Star Wars: Balance of the Force (Anakin Skywalker Redemption)

9 - Memory

Padmé chewed on her lip as she sat at her desk in her office space behind the command deck.

The twins were practicing their duelling with Obi-Wan and Ahsoka while Padmé planned their next move, but she was too distracted to think. 

For all her efforts to forget about the disastrous attack on Tatooine, the Sith Lord still haunted her. Obi-Wan had been adamant that he wasn't dead, though she couldn't quite understand how someone could survive being all but crushed by the temple debris. 

Buried beneath tonnes of rock, he wouldn't have survived long without help, though she knew he had it. She and Ahsoka had kept the twins hidden from the Inquisitors, but that didn't mean the horrid hunters hadn't found them.

She still recalled Ahsoka's blades flashing as she battled the Inquisitor, noting the speed of their incredible duel. Fortunately for them, he had been limited in the close quarters, his rotating lightsaber blade almost useless in the confined halls. Ahsoka had dispatched him quickly after that.

It reminded her of all the times she and Anakin had battled their own way out of impossible circumstances. How similar Ahsoka was to him at times. 

Padmé thumbed her necklace, the little carving from Anakin all those years ago, and shoved down on the pain that arose in her. So much of him remained and yet so little at the same time.

She missed him more than she had ever thought possible, and wished more than anything that he was with her right now. With Anakin, anything seemed possible. There was no mountain too high, no challenge too large, no danger too great. She loved him for it, for his incredible mind and the love that could only be described as radiating from him.

She felt its absence too sharply. Padmé saw how it ate at Ahsoka, who was so like her former Master in how she bottled it all up, refusing to let anyone see how it hurt. Padmé did her best to get Ahsoka to smile and laugh and open up again, but this was not a wound Padmé could heal.

She saw it in Obi-Wan too, perhaps most of all. How he too bottled up his hurt, but could not hide his weathered eyes, and his longing stare. Obi-Wan had raised Anakin, had known him so well and loved him so much that when news of Anakin Skywalker's tragic death while trying to defend the Galactic Senate finally reached them, she saw a piece of him shatter beyond repair.

Surprisingly, the twins seemed the most well-adjusted, though she could only hope it was because they had barely any time with him. The thought sent a pang through her and she swallowed hard.

'Padmé?' Obi-Wan knocked gently at the door. 'You asked to see me?'

She straightened up, grateful for her royal training once more as she dispelled her feelings and focused on the task at hand. 'Yes, I wanted to talk to you about Tatooine.'

It had been almost two weeks since their disastrous attempt at an ambush. Obi-Wan had been rattled beyond measure as they raced from the collapsing tunnels, straight past the slain bodies of two more Inquisitors.

Flying away on their smaller cargo transport, they had made the jump to hyperspace as soon as possible, Master Plo getting them as far away from the planet as he could before they made an indirect return path through the Outer Rim planets.

She had given him time to regather himself, but now she wanted answers.

Obi-Wan paused, sitting before her desk, before asking diplomatically, 'What would you like to discuss?'

'Everything,' she steepled her fingers, looking at the holocron before her that displayed the original map of the temple they had used to lay the trap. 'What happened, and who was he?'