saw my expression. I watched him exert the effort to reign in the situation. "I'll be fine. It's not the first time I've been shoved with the Force. It's not even the first time I've cracked my ribs." In his odd version of reassurance, he added, "And I wasn't thrown very far— only eight meters or so."

I gazed back at him with shock. My memory recovered the incident— just hours old— of the bounty hunter slamming his arm into Anakin's chest just before our sit down with Dooku. The hefty move sent the air in his lungs flying, but certainly not his body. I couldn't fathom a burst of power sending him eight meters.

Vaguely, I noticed the troopers had surrounded us in an expanded circle. Master Yoda now stood near Anakin's left boot. He was leaning on his cane and watching our conversation closely.

A litany of voices and urges were screaming over one another in my head. Most of them didn't give Bantha's poodoo about our audience. A loud warning, however, reminded me that we were being observed, and that life would extend beyond this stampede of fright… as would any ramifications my and Anakin's behavior triggered.

I compromised between the arguing voices. I of course stayed at Anakin's left side, continuing to support him while a kneeling trooper kept him up at the right. But I didn't wipe the sweat from his brow nor plant a comforting kiss to his cheek as I maddeningly, instinctively desired to. Suddenly, I felt a maniacal rush to both laugh and cry— I'd thought of the bacta spray I'd ordered the soldier on the transport to preserve. Its mist was as useless here as a Naboo lullaby.

But. There had been other items in that medkit.

I shot my chin up towards the first trooper my eyes found. "You! Grab the medkit from the transport. He needs pain killers." I had the sense of mind to tilt my head towards Obi-Wan. "They both do." I didn't look directly at the bearded figure. I could see him observing me in my periphery. If there was wildfire in my eyes, I didn't need him to witness it any more easily than he already was.

"Right away!" The trooper I'd commanded took off at a run.

I swallowed and tried to corral my hysteria. "Alright, Anakin, shouldn't you lie down?"

He shook his head, and I regretted prompting him to speak. Every passing second seemed to be a battle for him not to blackout from the pain. Luckily, his Master took over answering my question.

"No, Senator. If his ribs are broken, or even bruised, lying down will only put more pressure on his chest and exacerbate the injury." As he spoke, Kenobi adjusted his weight and, possibly accidentally, put some of it on his left leg. He flinched and gasped audibly, but continued, "Anakin was already flat for several minutes until just before you arrived. Lingering in that horizontal position likely caused further damage and brought on his sudden pain. We need to keep him up."

Anakin's dazzling, cocky grin unexpectedly came to life. Seeing it felt like witnessing a ray of sun burst through the clouds. "But I was doing alright there, wasn't I, Master? I was holding my own against him." His excited focus shifted to me. "More than holding my own. I had him worried— I could sense it." Anakin's eagerness switched back to Obi-Wan, clearly hungry for affirmation.

"It's shocking you were able to last as long as you did, my young apprentice, considering you'd already been flung against the wall like a bird caught in a power coupling."

Blue eyes rolled upwards. I think Ani would have sighed if it wouldn't have aggrieved him so much to do it. "Never going to forget that, are you?" His voice became wry. "You're right. It was a shock. But I got back up... eventually. As someone rightly said—" Those eyes moved to me again and noticeably softened. "Adrenaline helps."

"Until it doesn't." Obi-Wan, for his part, looked at Ani with far more of a frown than I think his injured Padawan deserved. "If you had only heeded me when we first arrived, Anakin, and moved as I instructed you to, we could have taken him as one and this might never have occurred."

There was a distinct silence. Even Yoda— even the troopers behind their expressionless masks— looked at him with an emotion akin to, Really? Now?

Anakin bit his bottom lip, whether in irritation or pain, I wasn't sure. The simmer in his eyes pointed to the former. "Deeply sorry to have disappointed you, Master."

"Master Obi-Wan," Yoda interrupted, followed by a hummed grunt. "Time, you will have, to lecture your Padawan on dueling orchestration. Paramount, now, is the mitigation of his side effects."

"A shuttle is six minutes inbound." A trooper was speaking from somewhere in the circle above our heads. "They've loaded a medical capsule aboard."

I fixed Yoda with a serious look. "What kind of side effects is Anakin facing?"

"Can we stop talking about me like I'm not here?" As if on cue, his left thigh muscle unexpectedly and visibly twitched, drawing all our eyes to it. Even Anakin otherwise froze.

The small figure grunted. "Hmm. Short-term… Muscle spasms. Soreness of the extreme." He sighed. "Long-term… Seizures; blindness; nerve damage; brain damage, a victim may face."

I gaped back at him. No one spoke. I didn't realize a tear was running down my cheek until it clung to the skin at my jawline.

Ani shook his head and shifted in his sit. He paid for the exertion with a wheeze. "It was only a few seconds."

"Stay still!" I put a hand on his shoulder, not caring how panicked my voice sounded.

Instead of listening, he looked up. Obi-Wan had straightened somewhat at the waist at this point, joining the circle of troopers around us. Anakin's voice was quiet and plaintive. "He's scaring her. Tell her, Master."

Obi-Wan, who seemed to be fighting back pain from his own injuries once again, put his scrutinizing gaze on me. I fought to appear more composed than I felt. "It's true." He turned his attention to Master Yoda. "Fortunately, Anakin was not caught in the lightning for more than… two, maybe three seconds."

"All precautions must be taken," Yoda replied, tapping his cane under him once as he said it. "Of the Dark Side, is Force lightning. Cruel, sadistic of Dooku to inflict on a mere Padawan." He paused, closed his weary eyes, and then sighed so mournfully that my heart left Anakin's side long enough to extend to him. "Far, has my former apprentice fallen." His green ears, whiskered by aged hair, shook slightly. They usually did, but there was something so very tragic and sad about his fatigued, trembling form now. "Underestimate him gravely, we did. At great cost."

There was a moment of poignant silence as his words hung in the air. Even the troopers around us seemed to move more mindful of the noise their armor made. It's fair to say that here, in the first quiet pause our little huddle had since the outbreak of chaos, all of our thoughts drifted to the Jedi currently lying still in the Petranaki arena.

As my memory continued flipping through the pages of the past half hour, something suddenly clicked into place. "Were you on the second transport?" When Anakin's and Obi-Wan's confused eyes turned my way, I added for their sakes', though I kept my focus on Master Yoda, "The one I urged onwards from the dune?"

A bare hint of a smile lifted the edges of Yoda's long lips. "Your helpful taxi, Senator, I will have to be another day."

He was the reinforcements I'd hoped had been aboard that gunship— the one I'd put my faith into doing a better, quicker job of helping Anakin and Obi-Wan than I could. I'd imagined, or at least hoped for, a battalion of armored soldiers to be aboard the ship when I watched it go by. But as I replayed the scene I'd come upon— Padawan and Master injured and down, yet Count Dooku fleeing before his altercation with them had or could come to its final death blows, and Yoda standing small but present to the side, looking strained and spent like he'd just sacrificed whatever energy his nine-hundred-year-old body could give— I realized this tiny, ancient figure was far more impactful than any troopers could have been.

You can have millions upon millions of clones, but there's only one Grand Master Yoda.

There had been a moment in the Supreme Chancellor's office I'd wished I'd handled differently. Rectifying it, I allowed a large, grateful smile to break through my solemnity. As I could not safely vocalize my gratitude any other way, I interjected into my smile all the thanks I could for saving the life of the man I loved— that, and my relief that this savior had lived through the ordeal as well.

"Master Yoda, seeing you alive… brings warm feelings to my heart."

Mossy-green eyes widened, then his smile grew. He gave me a brief but deep nod. The reference and what he knew of its subtext had been received.

The tasked trooper at last appeared over another's shoulder. "Apologies," he hurried out between loud exhales. He crouched low, the gray and red medpac already opening in his hands. "Both gunships have taken defense positions away from the dock to better protect the hangar."

He pulled two syringes out of the kit. For the first time in a few minutes, I looked plainly up at Obi-Wan. He was sweating even more profusely than Anakin.

"Obi-Wan!" Yoda grunted, a new tone to his voice which didn't sound unlike a peeved grandfather. "No good to your Padawan will you be if you faint. Sit!"

Anakin broke out into a grin. "What's the matter, Master? Don't like needles?"

The cross object of everyone's attention was gracelessly folding himself into another seat next to his apprentice. He was careful not to put himself close enough to bump into the egregious wound. "You know I don't mind needles, Anakin." He let out something like a huff. "I just don't particularly enjoy them, either."

As if relishing in the move, Ani took a syringe from the soldier's hand and, in one fell swoop, popped the cap with his thumb and planted the needle into his thigh, never once taking his gaze off Obi-Wan. The boast and challenge in his somewhat dark smile was poorly concealed.

The now slightly thrown trooper tentatively removed the cap on the other syringe and gestured it at Master Kenobi. His Padawan pulled his injector out and tossed it casually, far behind his head. It landed and rattled as it rolled somewhere in the shadows. Obi-Wan sighed and extended his nearest thigh towards the soldier, but then he purposely looked away at a distant part of the ceiling. Taking advantage of moment and his Master's self-imposed distraction, Anakin made pointed eye contact with me and delivered a devilish wink.

However, my normally strong stomach had risen into my throat. I had a new respect for Obi-Wan's wounds now that I'd seen them up close. The injury extended well into his thigh muscle. It was no wonder he'd struggled to walk, nor was it surprising that his left arm had remained permanently at his side this whole time. The invasive burn there was as extensive as the injury to his leg; perhaps even deeper.

But this isn't why nausea threatened my composure. I can handle the sight of battle wounds. I also have no issue with syringes, for that matter. But I would've gone another round in the arena with the nexu just for a pair of nasal plugs. The combined proximity to the burnt flesh of Anakin's cauterized arm and the two similar, if far less drastic of his Master's muscle-deep burns were…

Unpleasant.

I hid my biological impulse under a politician's smooth veneer. The Amidala mask can be crucial under a variety of circumstances.

After only a few minutes, Anakin and Obi-Wan both felt ready to stand again. The latter, in particular, seemed adamant that he was done with the up-and-down, up-and-down pattern. But the former was forbidden from rising by everyone in attendance. The medical capsule was due any second, and I would've sooner laid my body across his broken ribs than allowed him to come to his feet.

Despite the previous alleviation for our most dearly wounded, something changed when the medic shuttle arrived. The mood grew serious again as clinical evaluation replaced coping banter. New strangers, all with the familiar voice emitting through their helmets, quickly swarmed the injured Jedi. I hadn't realized just how much Anakin had been hiding his pain— not just the physical, but the emotional— behind humor. Presently, the medical staff were wrapping his upper torso in compression binding and preparing the long, industrial gurney on the ground beside him. Gone were his smiles and sarcastic quips. Stark nervousness broadcast from a pale face.

My heart, so briefly hopeful that he might miraculously come through this mentally unscathed, broke as I stood back and witnessed this. There was no celebration in sterile gauze and slippery bacta bandages. There was no triumph in his confused face as he clearly tried and failed to understand the jargon the medics were exchanging with one another about his own body's state. Instead of being dressed in laurels, he was hooked up to a cardiac river of wires and pads to monitor his electrocuted and gravely at-risk heart.

This wasn't a holomovie scene of a Jedi warrior being tended to after a heroic battle. This was a nineteen-year-old boy who brutally lost his dominant arm. In a moment which had nothing at all to do with his loss of bodily mass, it was one of the very rare times when, even to me, Anakin Skywalker looked mortal and… small.

His eyes darted to mine more times than I could count during this process, but they flinched away quickly with almost every pass. Awareness belatedly kicked in, and I mustered myself to bury or at least better hide the pity I feared was growing in my eyes. Ani made it known he did not want my pity in the very first minute I met him. He wouldn't covet it now.

Stubbornly, he refused to be lifted into the medical gurney and made it known he'd be entering it himself, if at all. Well-meaning protests erupted from the medical team. They were clone soldiers in standard armor, but they had orange circles on their shoulders and orange stripes on their helmets. A medical droid buzzed around the chorus at their heels. It seemed as unimpressed with Anakin's show of haughtiness as they were. The rims around the gray capsule were a half-meter high.

But from my onlooking a few feet away, I knew it wasn't a show. He wasn't trying to provoke attention or demonstrate his resilience to others. Maybe not even to me. Anakin needed to do it to show himself that he could. It was as much about his inner tenacity as it was his bodily might. I knew, and he seemed to know, he was going to need those traits in the days to come during his recovery.

And so, I listened, silently and patiently, as Anakin exchanged terse words with the medical troopers. And I watched, unsurprised, when his trademark spirit won, and the others helped him to a stand but then stepped cautiously out of his way.

While all this was going on, Obi-Wan had been approached by medics of his own. White fabric of one full pant casing was carefully cut high above his thigh injury and then down the backside of his leg. Once removed, all that remained to cover his left limb was leftover white cloth peeking out from under the hem of his beige tunic, and the russet, lonely boot far below. The same slicing device was used to sear away the sleeve on his left arm at the shoulder. With these obstructions out of the way, they applied bacta balm to the grotesque burns and sealed them with further bandages.

Maybe it was my exhaustion steering me towards delirium, but an actual moment of levity came when Obi-Wan's medics then tried to usher the Jedi— who was essentially only fully dressed on one half of his body— into the brought hover chair. The seating device instantly reminded me of the one belonging to Cliegg Lars, though this was clearly a vastly newer and more advanced model. Words cannot do justice to describe the cantankerous acceptance on his face when Master Kenobi finally squatted backwards into the chair, one bare knee jetting inwards towards the clothed one.

Yoda was at my left side, hunched over his cane, as we bore witness to Anakin's labored entry into the capsule. I held my breath as I watched him lift first one leg then another over the tall rim. Relief brightened his features when he managed to complete his reckless endeavor without passing out, or worse. With the compression wrap secured, he was given the all-clear to lay down, and gloved hands guided him backwards accordingly while the hover mechanism was activated by another attendant. The capsule fluidly rose to two feet off the floor. With its increased height and my current position, Anakin himself disappeared from my view. So focused was my gaze on this entire event that, when I finally noticed the trooper on my right, I had no memory of his approach.

Something about the slight inward turn of his form told me he was waiting specifically for my attention. I stared into the black, horizontal lens of his helmet.

"Senator, requesting permission to inform them about your cuts, so that you may also receive medical attention."

The low voice was like all the others. The armor was like all the others, apart from the medics. Even the uniform way he held his blaster was identical to how I'd seen other clones carry it. All the same, I had a sneaking suspicion this was the same trooper who'd been my companion on that sand dune.

My own backside injuries had improved since the bacta spray. It wasn't a one-stop cure all, I knew that— I genuinely feared infection from the nexu's claws and would be happy to accept further antibiotics as soon as they were offered. But my pain was minimal now, and I could hold out until after my stubborn Skywalker and his possibly equally stubborn Master were thoroughly taken care of first. I could assume why the trooper was asking, however. With Yoda and I standing on the outer circle as the bustle of the activity went on in front of us, none of the medical staff were aware of my wounds yet.

"Thank you," I replied, authentic gratitude in my tone. "I will receive my treatment in due time." I nodded at him knowingly, cluing him in to my recognition. "The extra bacta spray was a helpful idea."

He gave me a single, soldier's nod.

"Glad to be of service, Senator."

I gave a brisk nod in return but was already moving forward. Apparently out of time for the rider to figure out the controls himself, Obi-Wan's hover chair was being pushed in the direction of the exit. Likewise, the med team began gliding Anakin's gurney behind the departing Master. Standing on the sidelines in quiet support while Anakin was treated was one thing. Being faced with more than seven footfalls of separation was quite another.

My feet were rushing to catch up to him. For a second, the only visual I had of the passenger inside was the very top of his sweat-darkened hair, but my fingers were already stretched and landing on the rim. I was surprised when they were instantly covered by Anakin's warm hand.

I came up flush to the wall of his capsule and peered down into his face. He stared up at me from his supine, worry and even fear etched into his features. We locked eyes, but I needed more than our nonverbal communication in this moment.

"How are you feeling?"

He pressed his lips together. "I can't breathe."

Concern flared. I interpreted this as Anakin reporting that the binding was far too constricting around his lungs. I looked up anxiously at the medical staff, but just as I opened my mouth to ask if they could adjust it, I felt a tight pulse around my hand.

My eyes fell back to Anakin's.

"No," he urged, his voice no louder than a whisper's volume even though his lips moved with exaggeration on the word. He drilled his gaze into me and squeezed my fingers again, though much more tenderly this time. His thumb caressed across the back of my hand. Through some effort, he grimaced and forced out, "You… I can't breathe."

Abbreviated as it was, the cadence was immediately recognizable and wholly unmistakable. He even enunciated the final note in the same stretched, tortured way. Blue eyes continued to appeal to me under a burrowed brow, begging me to understand. But I was already there. I'd already been transported right back to a couch in a smoldering library.

{The thought of not being with you…}

Somehow, mercifully, my legs kept walking beside him even as my heart ached in comprehension. Anakin hadn't enjoyed our temporary separation during his medical attention any more than I had.

But as his eyes continue to implore mine, pushing my awareness to further depths, I realized he was communicating so much more than this. I wasn't the only one who'd been thinking about life beyond the hangar.

We were entering into another new era. Anakin was in no capacity to fulfill his role as protector to a threatened Senator. If it hadn't been over already, his assignment ended the moment he lost his dueling arm. Several of the highest, most attuned members of the Jedi Council were in our midst. No more was the private and passionate stage of Varykino; absent was the emotionally intimate, if dark, veil of Tatooine. There would be questions as to why we were so close to Geonosis; why we'd left the safety of Naboo. Anakin knew this. My default instinct was to collect my wits and draw up my walls behind an impenetrable Amidala mask that was as stubborn as his spirit was. Anakin knew this, too.

I gazed down at him, ardently wishing I could locate coded phrases known only to us, ones which I could repeat back to him in order to convey what I felt. But I didn't even know where to begin— I didn't know what to say. Even with my swirling emotions, I was actively aware that Master Yoda was behind me, witnessing this moment Anakin and I weren't supposed to be sharing.

My mouth was still hanging dumbly when we broke from the dim and found ourselves back under the sun. Ani, having been inside even longer than I had, blinked rapidly as his face was suddenly blinded by the unavoidable light in the sky. He turned his cheek to the side in an attempt to shelter at least half his face from the blow of the sun, but he never released his grip on my hand.

That had to change when we approached the shuttle. The med team and one of the regular troopers were stepping off the dock and onto the long, beige ship. I could see the top of Obi-Wan's head behind those of others on board.

All other troopers, save the one, had already loaded themselves into the duo of gunships hovering in the air several meters away. One was the transport I'd arrived on, the other was the ship Master Yoda originated from. Our escorts would fly alongside us on the route to the forward command center.

I came to a slow halt on the platform and watched Anakin's capsule be guided forward by a pair of medics. The entryway wasn't wide enough for all of us to board together. My hand let go of the rim at the very last second, stretching out contact as long as I could. With a calmness a person should, perhaps, not have at such a height with no barrier between them and a fall, I walked to the left to look over the flat edge of the dock. The third gunship's carnage still emitted smoke from its final landing beneath us.

Several seconds passed.

Even I didn't realize I was waiting for Master Yoda until I heard him hobble up to the end of the platform, his cane announcing his slow arrival just as much as his soft, metered grunts did.

"Mmm. Senator Amidala?" I turned away from the destructive view down below. Thoughtful green eyes looked up at me from his paused station.

I can't explain precisely what I felt as I gazed back at him. However inappropriate the timing, given our imminent boarding of the ship, there was a profound urge to confess everything on the spot to him. It wasn't born so much out of despair but out of an honest, desperate need for help. Here was this being who'd seen nine-hundred years, who seemed to feel personal caring for all parties involved, myself included. I wanted to believe he could steer Anakin and I towards our happily ever after, in whatever form that might take.

I got as far as drawing the breath to speak.

My wholesome if inane naïveté was interrupted by none other than Anakin, unknowingly preserving the future that awaited us.

"No, wait!" His yell broadcast his need from somewhere inside the shuttle. "Wait! Please!"

My attention on Yoda and whatever fate might have unfolded therein instantly dissolved. I rushed on board and was quickly at Anakin's side. He was sitting up in his capsule, his left hand gripping the rim tensely. A medic was trying to ease him back down but to no avail. At the foot-end of the gurney was Obi-Wan in his hover chair, looking put out and worn down.

"Anakin," he was saying. "It cannot be done. You must let it go. There is not enough living tissue left—"

His Padawan's gaze obstinately flew to me. Its blue hue melted pleadingly into my brown care. "Padmé," he rushed, flinching his way through his inhales. "Obi-Wan doesn't understand. Please. I don't want to leave without it. Not if there's even a chance. Please."

I looked back and forth between the two men. Both stared at me beseechingly.

The shuttle was quiet around us despite the several occupants. I came to realize that more eyes than just Anakin and Obi-Wan's were watching what I would do next.

I swallowed as my mind digested Master Kenobi's last words and understanding of the debate came together. Shifting my steady focus to the young man watching me more intently than all the rest, I pushed back the pressure building behind my eyes. I leaned closer towards him and kept my voice low. Soft.

"Ani… I don't think, I don't think it can be re-rea—" I couldn't get the last word out. Reattached absolutely refused to go beyond the clog in my throat. I was speaking with limited medical knowledge of such wounds, but I felt mournfully confident I was right, given what was visible.

He shook his head resolutely. Denial is, after all, a powerful thing. Anakin's voice got quieter but no less passionate. "Padmé, no, don't you see? The soldiers— the clones— they came from cloners. They've made an entire army for the Republic. You saw them." A feverish smile stretched his lips. "We're not going to be asking them to grow a full body— just an arm. Just one half of one arm. But they-they'll need the original to copy it, and then they can reattach it." He searched my eyes as if he'd stumbled onto obvious ingenious. Hearing him say it so simply and emphatically, it even sounded plausible.

My jaw slack, I gazed up at the Jedi Master, feeling tangled somewhere between webs of horror and hope. I didn't realize how hindered my vision was by wetness until I had to blink quickly multiple times to see him clearly.

His immobile right hand was cupping the bottom half of his beard. Blue-green eyes were visibly filled with their own moisture, though none breached the rim. One look at Obi-Wan was all it took for me to know that what Anakin was asking for either wasn't or couldn't be allowed to be possible.

"Padmé?" Ani breathlessly drew my attention to him.

I stared back for a long moment. If it were any other person in that medical capsule, I might have listened to the warning in Obi-Wan's eyes and tried to soothe the petitioner into another direction. But given what raw information I possessed— information the man in the hover chair did not— I overrode Master Kenobi's call.

I nodded at Anakin. "Alright. Alright. You'll take it with you." I heard the next words come out of my mouth but was only marginally conscious of what my love for Anakin was about to demand from me. "I'll get it myself."

His eyes widened. I watched the thought bloom in his mind, clear as day, that this was far more than he'd been asking me to do. I think he'd only wanted my agreement and voice as an advocate. But, just as clearly, I watched him entomb that prior thought for his own reasons.

As I passed by Obi-Wan, his hand reached out to grab my wrist.

"Senator." The eyes of a man who I genuinely believe was only trying to protect his maimed Padawan begged me to hear him. He kept his voice quiet, though the silent shuttle could still hear every word, even over the low hum of the idling engine. "Anakin will have to learn how to live with his injury. It is the Jedi way." His eyes jumped over to the young man watching us. I saw care reminiscent of a father, brother, or both there. "There are excellent prosthetics." Obi-Wan's gaze returned to mine. His most vital point was reiterated once more as he softly but sternly said, "It is the Jedi way."

I fought the urge to wrench my hand from him. To yell at him. To scream at him about his damn Order and their rules on attachments on everything from parents to love to the loss of limbs. Obi-Wan Kenobi had no idea yet what had unfolded on Tatooine, but I wanted to shout at him all the same that Anakin should not be expected to so easily surrender his arm the very same day he'd used it to bury his mother.

Instead, I replied in a level voice, "I understand." I looked back at the twin lakes watching me, entreating me with emblazoned love from the other end of the capsule. Then I returned my stare to his mentor. "But he doesn't have to do it right now."

I stepped forward off the shuttle without looking back. Without looking down, either, at Master Yoda— who'd witnessed the entire scene from his lingering stance on the dock.

Then I did something I only ever thought I would do once in my life. I entered Dooku's hangar. This time, my feet proceeded in a sober pace. The frenzy of my first entrance was replaced by near-stoic placidity. I practically walked with ceremony around the red rubble, my eyes darting up to cautiously take in the state of the cracks in the ceiling above.

I came to a pause when I stood under the isolated pockets of light. Already a nightmarish setting, the hangar bay was a haunting cavern upon my solitary return. Discarded gauze littered a wide pool on the floor. There was a small heap of linen— the filthy scraps of Kenobi's arm and pant sleeves. My blaster was where I'd left it. All evidence of the godlike fight was still present, but the provocateurs had departed as wounded mortals. My eyes suddenly leapt at the sound and sight of the still erupting sparks coming from the base of the ripped column. I began walking slowly without truly, mindfully searching. A lump formed in my throat as I reminded myself I needed to look down.

I saw a broken lightsaber first; it barely looked like one anymore. The cylinder had been split near the top by a molten force. I tried not to think of a hand holding it as the event occurred— how close the offender must have come to searing off fingers along with the obliterating strike.

{Here everything here is soft… and smooth.}

I blinked back the onset of tears. I didn't even know if Anakin had been the one dueling with that blade when it was destroyed. Either way, I wasn't doing him or I any favors by remembering how his right hand's fingers had once caressed their way up my shoulder, culminating in our first kiss.

I kept walking. Searching. Suddenly, my feet halted in their tracks the moment my vision landed on a long, dark brown object mostly hidden by shadow. But it wasn't an object.

It was the remains of Ani's arm.

The dark brown material covering most— but not all— of it was the extended sleeve of his tunic. The end most obvious to me was the segment just above the elbow. It was cauterized black, just like the opposite end still attached the young man on the shuttle outside. I tepidly stepped closer. Tan fingers were frozen in a loosely curled, empty grip; I dragged my eyes and swallowed as I followed their trajectory up the surrounding floor. I spotted another lightsaber. This was one intact.

I shook my head in amazed disbelief. "You have a lightsaber."

It was obvious, of course— both that he had one, and why he would. Surely, he'd been using one for years. Nevertheless, that matronly instinct returned, and it wanted to rush to caution a nine-year-old child with handling such a dangerous weapon. I had to remind my irrational impulse that Ani was not a kid who'd snuck off with Qui-Gon or Obi-Wan's laser sword. Yet, I couldn't stop the words from coming out of my mouth, as if I were cautioning a little boy holding a sharp knife. "Be careful with that."

He took my borderline patronizing well. "I will do my best. I, ah, I hope you don't ever have to see me wield it in person."

His conviction fell flat. There was a clear indication of dissatisfaction in his eyes and in the way he'd spoken. I got the sense that Ani was proud of his saber skills, and he regretted I would not get to witness them in action.

I knew I needed to hurry and get back to the shuttle. Two men were aboard who needed better medical attention than what the field team had been able to provide. But my feet were bolted into the ground. I couldn't go back empty-handed— absolutely no pun intended— yet neither could I get past the sudden dryness in my mouth and move.

My breath shook as I inhaled deeply. I forced myself to remember why I'd volunteered to come in here.

No one— not Obi-Wan, not Yoda, and certainly not the clones— knew better than I did right now that Anakin did not take unexpected and violent loss well. My own rib cage still reverberated with the aftershocks of the explosion he released in the Lars garage. I could still hear his shouts and sobs in my ears. That was just yesterday. He'd turned his rage on the Tuskens when his abilities could not save his mother from them. I could not bear it if Anakin were to turn that level of vitriol on himself or anyone else now.

Whether it was returned or not, the arm was lost to him. But if it was the emotional medicine he'd decided he needed in this raw moment to cope, to hell with queasiness.

My feet unlocked from the floor. I retrieved the intact lightsaber first even though it was not on the request list. It didn't seem like the kind of weapon to leave lying around for who knows who to later pick up.

That train of thought perfectly segued me into rushing to pick up Anakin's arm before I'd even made the decision to do so. The separation was clear in my mind— the man I loved existed on the shuttle beyond the archway and no longer in the limb in front of me. But I fell asleep on a warm beach holding onto this hand. I danced my fingers with it on a hut floor. I held it and made a commitment to the cosmos to contribute to Anakin's salvation while gripping it like a two-way lifeline on Tatooine. It was far too precious to leave abandoned here— on the scarred world of Geonosis— for who knows who to later find.

Articles acquired, I turned and walked briskly towards the exit of the hangar. I didn't look down at the separate weights in my hands. I didn't look back. I never wanted to see a battlefield of the gods ever again.

A waterfall of relief washed over me when I saw a medic standing in the middle of the platform holding a meter-long canister. It looked like a medical container which had been— I'm assuming, recently and quickly— emptied out. I completed my duty and placed the arm inside. He snapped it shut a second later. I continued to safely harbor the lightsaber in my grasp.

When I walked back on board the shuttle, I thought I was hallucinating.

Anakin was lying down again. Obi-Wan had positioned his hover chair next to him, or as well as he could with the wall of the medical capsule between them. He had his good arm stretched over the rim, but the awkward reach still clearly caused him strain. Nevertheless, his fingers were tenderly touching his Padawan's forehead. At the sound of my boots softly traveling across the shuttle, Anakin's eyes looked up at me, and he gave a small yet heartfelt smile, but he returned his relaxed gaze to the pseudo-parent he had— at the end of this day— saved. It was the single most familial moment I'd ever seen between the two up to that point, and it was rarely ever again echoed to such a poignant degree, at least before my eyes.

The shuttle was already bustling with pre-departure energy. The door was nosily closing and sealing, and the engine was revving to pull away from the dock. I read Obi-Wan's lips more than heard the words, but I know what I saw.

"Thank you, Anakin."

I could spend fifty years by Obi-Wan and Anakin's side, together, and never fully understand the complexities and nuances to their relationship. Fatally, I don't think the two men themselves ever did either.

As the vessel pulled away from the platform, I took an open seat next to a window and the sole trooper onboard. My strategic position gave me a direct line of sight to Anakin's capsule. Master Yoda was standing near Obi-Wan's hover chair, swaying slightly on his cane with the movement of the ship. I suppose he figured the act of climbing onto one of the built-in seats was more effort than he was currently willing to expend. On Anakin's other side were two medics, both solely concentrated on monitoring his vitals.

The changing horizon drew my sight out the window. I watched the rough jaggedness of the mountain's cliff side transition into one-dimensional smoothness via the simple power of distance.

"Master Jedi?" My attention turned to the clone trooper seated next to me. He was attempting to call the attention of the man in the hover chair. Hearing him, Obi-Wan retracted his hand from Anakin's forehead and looked up.

He looked exhausted— like he could barely keep his eyes open. I was reminded that he'd been prisoner of Dooku and the Geonosians since I'd been waiting for Anakin to return to the Lars homestead. That was many, many hours ago. No doubt he was running on fumes, devoid of sleep or proper nourishment. He was a Jedi who could do incredible deeds, but he was still only human. "Hmm?"

"The LAAT that airlifted you from the arena, Sir— the one the Senator and I fell out of. What happened to it and its crew?"

Starkly, I wondered if the limitations of the helmet visor had prevented him from seeing the wreckage on the canyon floor. I looked at the man diagonal to me to silently communicate cautionary concern.

Obi-Wan, tired as he was, seemed to understand what was happening. His bearded face took on a solemn air. "They performed their job admirably… right to the end."

Beside him, Anakin began to stir in his capsule. The fingers of his only hand gripped the rim, and he grunted as he brokenly pulled himself forwards. Dark blond hair gave way to a face frowning with painful effort as he began to sit vertical.

"Ani— no—" I began.

"Anakin—" Obi-Wan was simultaneously admonishing.

He ignored both of us and looked at the trooper. A medic approached him, even put a palm on his good shoulder to encourage him to lie flat, but Anakin lifted his hand briefly in order to wave him away. He took a steadying breath, as if making sure his lungs were going to outlast what he'd just accomplished, then said, "That pilot did some of the best maneuvering I've ever seen." Anakin didn't say it animatedly, like an excited former podracer talking shop. He reported it with the gravity the moment was owed. "He kept us alive and got us to the hangar without even one of those Geonosian starfighters landing a second hit."

Blue eyes flickered over to meet mine. The agony of a separation was relived in the span of a half-second. We all knew what had happened on the first, and only, hit.

"And after?"

Obi-Wan and Anakin exchanged glances. It was the Master who finished the final account. "The— yes, quite excellent pilot, I must say— flew us right up to the hangar platform at the sacrifice of his own defensive position. We, ah," he nodded and squinted as he adjusted himself in his chair, remembering. "We jumped out to disembark. I believe one of the soldiers made it off with us, but then we came under fire and, well." Obi-Wan sighed. "He held his ground and covered our backs. He did not make it inside."

"We would've died before we stepped foot in that hangar if not for their bravery." Anakin added his declaration to the eulogy with strength. It was very clear that, wherever these clone troopers materialized from and whoever their political puppeteers, they'd already captured his respect.

The soldier next to me seemed to nod at Obi-Wan first. "Thank you, Sir." There was a slight shifting of the helmet to the right, indicating he was now looking at Anakin. He nodded again. "Sir."

Our shuttle went quiet again after the conversation ended. Faintly, I could hear the engine thrums of the gunships flying off our wings. Republic gunships. Anakin remained in his sitting position. After a few beats, I realized why. Lying down, he wasn't able to see me. Sitting up, he could.

I know he wasn't staring at me without interruption. He wasn't foolish enough to do that. There were times when he looked at someone or something else. But every time I looked at him, it always seemed to happen at the same moment he was gazing at me.

I didn't help matters much. I tried looking out the window, at my hands in my lap, at the design of the lightsaber there; at the wall directly across from me, at the floor. But it was like gravity had taken hold of my vision and centered in that handsome face. I never made it more than eight seconds without meeting his eye. I know. I counted to see how long my restraint could hold out. My average was five.

{We could keep it a secret.}

Which one of us could, exactly?

Believe it or not, this was us trying to be discreet. I think, for the most part, we were succeeding at first. The situation played heavily into our favor. Obi-Wan had given in to his painful exhaustion and closed his eyes— Anakin and I could've started stripping our way to each other and I don't think he would've cracked a lid. Yoda, not the picture of vigor himself, was conferring with the highest-ranking medic. The specific trooper had an earpiece in his helmet which was relaying the most recent updates from the triage station. It had been hastily set up on Geonosian soil soon after the outbreak of the battle. The Grand Master, tired as he was, was anxious to hear any news about the Jedi being brought in for care.

As for the rest of the occupants of our shuttle, they couldn't have cared less if Anakin and I were stealing yearning glances at each other.

I couldn't help it. As we flew over terrain I'd previously traveled while being fearfully sure he was dead, I didn't have it in me to deny his glorious features for more than a few seconds.

Things changed, however, when Master Yoda seemed to gather all the updates he was going to before touching down at the command center. Then he started asking again about the maimed Jedi sitting in the medical capsule right next to him. I didn't even bother to hide my eavesdropping. The diagnostics the medic reported were worrisome; Anakin needed to get inside of a bacta tank as soon as possible to avoid long-term effects from his multiple traumas.

Things would start moving quickly once we landed. For this, a fast-acting, powerful sedative was injected into Anakin's arm. Out of additional concern and care for the young Padawan, Master Yoda began to try to put him in a meditative healing state. This wasn't announced. It was obvious in the way his eyes closed and a small, green hand extended in the air towards the capsule.

But, as I had been informed, Jedi tricks only work on the weak-minded.

What ensued was a small-scale calamity that might have been comedy under different circumstances. The Grand Master was effective enough to influence the Chosen One, but not enough to put him under. As a result, Anakin, who I think was fighting the trance as much as the sedative, was put into state that left him appearing somewhat… drunk.

Clandestine and covert glances at me before turned into inebriated stares. Now, anyone with eyes could see Anakin wasn't taking his off me from his still semi-supined position in his bucket gurney. A lethargic, almost sloppy grin hung on his face. Under the best, most normal of circumstances, Anakin trying to hide his emotions was like a shaak trying to hide behind a light pole. He just couldn't do it. Everything played across his features without duplicity. After more than a decade around disingenuous politicians, it was one of the many reasons why I had fallen in love with him.

But now, his love-struck expression broadcasting itself across the ship threatened to out us before we'd even reach the command center.

One of us had to retain our wits, and Anakin was in no state to do so. I did the only thing I really could in the moment, least Obi-Wan or Yoda decide to open their eyes. I ignored him.

I bound my sight to the view beyond my window, looking at the passing sand dunes without really seeing them. However short I'd previously kept them, we couldn't afford me returning longing gazes at Anakin anymore, and there didn't appear to be enough clarity in his eyes to understand if, instead, I tried to communicate a cease and desist! expression.

I could feel the heat of his stare no matter which way I turned my head. I shifted in my seat uncomfortably. I had to keep repeating to my body, pleadingly, over and over again to remember that this wasn't the time or place to reiterate my love confession— non-verbally or otherwise— with our highly-attuned company so perilously near. Especially not when I'd just made a rather obvious display of my devotion to Anakin by fetching his severed limb. I didn't regret my decision to do so for a moment, but as the seconds dragged on, it was impossible not to realize how my action must've drawn up multiple eyebrows.

The trooper next to me happened to move his knee a bare inch, doing nothing abnormal but catching the attention of my distraction-hungry eyes all the same. He hadn't said anything since thanking the Jedi for answering his questions.

I did what I did best. I compartmentalized my own stress and focused on someone else.

"Excuse me." When his helmet turned in my direction, I continued, quietly, "Did you know the soldiers on the transport well?"

He nodded. Solemnly, I thought. "They were my squad, Ma'am. We'd trained with each other since we came out of the tubes." The white-armored chin dipped. "Housing mates in the barracks as well. There isn't a meal I've had in the last ten years which didn't happen next to them."

I had so many questions. But this wasn't the time for that conversation, and not with this trooper.

Yet, there was one thing I wanted to know. One thing I wanted to see.

"May I ask something of you?"

"Of course. I'm here to follow orders, Ma'am."

I shook my head. "No. This isn't an order. You can say no." He seemed to struggle with replying to, or indeed even comprehending, such an idea. "May I ask you to remove your helmet?"

There was only a brief pause, and then gloved hands were rising to the base of his head armor. He pushed it up and off smoothly, putting it at a rest in his lap.

Like a flame jumping, my eyes quickly flickered over to Anakin in the medical capsule. He was watching us both now. Still clearly intoxicated, but more… confused.

My eyes trailed back to study the face looking calmly at mine from the seat beside me. He looked… exactly as I rationally expected him to— like the darkly-tanned, black-haired man who'd smirked at me from across Dooku's faux negotiation table. And yet, that man wasn't here at all.

Absent was the cruel cynicism and the obvious narcissism. The lips didn't sneer up at the ends patronizingly. There was a life and thoughts happening behind those dark brown eyes, but not ones shared by the bounty hunter— however much DNA had been copied.

His skin wasn't marked with scars the way the original man he'd been sourced from was. The formidable chin was still there, set in a strong fashion. He didn't seem perturbed at all at my examination. If anything, he seemed more interested in the permission he suddenly had or took to analyze my own near features, no longer encumbered by the military visor of his helmet. I couldn't blame him— after seeing multitudes of people who had your own face for what was apparently his whole life, I would be interested in the sight of a novel face too.

"Are all the women of the Republic like you?"

I blinked at his question, surprised.

Have these clones never been around a woman before?

The realization came to me suddenly that, given the sparse information I'd gleaned, this was entirely possible. As far as I knew, clones were grown in labs, not communal villages. His backstory so far matched this assumption.

"What exactly do you mean?"

He gestured to my torn outfit; the cylindrical weapon I still clutched in my hand. I knew strands of my hair were loose around my face, and I was dusted in dirt and my own dried blood.

"A warrior."

For the first time since flirting with Anakin in the arena— though, that is not what was happening here— I smiled with humor. "No, not exactly."

I didn't want to undercut the abilities of my gender, but as apparently the first female envoy to the clone troopers, I also didn't want to give misleading expectations for their future interactions with the general public.

"I'm a Senator," I blurted, afterwards questioning why I'd thought that was a sufficient explanation. Besides, he already knew this information.

"So, all the Senators of the Republic are like you? Warriors?"

Warriors for peace! sounded like a shoddy campaign slogan. For a plethora of delegates, it didn't even seem to be true anymore. Besides— considering a few nonhumaniod beings of the Senate didn't even have hands, and a great many more lacked the enthusiasm to hold a weapon if called to do so, I again amended, "No, not really."

With every reply I gave, the clone trooper seemed more and more befuddled. "Your planet is a hostile world, then?"

I wouldn't let what happened with the Trade Federation ten years ago tarnish Naboo's legacy of pacifism and peace.

"No. Certainly not."

"So, who are you?"

A low, faint sound rumbled in my ear closest to the window. I turned towards it and saw the battlefield in the distance. Smoke of debris clouds still hung in the air. Subtly, like a breeze trying to nestle under an arm, I felt that familiar fire spark again that I'd felt in the first transport. The call to meet the challenge of my era. The drive to bring this crisis to a close as quickly and smoothly as possible, with as few lives effected as possible.

Then my eyes drifted over to the direct opposite side of my view. To Anakin. He was watching me still, and his drugged expression grew dopey with happiness when he realized he'd recaptured my attention. Pink lips pulled back into a smile that invited adoration without him even trying. Naboo would always be my origin world; my family was as dear to me as they ever were. But it was not planetary or familial obligation that tied me to this universe anymore. The young man sitting beside Obi-Wan was my new anchor. He was the star my planetary-self revolved around. ...Even if, right now, he didn't look fit to drive a child's speeder.

Perhaps I should have felt unbearably torn. Here, on one side, was a scene triggering an abrupt change of upheaval in my political life. Civil War. The galaxy was about to change. On my other side beamed the man who had already turned my inner galaxy upside down and made it his. And now he knew I loved him, which, unfortunately, did not change our situation.

But instead of feeling overwhelmed— like a woeful soul caught between tug-of-war opponents fighting for my priority— I felt calm. Centered, in a way I hadn't felt in years.

Some things were simpler than ever. I didn't know what future lied ahead, but I wasn't a woman built to cower.

I leaned back against the headrest and let out a steady exhale. The trooper next to me was still waiting patiently for an answer. The corners of my mouth rose as I looked at him.

"I'm Padmé Amidala."

Coming soon... ACT VI: THE CREDENCE

A/N:

1. That last exchange has been living on the page since July, just waiting to be shared. I love that moment for Padmé so very much. This chapter isn't so much a standalone as it is a conclusion of sorts to the multiple voices that have been waging war in her head. In the chaos of Geonosis, and even with the crippling fear and lingering concern for Anakin, she's found a measure of peace within her own self. Just in time, too— things are about to get interesting. We'll see where that tether takes her and whether or not it splinters again.

2. Like George, I oddly enjoy a good parallel that stabs you in the heart. Obi-Wan's line, "Get a medical capsule, immediately!" verbatim mirrors Sidious's order when he finds Anakin/Vader clinging to life by the lava on Mustafar. That, and the also-mirrored forehead touch, were intentional. I couldn't resist the heartbreak of Vader remembering that contrast of, at one time, Obi-Wan being there for him in that kind of dire moment, only to walk away from him three years later and leave him to die... right before Palpatine shows up to "gallantly" fill the role. In my head canon, that's something which went through Vader's mind for years, spurring his hatred/heartbreak at Obi-Wan and tying him that much more emotionally to Sidious.

3. The above side effects of Force lightning are lifted straight from canon. There's actually even more to it than what was said, but I didn't want Yoda coming across as a scary WebMD entry. It took Anakin watching Obi-Wan about to be killed for him to muster the strength to get back into the duel (he was writhing in pain there for a while), so it's fair to say he was pretty injured before the severed arm. Being electrocuted, he would've been tense as a board when he was thrown into the wall, and that Force push was likely the last straw for a couple of his ribs. There's all that ragged gasping Anakin/Hayden was doing when he came to on the floor...

Last thing. We're finally in that post-hangar-embrace territory— the Anidala fanfic writer's dreamscape. George gave us a beautifully blank canvas with no determining rule as to how long or short it was between the hangar and the wedding, or how they got there. Get ready. I have my sleeves rolled up and I am about to play.

Oh yeah, and that "event" for Suppression fans I mentioned on my bio page? That's coming together nicely. See y'all again soon.

Reviews are always, always appreciated.