The Chosen Apprentice/Chapter 42

After leaving Stokra’s office, Anakin had not headed for the Temple. He had another destination in mind. Something that had been at the back of his thoughts ever since he had seen Shinai fall earlier, and it wasn’t until now that he strove to put those plans into action.

He went to a disused part of the Executive Building, disused since three years ago, disused…and for a very good reason. Anakin touched the door, the lock was still molten where Obi-Wan had cut through, and then went inside.

For a moment he stood there, not speaking, not thinking just allowing his senses to fill him. What he saw, what he felt…what he smelt…

The stench of burning was still strong, even three years later. Burning fabric, burning hair…and burning flesh.

He stopped near one of the low couches right below the relief of the Sith that Palpatine had showed him. More your kind of story…battles and adventures… Yet that was not all that was here, after all it was here he had carried Padmé and she had died.

He touched the couch, still slightly charred from the lightning, touching the last place where she lay.

I love you, Anakin…you’ll have to let go…

Anakin jumped back. “No, Padmé!” He screwed his eyes up but the tears came. He couldn’t forget, the pain was still there, still strong…

He continued to walk into the room, the windows were covered with broad panels of durasteel, but that was all that had changed. The room was still as it had been, the air still reeked of ozone and on the floor was a large charred patch on the carpet where Sidious had died. But that was not all that was there, there was…something else, something…darker that he couldn’t put his name.

Anakin felt his heart racing and his breath coming in short gasps as he could feel the energy surround him and take form. The room seemed to spin and Anakin had to hold onto a burnt chair to stay on his feet. He could see blue and green flashes of light going back and forward. He could hear shouts. He could hear…Padmé’s voice.

“Anakin, no!” She then screamed as if he had torn her heart out and he searched for her, hoping to find a glimpse, a shadow, anything! What he wouldn’t give just to see her again!

Instead he saw the last thing he wanted to see, Sidious. He could identify the Sith Lord from his profile, but could see little else.

Someone was sitting before him, holding his head in his hands. Somehow, they looked familiar…

“What have I done?” the figure moaned, moving his hands from his face.

Anakin stared, that was his own face!

“You are fulfilling your destiny, Anakin,” said Sidious, his face slowly coming into the light and revealed to be as gnarled and twisted as it had been in Anakin’s dream. “Become my apprentice,” the Sith Lord said. “Learn to use the dark side of the Force.”

Anakin watched the apparition of himself, surely the other him would reject Sidious’s offer? That was what Anakin knew was the right thing to do.

Yet the other Anakin had a rather surprising answer. “I will do whatever you ask.” The voice was low and full of pain, yet determined.

“Good,” said Sidious. “She would have betrayed you, you know. You acted right in what you did.”

“I know,” the other Anakin said, the real one wondering what they were talking about. The apparition knelt before Sidious. “I pledge myself to your teachings,” he said. “To the ways of the Sith.”

No! No! the real Anakin wanted to scream. ''Can’t you see he’s deceiving you? Can’t you see him for what he truly is?'' But the words wouldn’t come out of his mouth and he was forced to watch.

“Good, good,” murmured Sidious as he put a hand on the other Anakin’s head. “The Force is strong with you. A powerful Sith you will become. Henceforth, you shall be known as Darth…“ He paused and looked up as if to study the air around him. “Vader.”

It’s only a vision, the real Anakin told himself, it hasn’t really happened. But what happened next made a chill go down his spine. The other him spoke in a deeper voice that he didn’t recognise.

“Thank you, my Master.”

I’ve seen enough, Anakin thought decidedly, ''this hasn’t happened and I’m done with looking at possibilities. I want to see what’s'' real. And then he noticed the body that was just behind the kneeled figure of the other him. Eyes wide in shock, mouth frozen in a scream, a wound on her chest as big as the one that had killed Sidious himself.

Padmé.

“NOOOOOO!” The screamed word was enough to break the spell the dark energy was weaving, the other him and Sidious disappeared and Anakin was once again alone in the room. He collapsed to a sitting position on the floor.

I wanted to see possibilities, he realised, as I wanted to see what could have happened, would have happened, if Padmé had lived. Even though he had never given the thought centre-stage in his mind, it was always there, lurking in the background and conjuring up these things he didn’t want to see.

Why had the Force shown him what he had seen in his dreams and just then and not what he had wanted to see?

Suddenly he saw the answer, just as Yoda said he would.

Because it doesn’t work that way, Anakin said to himself, ''I asked the Force to show me a ‘What if’ and it’s shown me something I don’t like. So I have to focus on what does exist, and what did happen that night.''

He got off the floor and looked around then walked decidedly towards one of the delicate chairs along the wall. It was in splinters now as nothing had been removed or even moved from this room since that night except the cover on the window. Anakin knelt down to get into a good position and then he touched it, visualising it whole beneath his hand.

Anakin felt the Force swirl around him, choking and strangling him as the room swang from view.

“Padmé, he wants to help us,” he could hear himself say in the distance.

Slowly Anakin’s vision cleared and he could see himself, Sidious and Padmé standing there.

“No, he doesn’t,” Padmé asserted, turning back to Sidious.

He could see the conflict in her face, see her look at Sidious and then feel for the lightsaber on her belt. Then her hand went away as an expression of resolution crossed her face but slowly, that hesitation crawled back.

Anakin wished that he could rush to Padmé and tell her that she didn’t know what she was doing but he knew if he removed his hand from the chair the induced-vision would go and he would lose everything. He continued to watch hating every minute and hating himself for the mistakes he had made back then.

Padmé’s lightsaber then flew to her hands, the green blade lit and when she went to attack Palpatine sure as anything his other self went into deflect the blow.

Padmé stared at the other him, her mouth open in surprise. “Anakin?!”

For a moment all that he heard was the sound of the lightsaber blades. Anakin saw his own face set in concentration.

“Anakin, what are you doing?” Padmé asked. She lowered her lightsaber blade and it was quickly intercepted. “Anakin, stand back!”

The rest of the exchange went as Anakin remembered it, and as much as he hated it he forced himself to watch. The blows went back and forward and Anakin wondered how he could had spoken to Padmé like that given what was to come.

Finally his other self gave Padmé the choice.

“What matters to you the most?” the other Anakin said. “Me? Or the Jedi?”

How could I have been so stupid? he realised, how could I have asked this of her?

He watched Padmé’s face, seeing the change that in his anger he had not noticed the first time around. Her eyes grew soft as she examined the other him, what is she thinking? Anakin wondered, what was it that made her do what I know she is going to do?

With wounded but determined eyes, Padmé spoke. Anakin closed his eyes as she did, remembering what she had said and mouthing the words as she said them.

“I’m sorry, Anakin, I love you, and I tried to save you, but I won’t let you destroy yourself.”

And then the fight. It was one thing to remember it in flashes, one thing to have parts of it in his dreams that didn’t come out as he remembered, but it was something else entirely for him to actually see it.

Could this have been where it went wrong? Anakin asked himself as he watched, is this one of the places where a different word, a different movement, could have changed everything? He remembered Padmé’s scream and the wound in her chest, it was entirely possible.

Then, in the middle of the fight Padmé turned away and ran towards Palpatine. His other self ran after her, screaming for her to stop. He attacked her, his blade moving without precision, focus or even planning. The blades locked, the faces were so close…

“You’ll thank me later,” she whispered to the other him, then she shoved him back with the Force.

With alarm, Anakin noticed his own back hurtling fast towards him. He then remembered something, hadn’t he landed on a chair and smashed it? Quickly he rolled out of the way, removing his hand from the chair as he did so, the room swirled back to what it was and Anakin was panting on the floor.

“That’s enough,” he murmured, getting to his feet and screwing his eyes shut. “I've seen enough.”

Yet he stood there for a moment, recollecting the last fragments, the part when Padmé had thrown him across the room…

Anakin started, he still didn’t know why had she done that. Did she want me out of the way so she could attack Sidious? he asked himself, ''maybe, as I probably would have stopped her. But…she also saved me by doing that after she had already made up her mind to kill me.''

It was then Anakin realised that he had been wrong all along to keep Padmé’s memory alive in the painful way that he did. I thought all along that I was the one responsible for her death, even indirectly, he realised, when what actually happened is that she chose her fate, and she knew it too.

For years he had blamed himself for something he hadn’t done, inwardly scouring himself with the knowledge that he had caused Padmé’s death, perhaps taken a pride in doing do. Padmé had chosen her death, had acted in a way that she knew would put her life in the balance, a selfless and right decision.

Just like a Jedi, Anakin thought, and it was my mistake to never see her like that.

And just like a Jedi, Anakin considered his loss. He went back over in his mind of all the pain he had gone through in the month just after Padmé’s death, of the arguments with Obi-Wan and the stares he had had to put up with not to mention all the question. There was also the burning he had carried inside of him as he had gone around the galaxy doing whatever was needed to be done to make the pain go away, but it didn’t, it was inside him. And then he remembered the dreams, his tears and questions as to whether he was responsible for her death, her imploring face and the burning knowledge that he was.

Then he let it go, let the grief and anger and pain and all the rest of them ebb out of him until there was none left. Though it had left him with a rather empty feeling inside, he was glad it had gone.

So what now? Anakin asked himself, sitting there and staring into the dark.

But, through the dark a tiny pinprick of light started to shine. Anakin turned towards it and he saw someone walking towards him. He knew that it was just a vision, knew that there was no way for her to actually be there, but that didn’t stop him from recognising her.

And suddenly, Anakin knew what he had to do.