Hello there, and Merry Christmas!
Sorry for that, this update took so long, I was kinda busy failing on my tests :( Joking aside, these two chapters had been through several rewrites (at somepoint what ultimately become CH7, was meant to be Ch6, while this Ch6, was stored in the trash), but since I'm quite lazy, I simply overwrote the parts I didn't like, therfore it's possible I created some inconsistences -both grammatical and story wisely-, and didn't notice them. If you find any, please point them out!
I also feel like this chapter become extremely corny at one point (I'm sure you'll recognise which), but hey, only a working idea can become cliché, right? ;)
I hope you'll like it!
„Why do I get the feeling, you're going to be the death of me?" Obi-Wan asked his former apprentice, on his well-known lecturing tone. They were waiting on the corridor, in front of the medical room. Anakin took a deep, rattling breath, before repling with a tired grin:
„Your's? In that case, I apologise Master. I had thought it was only myself I put in danger." Obi-Wan raised his eyebrows:
„Yeah, and if you died, who'd watch my back? In any case, you are in worse shape than I thought, if that's the best retort you have. Exactly how much blood did you give to Ahsoka?"
„I gave her just enough. It's because she followed my teachings, she ended up like this, so I had to do whatever it took to save her. And please, Obi-Wan if you really must lecture me again, postpone it. I'm in no mood to listen it right now."
„There's a new one. I had been under the impression, you are never in the mood to listen to me. But don't be so hard with yourself. Ahsoka always has been reckless. She didn't learn it entirely from you." he examined Anakin's face, and grimaced. The young Jedi was in worse condition, than he had been after their duel against Dooku. He was paler than a ghost, his eyes were slump, and he was shaking from head-to-toe. His Force-presence, which usually had been like a storm, which could erupt at any second, now barely was more than a tired breeze.
„He donated way too much blood. There's no way hecould feel that guilty about what happened, esspecially since he warned Ahsoka to be more careful. Apparently, he's attachment towards her, is starting to cloud his judgement."
Altought 2-1B tried to force him into taking a bacta-bath, he refused, and not even Obi-Wan could talk him into changing his mind.
„I'll be fine." he said „Ahsoka needs the treatment, not me. Besides, that thing is for wounds, isn't it?"
„Primarily it is, but it also helps the blood production."
„OK, then maybe I'll take it, but just after we are asured about that, Ahsoka will be allright." those were his last words, about cureing himself. A few minutes later Commander Cody arrived to report Obi-Wan, about the damage survey.
„Did anyone else got hurt, besides Tano Padawan?" Obi-Wan asked him.
„No Sir. Oddly enough, the hangar was almost empty at the time of the explosion. Besides the the Commander and the other Togruta, we've found only that prisoner there."
„He's dead, I assume."
„Yes Sir, however we've no idea, about how he get killed. Taking how his corpse looks like, I think he got shot on the head by a laser cannon."
„At least he won't cause any problems again. How's the girl?"
„She's unconscious, but all right. We took her to her qurters, and I sent my best troopers to guard her, until we know more."
„Very well. How much damage did the ship take?"
„The container in which we stored the fuel for the fighters and landing crafts was hit by an energy-bullet, and it exploded. That also presumes my theory about the prisoner's death. We were lucky, Sir. If that bullet hit the other container, the whole ship would have been destroyed. The main Energy Cabels broke, but a team is already on it. They should be able to fix them in an hour. The hyperdrive generator functions as nothing has happened. However, the hull was damaged quite badly. We aren't leaking, but it wouldn't bear a hyperspace-jump."
„What about the crafts in the hangar?" Cody hesitated:
„Most of the landing crafts and walkers were right next to the container. Only a couple of them can be repaired. Nearly each bombers received damage to some degree. The fighters, the Twilight and the captured ship had been docked further, so those were left unharmed. All at all, roughtly sixty percent of the crafts are in a usable shape."
„That's more than nothing, I guess. Is there anything else Cody?"
„The Jedi Council and the Chancellor asked you to report as soon as possible, General."
„Send them a message, tell them that I can't report them, until we know more about the events, and that most likely will be just after Padawan Tano regained her consciousness."
„Sir!" the commander salutated and left.
„We really were lucky this time." Anakin said. Obi-Wan turned back to him, and he's eyes were clouded by distress. If possible, Anakin was even paler than earlier, and his eyes betrayed his will to not show weakness. However, before Obi-Wan could express his concern, the door of the medical quarters slid open, and 2-1B came out. Anakin tried to jump up, but his former Master forsaw his movement, and pushed him back on the seat with the Force. The young Jedi seemed to be annyoed by this, but he didn't have neither the strenght, neither the mood to confront with Obi-Wan. Besides the Jedi Master was right- if he let Anakin to jump up, most likely he would have passed out.
„How's Ahsoka doing? the Obi-Wan asked the droid, before Anakin could.
„She'll make a full-recovery. Her ribs shall be weld in two to three weeks, her other injuries will be healed in a few days, with regular bacta-bathes." as he spoke, a remote controlled repulsor-chair floated out of the medical room „General Skywalker, it's your turn."
„I already told you, I'm fine." Anakin replied stubbornly, but this time the medidroid seemed to be unshakeable:
„Sir, despite my programming forbid it, I put your life in danger by taking nearly two liters blood from you, because you had insisted to give your Padawan as much as she needed. Most Human being wouldn't even survived losing this amount so suddenly, and don't think you're through the worst of it! The longer you postpone the treatment, the larger damage your vital organs will take by the lack of oxygen, and nutrients. It's a wonder you're still conscious! The only reason you're still able to talk back to me, is your mechanic arm, which doesn't suck the remainder of your blood! If both of your arms were organic, you'd almost be beyond recovery by now!"
„Am I really in that bad shape?" 2-1B nodded:
„Yes Sir, and with each second we waste with arguing, your state turns even worse! Please, let me threat you!" Anakin was shocked. He didn't expect that. He surrendered and sat down to the chair. As 2-1B took him through the medical quarters, they passed by a bacta-tank, in which Ashoka was floating, so Anakin finally got a glimpse on her extrenal injuries. Both of her arms, esspecially her hands, had been burnt quite badly, while her shoulders, lekku and face looked like she received a really bad sunburn. She had a scar across her right thigh, from her waist to innerside of her knee. There was also a small wound, just under her chest, where 2-1B slit her up to fix her internal injuries, and deplete the assembled blood from her abdominal.
„What medicines she got, besides the bath?" Anakin asked.
„Painkiller and sedative. She also got a minimal bacta-injection, just to make sure her internal wounds won't be tainted. In addition she got bota-essence, to start up blood producement. Now please, take your clothes off, and lie down on the table!"
„At least she'll be Ok." Anakin thought as he followed 2-1B's order.
. He was standing in the Senate's Grand Convocation Chamber, and watched as a hooded figure and Master Yoda were fighting to the death. With a fiendish laugh the hooded man freed several Senator Pods, and threw them towards Yoda, who jumped out of their way, then grabbed the last one through the Force, and sent it flying back to his opponent. The vision went black, then he found himself standing in a lookout -tower over a lava sea. He looked down and saw two tall men dueling on a small platform, surrounded by fire and molten lava. Then he found himself back in the Senate. But this time he saw him self fighting the same hooded figure. He looked down to the floor. Obi-Wan, Kit Fisto, Mace Windu and Saesee Tiin were laying there. It was clear that they were slained by lightsaber…
Just like the previous ones had followed eachother, this vision was replaced by another in the next second…"Padmé?" he asked in disbelieve. But something was wrong with her. She cried, and gasped and screamed like she'd been tortured, but there was something in her eyes, that just didn't seem to fit there: happiness.
„Why is she so blissfull if she's suffering?" Anakin asked himself, and his questiton was answered right away as after a great scream from the young woman, the cries of a baby overtoned her heavy breathing. A black leadergloved arm held the newborn who was wrapped up in a towel next to the mother's face.
„A boy. Padme our son." Anakin was struck by hearing his own voice. Padme smiled at the baby, and whispered:
„Luke…" then the image darkened for a second, before returning. Padme was screaming again, but this time, the happy light in her eyes was replaced by infinite sadness. Once again a baby cried up, and another, but still very well-known male voice stated:
„It's a girl." felicity barely run through Padme's face as she named her daughter:
„Leia…" she was barely breathing, and Anakin realised in horror, that she was near her end. The man who was with him tried to encourage her:
„Don't give up Padme, you must fight!"
„I…can't. … Obi-Wan!…There's still good in him. I know…there's still good…" the vision disappeared, but unlike previously, the next one didn't follow it right away.
„Oh not again." Anakin thought when he found himself in an Assault Transport with his youngerself, Obi-Wan and Padmé, flying over a rusty colored desert. Anakin wanted to awake. He really wanted. But just like countless other times, he couldn't. He couldn't, because despite he knew, what would happen next, he was unable to turn away from Her face, which he could see thousand times clearer in this vison, than in his elusive memories. The ship was struck, they lost their balance, and to Anakin's horror –or relife?- Padmé and a clone fell off. He saw Padme landing on the top of a dune, then roll down on it's side, knocked unconscious.
„PADMÉ!" the younger Anakin cried out in despair „Put the ship down!" he ordered the pilot, but Obi-Wan instantly stopped him:
„Anakin, don't let your personal feelings get in the way!" then he invalidated Anakin's order: "Follow that speeder!" but Anakin didn't give up:
"Put down the SHIP!" he shouted. Obi-Wan couldn't believe his ears. He tried to set his apprentice right once more:
"I can't take Dooku alone! I need you. If we can catch him, we could end this war right now!" he must have seen that it didn't work so he yelled at him annoyedly: „We have a job to do!"
„Well I don't care! Put the ship down!"
„You will be expelled from the Jedi Order!"
„I can't leave her!" Obi-Wan reached the last drops of his patience, as he replied:
"COME TO YOUR SENCES! What do you think, what Padme would do, if she was in your position?" but before the elder Anakin could see the answer he had given in this alternate past, the vision disappeared.
Anakin openned his eyes. He found himself on a familiar field, surrounded by shaaks.
„Okay, now this one is new." he said as he looked around. „Definitely looks like a corny description of a dream," He sniffed the fresh air, and felt the breeze on his face. „but doesn't feel like a dream at all."
„Maybe it's not." a soft female voice replied. Anakin turned around and found himself face-to-face with Padme. But something was different with her. She was surrounded by a blue aura, and obscurly though, but Anakin could see the waterfalls behind her, through her face.
„Padme?" he whispered „Are you a ghost?" the girl looked at him with the same inward sadness, which Anakin had seen in her eyes behind the cloud of physical pain in the second verion of his vision about her giving birth to their child. Sorrow, which was not caused by her own death- but by someone's she had loved.
„Why? Aren't you too?" she asked back. Anakin frowned. What could she meant? He wasn't dead, was he? Padme stepped closer to him, and placed her hand on his cheek. Anakin shiwered, for her hand felt warmer than in her life. It was as if her very love towards him flow through into him in that very touch. She smiled sadly
„You're a shadow of who you could be, and it won't change, until you hang on the pain of our departure. You're a good man, Ani. Let go of the past's pain, before it could ruin your future."
„I can't live without you." Anakin whispered.
„You don't have to. Just because I can't be with you physically, it doesn't mean I've disappeared for good."
„What do you mean?"
„What do you think, what would Qui-Gon say?" this caught Anakin by surprise
„Live for the moment. But I'm not Qui-Gon Jinn, and his wisdom is secret before me, and it will remain for years, if not forever."
„Ani, you're wiser than you'd think. But you're also blinded by your fear of loss. Let go off your fear, don't grab onto your past, on…me. If you can't turn away from the past, you won't be able to see what the present offers you. Don't blame and punish yourself for what had already happened, you can't change it anyway. Even if you tried, it would only crush you. Live in the present, feel, so you can have a future."
„Are you saying I should forget about you? And about my mother? And what I have done after her, and would've after your death?"
„If it's the only way you can step forward, Yes." she was still holding his cheeks. By this point Anakin didn't try to cover his tears. Padme's angelic eyes were clouded too. „But leave oblivion as a final option. Letting go off the past is one thing, obliterate it, is another. You need to remember and learn from your past, but you must let it be past, nothing more." she looked deep into his eyes, and kissed him.
In this moment a weak electric shock run trough Anakin's body, as the bacta treatment ended, waking him up. It annoyed him horribly. „Why couldn't it wait one more minute?" he thought as he was lifted out of the bacta tank. „Man, what a dream!" then he started to think. „In fact it was either the most chessy dream I ever heard about, or it wasn't a dream at all. Could it have been a vision? No, it's impossible. As much as I hate it, Padme is…" it was at that insant when he realised what tortured him the most. Not the fact. But that he was unable to accept it as a fact. Whether it really was her „ghost", or just the Force tried to lead him back the trail he lost on that fateful day on Geonosis, didn't matter anymore, as he slowly understood, why didn't the Jedi mourn the dead. „Padme…Padme is dead. But…but that means she's now one with Force, right? So if the Force is with me, than… so is she!" he closed his eyes as he put his clothes on, and smiled sadly. „How stupid I am. She was with me all along. So were Mom and Qui-gon." but then the smile was burnt away by a sudden eruption of pain and disgust. „No! Even if they're one with the Force, they're gone forever! I'll never be able to find them, because if they're one with the Force, there's no difference between them, and anyoneelse- including their murderers! No, I can't believe that!" The bare thought made him shake with anger, however before he got too carried away, he reminded himself. „Cool down! Padme asked me not to grab on her, and she's right. I must accept those things I can't change, as they're!" A determinded light glow up in his eyes, as he left the medical bay „At least until I learn how to change them! After all, if I really am the Chosen One, I should be able to do it. And one day I will be!"
„You're having dark thoughts Anakin. Way too dark, to be acceptable from a Jedi." Obi-Wan „greeted" him at the other side of the door. He's eyes were clouded by anger. Anakin sent the same look to him, before asking:
„Why are you probing my mind, Master?"
„I am not probing you at all. I was barely meditating, and trying to figure out what has happened in the hangar. But your sinister thoughts were so powerful, they forced their way into my head. I didn't understand all of them, but I felt the influence of the Dark Side on each one of them."
„Oh great. You're gonna scold me again, right?"
„Scold you? No, you're over that level, when I had the right to do so, not to mention, that never really worked on you anyway. No, I barely want to warn you: don't go against the way of the Force! That would be the sheerest road to the depths of the Dark Side."
„Thanks for the advise, Obi-Wan, but how would you know if it's true?" Obi-Wan was thunder-strucked.
„You don't know anything about the Dark Side, that you learnt from the first hand, nor do you know anything about what would cause defying with the will of the Force! You simply accpeted what you were taught!"
„Because the dangers are far greater than the possible benefits- if there are any at all!"
„That's a coward's way!"
„Maybe, but I'd rather choose that, than your suggestion: the way of the fools! You should be ashamed of yourself! Your Padawan was just nearly killed by those who followed the same trail, you're considering to go down!" this was like a slap across the face for Anakin. „His right!" shiver ran through his spine at the thought as he remembered the duels he wittnessed in his vison. Esspecially the one over the lava sea. He had a fairly strong bet on who the two fighters were. And he felt extremely ashamed, for forgetting about Ahsoka. His thoughts must have been written on his face, because Obi-Wan's expression softened a bit. Then he nodded inwards the medical bay and said:
„Anyway Anakin, I thinks she's awake."
A.N.: The Padmé Anakin saw in his "dream" was NOT a Force ghost. It was more likely the impression Anakin's feelings for her left on his subconscious. But if you like the Force ghost version more, you can say that she was one. I leave that up to you.
Please review!