Question of the Day: Which baddie should Padmé and the handmaidens fight off by themselves to save the kids? Dooku or Grievous?
Chapter 13 will have Ahsoka and will hopefully come out over the weekend. I will reply to reviews for Chapters 11 and 12 then. In the meantime, have a lovely read!
Chapter 12
"Come on, baby, pick up," Anakin muttered under his breath, waiting for Padmé's voice to come through as he held his com in one hand. Mace was supposed to meet him at dark but while the clones slept there was nothing more he could do to help them.
"Anakin?" her pretty voice came floating over the usually crackly-sounding comlink.
"Hi, Padmé," he answered quietly. There were so many things he had to tell her in a few minutes, but he didn't exactly know where to start.
"Where have you been? You left so early this morning I didn't get to ask!"
"Actually I left in the middle of the night. It's been a—an exhausting eighteen hours," he sighed. "I've been spying on the Chancellor."
"Spying on the Chancellor?" she repeated, her voice distracted but unreadable. "Oh! Anakin, have you seen Ahsoka? Derolf's at our apartment and she's been nowhere to be found!"
"Haven't seen her," he replied tightly, growing more worried about his Padawan as each minute passed. He leaned against the wall behind him, glancing around to look for Windu but still seeing no sign of him. "She's in trouble, I know that much. I'm about to go look for her. Master Windu's coming with me. It's good that the kid's safe, I suppose."
"Mmm," Padmé agreed absentmindedly. Like him, she was trying to fit too much information into far too short of a call. "Yeah, we've got him. Yané's in love with him already. What's this about the Chancellor? Ani, I don't trust him either! You should have seen the look he gave me when he talked into my speaking time this morning!"
"It's confusing, Padmé! I don't know what to think," he replied, frustrated with himself. "Here I thought he was the good guy for helping me out. You know he's always been a faithful friend to us."
"But he knows so much more than he should," Padmé echoed his thoughts.
"I know. And—" he rubbed his eyes, "I had this dream, Padmé."
When she was quiet, he kept going. "It wasn't a normal dream. It was like those I used to have about—my mother."
"Another? And what happened?" he could tell Padmé was fighting to keep her voice steady with its usual, comforting calm.
"We both died in my dream," he said quietly. "And Palpatine—Palpatine was the one behind—I dunno, the darkness. Maybe something—the war, I don't know what it meant. And he took our child, Padmé—it was horrible!" he felt his voice crack on the last word.
"We'll figure out what it means," Padmé said at last, after a long silence between the two of them. "Together. We'll figure it out."
Anakin shook his head. "Yeah. We talked about my work on the Jedi Code…he's apparently done a lot of similar research. But he's looking into other things—alternatives, he calls them. I don't—I don't know what I believe any more, Padmé. The Chancellor seems so confident in his beliefs. But I can't seem to figure out which side he's on!"
"Everyone has their own opinion on the truth," Padmé sympathized.
He laughed shortly. "So what do we believe?!" He was so frustrated with the swirling vortex of opinions and ideas this war had brought to the table. Sick of talking about it. Unable to lend any one scheme of thought his full confidence and sway.
"We believe in the Jedi Code," Padmé reminded him gently. "The old version, not the modern one with its botched translations and additives and the personal opinions of every Grand Master from the last few millennia!" she let out a breath after the long sentence. Anakin smiled. She was good at making speeches. "The version you compiled—doesn't it just ring true in a way nothing else can?" she continued. "Even when we first read it, and didn't even agree with everything it said."
"Yeah," Anakin replied, remembering as well. He subconsciously reached down to finger the edge of the book in his pocket, feeling more and more uncomfortable with leaving it there.
He needed to get out his compilation of the Old Jedi Code and compare it to the Sith writings, and figure out once and for all what he did believe. It was only going to keep nagging at him until he did.
But there was always something he had to do first. And right now, it was finding Ahsoka.
"Right. Thanks—I have to go now. Be thinking about going back," he added shortly, as Master Windu appeared from around the corner and he purposely avoided saying Padmé's name as the one he was conversing with. It had become a habit in the course of the three years they'd hidden their marriage.
"I hear you and your Master are not entirely getting along?" Windu questioned, looking out the window with determination rather than at Anakin.
He shut off his comlink. "We get along," he protested weakly, knowing that if Mace knew about their feud it wouldn't be long before they were forced to sift it through to the bottom.
"There is no time to pursue the matter now," the Jedi Master continued, much to his relief. "Why don't you extend the Force to your Padawan? I'll assist you in pinpointing her location."
