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| - He had talked to Obi-Wan before he had entered hyperspace, now Anakin sat in the pilot’s seat remembering what had happened. Would it have turned out differently if he had not gone to find his mother? Perhaps something could have happened to Obi-Wan, but would Senator Nalanda have lived? He doubted it, for all her courage in confronting her attacker face to face her death was merely one of many in the battle and in what was to follow. And Padmé, would she feel any differently now? Seeing her had made all his feeling come back, and perhaps after what she had been through she would see him differently. “Hello.” Padmé walked up to him with a soft smile. Obi-Wan’s cloak was loose around Padmé’s more slender frame, yet it hid her severed arm. She was still shaky, but alert. He smiled and lifted his feet for her to sit down, and then he waited for her to tell him what had happened. She didn’t, well she would in time. “What happened down there?” she finally asked him in a distant voice. “I was fi—I was doing something else and missed everything.” He gave her a rough account of the facts he knew, which wasn’t as much as he would have liked. “And Senator Nalanda?” “She was shot,” Anakin told her. “She walked right into the line of fire and Jango Fett shot her. He’s dead now.” He added as if that made it better. Padmé said nothing, she looked down, her eyes set. “It’s my fault,” she murmured. “I should have been there.” “But how could you have known?” Anakin protested. “Of course I couldn’t have known!” Padmé flashed. “But it was my job, my duty to protect her and I failed. Don’t you understand that?” She shook her head. “No, no you don’t. You couldn’t.” “Padmé—” he moved to touch her but she evaded his grasp. “No,” she said shortly, getting up from the seat and walking to the back of the ship. He made no motion to follow her, much as he wanted to. In an abandoned building in the industrial sector of Coruscant known as ‘The Works’, the Dark Lord of the Sith, Darth Sidious awaited the return of his apprentice, Lord Tyrannus. Yet he was not the only apprentice, there was also Typhon inside the Jedi Temple. As much as it had plagued him at first to dispense with the Rule of Two—a convention set up by Darth Bane who had reformed the Sith into what it now was—it had it’s advantages. Other than the fact that he would be privy to the deliberations of the Jedi Council, Sidious would be able to control the war more freely. He would be in a much better position to see the emergence of the Sith and the fulfilment of his plans. There came the drone of repulsor engines, Tyranus had returned. “The Force is with us, Master Sidious,” Count Dooku said as he emerged from his ship. “Welcome home, Lord Tyranus,” greeted the cowled figure of Sidious. “You have done well.” “I have good news for you, my lord,” Dooku continued as he fell into step beside his master. “The war has begun.” “Excellent,” remarked Sidious, “everything is going as planned.” There was no need for a bacta tank, what with others more seriously wounded than her. She was simply sedated, then the operation and a bacta bandage as well as a bed in the crowded ward of the medcentre. Yet when Padmé came to, she immediately saw Anakin doing in a chair next to her. When he didn’t respond, she examined her new right hand. It was as long as it needed to be, almost to the elbow and she vaguely remembered one of the healers saying she was lucky she hadn’t lost any more or she wouldn’t be able to use her hand as much. It was a dull grey in colour, yet quite reflective with a limited degree of touch sensitivity—at least on the ends of her fingers and her palm. But it wasn’t just an artificial hand, it was a mark, a mark that meant she had escaped from the Sith again but this time worse off. Last time she had lost her Master but gained another, this time she had lost her trust in someone she thought was beyond reproach. Were there other Jedi still in the Order that Nju had brought on to his side? Perhaps even others on the Council? She hated asking these questions, hated that she now she questioned the integrity of the Jedi. And then there was the other problem, the problem sitting before her and snoring slightly. How was she going to explain to him that between him and the Order there was no contest? For the choice had been already made for her, the artificial hand attested to that. She sat up, still rather shaky, then slid out of the bed. She fully intended to let Anakin sleep, but her foot jogged his and he was awake. “Oh, you’re up,” he said, examining her up and down and stretching. “Going somewhere?” “I'm checking myself out,” she replied, picking up the fresh clothes on the end of the bed. “There’s others worse off than me.” She walked out without another word. “Wait.” Anakin got to his feet, when Padmé didn’t wait he followed her. Padmé wished she was wearing more than the thin white sleeping robe as Anakin walked with her, telling her the rest of the details as he knew them. “They didn’t manage to get Dooku,” Anakin finished. “Though after what he’s done I wouldn’t mind going to find him right now.” “What did he do?” Padmé asked innocently. Anakin looked at her incredulously. “He’s the one who cut off your hand, wasn’t he?” “But Master Nju—” “Master Nju was the one who told us on the way back,” Anakin interrupted. “How come you don’t remember, you fought him didn’t you?” “Must have,” Padmé said with a dry laugh, holding up her right hand. It didn’t surprise her in the least that Nju had concocted a story to cover his own hide. “What did he say?” “Master Nju? He said he hadn’t seen the fight,” Anakin replied. “He only saw the after-affects in the conference room, but he had to leave you to help us.” He looked at her again. “He said he wanted to talk to you, try and understand what happened there.” I bet he does, Padmé added in thought, he wants to make sure I get the story straight so I can’t betray him unintentionally. She suddenly realised Anakin had asked her a question, he repeated it for her. “What happened there?” Padmé looked past him as if trying to remember. “It was all so fast, I’ll have to think about it sometime. I don’t want to talk about it.” “Well, you’ve got medical leave for a while,” Anakin said, catching her arms as she walked away. “I was wondering…if we could talk about…” Padmé sighed, she hadn’t been looking forward to this moment but it had to be said. She didn’t like to, but that didn’t lessen the fact it needed to be done. “Come on.” She grabbed his hand and dragged him down the corridor and into one of the sealed mediation chambers. These rooms were designed to block out the noise from outside so one could focus on within. But Padmé just didn’t want anyone to overhear them. She sat on one of the low round stools, crossing her legs and closing her eyes for a moment. Anakin stood awkwardly near the shut door, walking towards her when she opened her eyes. “Remember how I said that this was about being honest with ourselves?” she paused, allowing him time to interject but continued when he didn’t. “Things are changing—have changed—in ways that neither of us expected.” “So what are you saying?” Anakin asked in a hushed voice. “I’m saying this has to end, Anakin,” Padmé told him. “I can have you as friend—but nothing more. I’m sorry.” “Sorry?” Anakin repeated, sitting on the stool opposite her. “You mean you’re giving up? That’s it’s too hard with what’s happened?” “It’s hard anyway,” Padmé reminded him. “I’d have to give all of myself, and anything less wouldn’t be fair on you. Keeping it a secret would be like cutting myself in two, and you’d be the same.” “No it wouldn’t,” Anakin objected, but he knew his words were hollow. “Anakin.” She sat beside him and touched his hand gently. “Given what has happened this is the only way you and I could have worked this out, you did think of that didn’t you?” “A little,” he admitted sulkily, “but I thought we could have met somewhere in between. You know, keeping it both ways.” “That never could have happened,” she told him. “We’d be cheating ourselves as well as everyone else.” “But I just can’t…” He closed his eyes, putting his head in his hands. “I just can’t pretend that…it didn’t happen. I can’t wish away my feelings for you. I've tried, believe me, I have.” “Perhaps you have to do more than try,” Padmé suggested. Anakin ignored this, taking her hands in his and looking into her eyes. “I didn’t realise how much I loved you before,” he said, his gaze steady and unwavering, “how much you meant to me, and how much it would hurt if I lost you.” He looked at her with wounded eyes. “I’ve gone this far, I can’t go back.” “You don’t have to,” Padmé said, gently putting his hands back in his lap. “All we have to do is realise that we have to walk away and leave those feelings behind.” She examined his face, wondering is he knew how hard it was for her to say the words as it was for him to hear them. “Not because we want to, or even need to, but because this is the way it has to be.” “I don’t think I can,” Anakin admitted. “You can, Anakin,” Padmé whispered, “I know you can.” She let go her hand and left the room. He sat there for a long time examining the floor. How could this have happened? He had already lost his mother, and while Padmé still lived he had lost her too. For some reason she had given the impression that she was reconsidering what he had offered, perhaps in the way she had looked at him when he had carried her on Imbroglio. But had she changed her mind? Or had he been fooling himself? Anakin wasn't sure, the only thing he was sure of what that Padmé’s mind was made up. She would not be coming back for him in the way he wanted her to. Anakin didn’t realise the door was still open until he noticed Yoda standing in the doorway. “Master Yoda.” He got to his feet and intended to leave but the little Jedi Master insisted he remained. “Sit,” he instructed, Anakin did as he was bid and Yoda sat across from him, his wizened green face grave. “Troubled are you? Confused you feel?” “No Master, I—” He was interrupted when Yoda struck him sharply on the shin with his gimer stick. “Ow!” “Knocked sense into you, I hope, hmmm?” Yoda said with a smile. Anakin had to smile back, he should have known better than to hide anything from Master Yoda. “Know what happened, I do,” Yoda said gently. “Need not explain, do you.” Anakin stared at him, hiding things from Yoda was one thing, but this? How would he know? “You think blind am I?” Yoda asked. “Old may I be but stupid am I not, hmmm?” “Padmé said that—” he paused, Yoda nodded for him to continue, “that we just have to forget what happened between us as it’s going to do us harm.” “Right, she is,” Yoda said with a knowledgeable nod. “Difficult choices with the heart are made, young Anakin. Such choices considered lightly they are not.” Anakin didn’t reply, Yoda’s words merely echoed why Padmé had said and what a part of himself—the part that usually took on Obi-Wan’s voice—said over and over. “Dark times are ahead, Anakin,” Yoda said, his gaze turning inward as he looked past where Anakin was sitting, “careful we must be.” High in a balcony above Monument Square, Chancellor Palpatine watched with some others as the Grand Army of the Republic assemble on parade. Among those with him was Bail Organa, who still could not believe what he was seeing—even with the fight on Imbroglio and the battle following it. But he nonetheless accepted it, Nalanda had died trying to stop this war, and even if she hadn’t it would have gone ahead. The price of change is written in blood, she had told him. If only she had known that her own blood would be drawn along with others to pay the price. In the Jedi Council chamber four Jedi watched the same scene with differing impressions. Obi-Wan looked puzzled, but reluctantly accepted the situation. After all, what else was there to do? And there was the darker question as well, was Dooku right about the Sith controlling the Senate? It just didn’t feel right, for some reasons he had to get to the bottom of. But Dooku had been right about the treachery on Imbroglio, but his reasons for revealing this to Obi-Wan were something else altogether. If he was right then, could he…? Obi-Wan dismissed the question for the time being, there was a time for such musings but it was not now. Mace Windu accepted the situation even if it did go against his own conceptions on the Jedi Order. We are still keepers of peace, he maintained, looking gravely at the troops the Jedi were to command. Nothing has changed, he thought, if the Republic is threatened, the Jedi will defend it. Yoda watched the procession with mild interest, much more had transpired than anyone could have expected. The Sith were still a threat, yet how much of a threat they were remained to be seen. And there was something else, something he merely suspected and couldn’t put a name to. Something he knew he couldn’t say out loud, such thoughts led to a dark place. Renust Nju watched the troops march into the capital ships with as much reluctance as he need. He knew what would happen, how the war would play out and who would hold the power in the end. He would play his part; all he had to do was wait. On Naboo, Queen Jamilla presided over the funeral procession in a gown of such a dark shade of violet that it was almost black. Behind her was Danta Pela who would succeed her as senator, following this Boss Nass, Sio Bibble and the Sarasvatis. Near the end of the line of mourners was Bail Organa, just arrived from Coruscant. It unnerving to look into the open casket. Rhadé Sarasvati Nalanda lay as if sleeping, surrounded by flowers. In the same temple that had seen the funerals of Shakya Devi and Qui-Gon Jinn, the mourners gathered to pay their respects. In the firelight Bail could only reflect that while she was not the first casualty of what they were now calling the Clone Wars, she was definitely not the last.
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