The workshop was dark besides the lights from large buttons and scanners on the panelled walls. The light from the outside sun seeped in as far as the doorway would let it, before the cool dim of the underground room occupied a majority of the space.
Sol stopped at the entrance and saw Anakin to her right, aimlessly turning a screwdriver in the shifter that Padme hadn't been able to pull him away from. Sol wasn't hopeful to be able to succeed where Padme failed but would try anyway. Her palms were sweaty underneath her gloves as she remembered the last time she had spoken to Anakin. But with the knowledge Sol now had and the state of the situation, she had already let go of the hurt she once felt and would take whatever Anakin threw at her in the grief of losing his mother.
'The shifter broke...'
Anakin's voice was baseless and distant. It was more words that Sol had thought she would be able to get out of him, but they were barely of substance. He didn't look up, and his arm sagged as it turned the screwdriver. Sol bit her lip and wondered if she should have brought him some food ahead of lunch. He hadn't eaten since the previous night and was probably starving underneath his heavier emotions.
'Life seems so much simpler when you're fixing things,' he said again. A mumble threaded his words, but Sol understood them as if they were clear. 'I'm good at fixing things, always was. I could...'
Anakin didn't finish. Sol racked her brain for a thought of what to say. She knew Anakin was hurting and his attempt at filling the silence was mostly for her benefit. He acknowledged her presence, that was more than Padme received, but it only hinted at what he was really feeling.
'Fixing things is a way of bringing life to things,' she tried, her voice gentle and quiet. 'In a way, you're putting the Force into things that once had it.'
A humourless laugh left the male Padawan. He raised his head and looked at Sol, the bags under his eyes purple and deeply set into his skin. Sol didn't like to see a side of Anakin that wasn't one of mocking and jokes. Sol wouldn't admit it, but the slow-learning Padawan had grown on her, and being around him always put her in a better mood.
But this Anakin held a cloud over his head and his mood made the workshop slightly colder. His cheeks were hiked up to his eyes in an attempt to hold back tears that were already forming, and Sol didn't know what she would do if he ended up sobbing in front of her. She was never good with emotions, yet Anakin was full of them.
'You would say that...' Anakin looked down again, a hint of genuine joke in his voice, but it was gone soon enough. 'The Force didn't help me... not this time. I still couldn't save her...'
'Sometimes, we can't save things that weren't meant to be.'
It irked Anakin to hear the wise Jedi words that he had heard all his life, but Sol was right. If the Force willed something, it happened. If Anakin's mother was meant to die last night, then it is part of the bigger destiny. Anakin hated this, he hated not being in control. It was his destiny, his life, his mother's life; why did the Force get to decide?
Anakin had turned from the shifter and faced his back to the woman who had walked further into the workshop. He stopped at the other side of the room, looking down into another panel on the island of shifters. This allowed him to hold back his tears for longer as the sight of Sol's concerned face made it harder to be strong. But he couldn't get away from her as she stayed behind him, looking at his broad shoulders and sensing his gloomy aura.
'Remember, Ani, that we're peace-makers, not miracle workers,' Sol said with the same softness as before. 'We're not all-powerful-'
'Well, I should be!'
Sol stopped, the aggression in Anakin's voice startling her.
'Someday... I will be the most powerful Jedi ever!' he whipped around, showing Sol the intense blue eyes that were filled with something she couldn't understand. 'I promise you, I will even learn to stop people from dying!'
'Anakin, be careful. This is not...' Sol stopped herself. From the way Anakin looked at her, mentioning the way of the Jedi had not worked before, and wouldn't work now. He was angry, hurt, and lost; this was something she could not fix with the reasoning of the Force's great plan for him.
'It's all Obi-wan's fault!' Anakin continued after some silence, his teeth clenched and tears pooling quicker than ever. 'He's jealous! He's holding me back!'
Sol hadn't realised that he still held the screwdriver until he had thrown it into the next room. She watched it bounce off the broken speeder inside before it rolled out of sight. Her actions were slow as she turned her gaze back to Anakin. His face was churned with the pretence to cry, but tears were still absent. Anakin turned away from Sol again, leaving Sol to look at his back. She saw how his Force signature flared and the once light, warm orange was deepening. It wasn't enough to be red or even a blood orange, but it was a shade darker than she liked to see on the Jedi Padawan.
'Master Obi-wan is a good man, Ani,' Sol said, before a dawn of realisation hit her. 'Is this about what I said on Naboo? I didn't mean to say that you weren't strong in your training, Ani, but Master Obi-wan's training is at your level-'
'It's not about that.'
His response was stale yet definitve. Sol was beginning to be wary of Anakin in the workshop. She knew that he was still upset about his mother, and maybe even about the fact that Sol still hadn't trained him in her way of the Force, but Anakin seemed different. She stared at his back, her instincts trying to tell her to treat Anakin as an unstable opponent. She wished they weren't so observant as her feelings told her that Anakin would never do anything to be a threat, but all the signs were pointing to the obvious.
'I-I...' Anakin's voice faltered for the first time since Sol entered the room. 'I killed them. I killed them all...'
An ache in the Force throbbed.
'They're dead,' Anakin turned and stared at Sol. 'Every single one of them.'
Sol's chest was heavy with a familiar pain.
'Not just the men-' he started to stalk closer to her. '-but the women.'
Her head felt as if it were splitting.
'And the children, too.'
Anakin's teeth were clenched as he spoke, and his brow was heavy over his frantic eyes. The lines of no sleep darkened on his face, and he looked at Sol as if she were a challenging snake that threatened to pierce him with her venom. But she showed no signs of a threat with her wide eyes that turned glossy and with her hands clasped together in front of her to protect her stomach. This instinct was subconscious and Sol felt a deep fear underneath the pounding burden of the Force.
'They're like animals! And I slaughtered them, like animals! I hate them!'
Sol resisted the urge to take a step back. Anakin was an arm's length away with his lip quivering in a combination of sadness and anger. She felt as if he was looking through her with his unmoving gaze and with his voice that went through to her bones, but she held her ground.
A small relief came when Anakin turned his head to the side, the anger leaving his Force signature and the grief settling in with all its weight.
Anakin shrunk into a foetal position on the ground. His back thudded against the island of controls and his knees hiked up against his chest. The tears had finally leaked out of his eyes and Sol's warning instincts faded into nothing. She looked down at the man who was by her feet, his sienna-coloured hair being all she could see from above. The ache in the Force left and the grief from Anakin replaced it, making Sol's tears fill as they tried to do before.
Sol crouched down slowly and placed herself next to him, her legs stretched out in front of her and over the steps of the workshop. She could see the way Anakin looked down at his lap with watery eyes, and Sol's insecurities of not knowing how to comfort others settled in.
'To be angry is to be human,' she whispered, and he turned, a broken boy looking at her in shame.
'We're Jedi. I'm better than this, and you know it,' he sniffled. 'You said it yourself. This is not the Jedi way.'
'Then maybe that's where its wrong...'
The two Padawans both knew that Sol wasn't talking about feeling sad, but neither mentioned it. Instead, Anakin let his legs slide away from him and he threw his arms around Sol's shoulders. Although not expecting it, Sol leaned in and did the same to his middle. Anakin's face buried its tears into the robes of his partner, and he hugged a woman who wasn't his mother for the first time in his life. He didn't care what the hug could mean, and Sol's immediate reaction was something that the Jedi Council would be concerned at seeing, but the safety of the workshop meant that none of it mattered.
The Sol from a week ago would be mortified to hear about what Anakin had done. She now understood why she had felt such an ache through the Force in the previous night and why Anakin was so different. But the only thing she cared about was Anakin and how to comfort him. She wanted to hear his mockings of her again and see his cocky smirk on his tanned, handsome face; anything than his sobs would be better for Sol. The only pleasurable thing she felt, was the way Anakin's arms held her and of how close his body was to hers.
---
'...Alliance have pledged their armies to Count Dooku and are forming an... Wait... ah...attack... I don't... make it...'
Sol watched as Master Obi-wan's hologram ignited his lightsaber and disappeared as a droideka took his place. It shot its blasters and the transmission cut, leaving the Naboo ship quiet in its absence. Sol, Padme and Anakin were speechless at the unknown fate of Master Kenobi and stared at where the transmission had once been. C3-PO and R2-D2 were on the ship, seemingly ready to help at anyway they could, but were yet to have objective.
After they transmitted the message to the council as Obi-wan had instructed, Master Windu ordered for them to stay where they were and to protect Padme at all costs. It was uncertain on whether their location's coordinates were known to Master Windu, but considering he didn't question their placement on Tatooine, Sol hoped that Master Yoda had kept what she had told him to himself.
'They'll never get there in time to save him,' Padme said once Master Windu's hologram was gone. 'They will have to come halfway across the galaxy to reach Geonosis. It's only a parsec away from here.'
'If he's still alive,' Anakin mumbled, and Sol uncrossed her arms with a look of surprise.
'We can't let him die, Ani. He's your Master!' she said, and he looked at her with confliction in his expression.
'I've already put you two in enough danger as it is,' Anakin fought. 'You heard Master Windu. He gave us strict orders to stay here.'
'He gave you strict orders to protect me,' Padme looked between the two Jedi before she sat herself in the passenger seat of the cockpit. 'And I'm going to save Obi-wan. So, if you plan to protect me, you will have to come along.'
Anakin grinned as he looked at Sol, who hid her large smile with pressed together lips. But her teeth shown through and the two buckled down to power on the ship. They glanced once more at each other as they went to head off of Tatooine and their hearts skipped the same beat as they entered into hyperspace.