By the time Circe has finished leading the Clones in and destroying any last sparking droids within the base, Anakin and Obi-Wan have messaged that they're on their way back to Coruscant.
She leaves the rest of the base's maintenance in the hands of the Clones who've been stationed there, and boards Rex's ship, eager to get home. If they've managed to capture Count Dooku then they're all one step closer to ending the war.
To going back to being peacekeepers.
Circe's politics are complicated, rarely shared with anyone other than her closest of friends, and never allowed to interfere with her duties as a Jedi. In a perfect world, she and the rest of the Order would be spreading peace and prosperity, not war and violence. She falls awkwardly between traditionalism, and progressiveness. The Jedi are guardians of peace and order, and violence has no place within their method of work, and yet, the Order must take more responsibility and fight for what's right no matter the consequences.
And killing, no matter who the enemy is, is something the Jedi should never have been allowed to start doing. Circe allows herself to be contemptuous in little but her hatred for the act of killing. Of taking another thing's life.
She believes in peace. She also believes in what this war is trying to change. But she will struggle with rationalizing the lives it has stolen for the rest of her life.
On Coruscant's main landing pad, the ship has barely touched down before Circe is leaping out of the opening doors and searching for Anakin's tall silhouette in the distance. The light stone that makes up the Jedi temple makes it hard to make everyone out in the blinding sunlight, but she can sense his presence, just a few meters away.
"Circe!"
There he is.
"Anakin!"
His features come into focus as he approaches, casting a shadow over her and relieving the burning of the sun in her eyes.
He's grinning, as always, but a few cuts and scratches adorn his face. She doesn't say anything, despite that she's itching to ask if he's alright. She knows he can handle himself, and that he's back in one piece, but she can't avoid the familiar weight on her chest as she searches him for pain, her worry like a cherry pit caught in her throat.
She finds her words. "What happened? Did it go well?"
"Dooku slipped past us again," He sighs, the sun glowing in his lashes as he looks away, "But we have great intel from the ship he left. We'll pick up his trail in no time."
Circe hums, reaching up dab gently at the deepest of his wounds on his face. "Let's go to medical."
"And then let's go to a shower," He replies, dragging his fingers across her cheek teasingly.
"Oh, would you stop doing that?" She retorts, rubbing at her face.
"Look, I've just wiped off a layer of dirt. You're disgusting."
"Yes, forgive me. I know how you hate getting scuffed in battle. That must be why you always stay in the back."
"In that back? Is that what you call my ship always landing before yours?"
They walk off bickering, and the Temple is as it always is. Incense wafting through the air from prayer chambers, light spilling into the halls, white stone glinting in the sun as the city roars in the distance, and the Jedi eager to continue the chase of their enemies.
Across the city, Padme Amidala is in her suite, standing at the balcony overlooking the Senate District. A comm from Circe suddenly blips in her hand quietly, alerting her that her friend is waiting downstairs in front of the building. The street isn't very busy, at least not as crowded as the lower levels, a luxury of being able to afford to live on the surface.
It is an uncomfortable atmosphere to the pale Jedi, as someone who has explored every level of the city and traveled to the poorest of planets, but the people milling around don't seem to notice.
She waits for the Senator to come down and thinks about all the problems she wishes the Jedi Order could be fixing instead of throwing lives away in a war. The wealth disparity of Coruscant's levels, sending more resources to outposts on other planets, destroying the very slave system that Anakin came from ten years ago.
Just a few years before, she had brought this up to him around the time everyone realized this war would be going on a lot longer than they'd expected.
"We're supposed to be helping people, not destroying their homes in the process of fighting Separatists," She had sighed, slouching on the wall they were sitting against.
"You can't expect the Order to solve everyone's problems. That's not how it works," He answered, freshly seventeen and already jaded from their lives in battle.
She stared at her hands, amazed that he thought that way. "It's not wrong to want better for everyone. Even if it's unrealistic. It's not crazy to think we all deserve to live better. We have the resources, after all."
Anakin had thought about what she said for a long time, even after they had said good night and gone to bed in their separate rooms. He supposed she was right. But Circe was an idealist, someone who wanted to change everything for the better all the time. He just didn't work like that.
Anakin wanted to win this war. He wanted to triumph over the Separatists and come home to honor and fame. And that's why they worked, he had thought. Circe had a resilient hope. A fierce belief in doing what was right. Anakin had the power of ceaseless determination, of battle and glory. They were balanced, like two celestial bodies in the sky, one bringing the ferocity of day, and the other stoking faith to carry through the dark night.
But now, in the heart of the city, Circe can't help feeling like she's still right. The upper-level civilians skirt by in their funny clothes, the buzz of luxury brand billboards overhead, their seemingly instinctive desire to throw their lunches out only half-eaten. It all unsettles her.
"Your mind is always somewhere far when I see you," Padme says suddenly, pulling her from her critique of the city.
"Padme," She smiles, pulling her friend in for a deep hug, "There is much to think about these days."
The Senator's laugh floats around her like a song. She's dressed in streetwear, none of the professional robes or accessories hanging from her shoulders. Circe remembers when she was younger, seeing Padme for the first time as Queen of Naboo.
They were not far in age from each other, Padme being only five years older, but she had seemed far more mature than that when they first met. She had clinked and jingled as she led the Jedi around the palace, adorned with ceremonial jewelry and attire, and Circe had found it rather hard to concentrate. But Padme is rather plain looking on her day off, plain but for the natural beauty of her face.
"Come on, I'm starving," She says, pulling the Jedi down the street towards a number of glowing restaurants.
"How was the embassy to the Banking Clan?" Circe inquires.
"It went well," Padme says, "I'll have to travel back in a few months, but the city's accounts have been cleaned up and set back to normal."
"You returned so soon. I was sure it'd be at least another few weeks before you reached an agreement with the bank's Council."
"Well, the Senate said it would be a difficult mission, but I found it to be no trouble at all! They're all actually rather reasonable, as long as there's plenty of flattery before any request." She says.
Circe laughs. "You're a force to be reckoned with, that's why. That's also why they couldn't let you retire to the country like all the other royals of Naboo do."
"Retire!?" Padme says, laughing in a surprised, almost horrified sort of way. "I was only eighteen when my second term ended! I had lots of work left in me still."
"Work like bullying the Banking Clan into cooperation with the Republic," She jokes, earning and eye-roll and a tsk.
The two of them enter a small but brightly lit restaurant and sit towards the back, shaking off their cloaks and ordering two glasses of the same wine.
As the drinks arrive, Padme asks about the Order and Jedi business in between sips. Circe speaks wildly of her adventures, of the Council's plans and all the thought she's put into their new Trooper training program. There is a new fleet of Separatists making camp in the outer regions of the Western Reaches, she mentions, the Council is planning a counterattack presently.
"I'm sure Anakin is petitioning to lead that mission," Padme says.
At this, Circe's eyes flash, a nameless look passing through the charcoal color of them.
"He's always been headstrong about this war," She sighs, dragging her fingers around the rim of her glass mindlessly.
"I think he feels like it gives him purpose."
"He already has purpose," She says, her face hardening. "I wish he could see that."
Padme tries to lighten her mood. "You could always tell him, you know. He listens to you. And after all, he's only a man. You can't hold it against him if he's a little narrow-sighted. I find they all tend to be."
Circe shakes her head, turning her eyes away. "But he's more than that, and he knows it. He could be great! He is great, but he could be larger than life," She says seriously. "He could make history. Change everything, if he wanted to."
The Senator looks at her curiously. "Even if he did, would that satisfy him? He's so ambitious. I think you're the only reason he's not campaigned to become the next Chancellor. You inspire him, you know."
She shakes her head, laughing about how Anakin is inspired by nothing but fighter jets and the war.
Padme has always had the sense that in a different life, if Circe and Anakin weren't Jedi, bound by code and duty, and instead lead normal lives in a rural village or attended the same school in the city, they'd be together. It seems nearly everyone who came to know them would share this thought. That there is something between them waiting to be discovered, a page waiting to be turned.
But a sad feeling passes through her as she watches Circe talk about him. She knows nothing of what it means to be with someone. To fall in love. The word is meaningless to her. She knows love as fire knows water. Something so forbidden it nearly ceases to exist.
She is sure that had they grown up without the Order's guiding, Anakin would've loved Circe and Circe would've loved Anakin. They already do, she thinks to herself, they just don't know it.
"Don't worry, Circe. This war will end, and you will help him to see how important change can be," She sighs, pushing thoughts of love and duty out of her mind.
There is no point in wishing for the blind to suddenly see. Anakin and Circe will spend the rest of their lives as partners in battle only. Their fate is to fall together and yet apart, constantly, always.
"I know," The snowy-haired Jedi answers, "The time will come, and he'll see how much more to life there is than war and winning."
"Exactly. Much, much more."
"It doesn't matter," She says as a waiter drops their plates before them. "We're heading off-world tomorrow."
"Another mission?" Padme asks, reaching across the table to grab at Circe's food. She can never make up her mind about what she wants, and Circe is always generous enough to order her second choice. "But I just got back!"
"Sorry, Senator, the Separatists run a very tight schedule out there!"
Padme shakes her head. "I hate the thought of you interacting with them face-to-face. I much prefer dealing with them through diplomatic means, a good safe distance away."
"Don't worry, I've done it a million times before and I'll do it a million times more." She smiles.
"You are the best in the Order," She teases, smiling at the way Circe's pale cheeks go pink. "You're terribly gifted, you know that?"
The Jedi scoffs. "Please, I'm no Chosen One. Anakin's got that department covered, believe me."
She thinks of him, sauntering off a ship or twirling his lightsaber in his hands reflexively, every inch of him showing off the destiny he was born with. How he calls the attention of every room, earns smiles and laughs out of even the most tired of soldiers. The command in his voice, the intention in his movement.
He is every bit the Chosen One now as he was when he was brought to Coruscant. Young, confident, and eager to win.
"You don't have to be the Chosen One," Padme says, fishing the olive out of her drink and pulling it off its stick. "You've trained so hard all these years. You know they say you're one of their most skilled fighters."
The compliment blushes across Circe's face. "I can't imagine that's true, not with all the Jedi I know," She grins.
It is true, Padme thinks as they turn to their dinners. Circe has always been different. She's always been special.
"Well," The Senator sighs, "Just promise to be careful. Where is it that you're going?"
"Oh," Circe shrugs, a joke dancing behind her eyes, "Only Anakin's favorite planet ever." She says slyly.