When Paths Collide

Chapter 6 - Crisis at the Heart

'We'll see each other again' Ahsoka had promised before they walked away, and I think now I understand our mother more than ever. I raised a child and had them walk away into the unknown because it was what they needed. Is this how she felt, coming home alone to a completely empty house?

I'm still sitting there, alone, when the door opens, and my brothers enter. I sense more than hear their arrival.

There's a long pause of quiet before Anakin approaches silently. "It never gets better, does it," he murmurs, more a statement than question.

"I lost my padawan," I snap.

"I meant the... the guilt."

I bite my lip, glaring at the floor. "Don't dare say a word about meditating," I snap, harshly. The Jedi rules failed me before, or maybe I failed them, I don't know. It doesn't much matter, because either way, it didn't work. My sisters are gone, and for as much as I love being on the field it hurts more for them not to be there, to turn around and not see a familiar blue figure who's now nearly as tall as me, sprouting sarcasm and cheerfulness despite the violence she's surrounded by.

"I had no intention of doing so," Obi-Wan replies, "And if I were, it would be because I assumed you weren't listening."

"That would be an accurate assumption," I snip back. The joke lays flat, as half-dead as I feel. I'm too tired to keep fighting, to keep dragging forwards when I don't even know what path I'm headed down. I don't know where I'm going, what this will lead to. I feel... lost. Like I'm floundering, drowning without an anchor to pull me back.

Anakin smiles faintly, but there's a deep, aching sorrow in his eyes that never really left. I suspect it never will, or if it does it'll take much longer. I still often find myself thinking of our mother, thinking of how we failed her. I can't believe I did the same a second time, for my child this time.

Why? Why does this keep on happening?!

"You still blame yourself?" Obi-Wan asks.

"I never stopped," I bite back sharply. He may be here – they may be here, but I don't know for how long. How do I know they won't leave me, or that the war won't take them? Or worse, the Sith won't take them? The memory of Dark-Anakin from Mortis is still burned ever-fresh into my memory. I'll never forget it. I can't. I stayed with him though. I did as he asked me to.

Even then, it doesn't seem like it was enough. It doesn't seem like it ever will be.

Anakin Skywalker

Aniya and I are at the Senate meeting the next day, when the Republic agrees to install Clovis as the new head of the Banking Clan. The former ones were arrested for their crimes, so they needed new leadership, and he promised to the Senate that he was going to end the corruption. Never mind how the information necessary was obtained by illegal means in the first place.

I don't like this at all. I don't see how the Senate could agree to install someone like him as the leader, after everything. My gaze drifts through the enormous room, landing on where Padme and Clovis are standing near each other.

I still can't forget how she nearly died that day, back when I'd accompanied her when she had been trying to investigate Clovis. I can't let something like that happen again. (I can't fail her too, after I already failed Aniya, Ahsoka, and Alema.) Aniya is standing with her arms crossed next to me, none too happy.

Even once the meeting is over, Padme is still busy, so we find ourselves walking down the hall alongside the Chancellor instead. "I can tell that something is troubling you," Palpatine observes, looking over at us, "I've known you for too long not to see it."