Midnight in the Garden

Chapter 23: Speed of Sound 2

Over the next few weeks, Anakin undertook many assignments, special assignments at the personal behest of the Supreme Chancellor. He became even more famous and beloved working at Palpatine's side than he had been working under the Jedi at Obi-Wan's. He mopped up several rogue cells of Separatist resistance. An acklay ran amok in an underground plant on Ylesia, killing ten workers, and Palpatine sent him there. Several planets suffered natural disasters, and Palpatine sent him there. A terrorist situation occurred on Cato Nemoidia with twenty-two beings taken hostage, and Palpatine sent him there. Each assignment was bloodier than the last, each more taxing, each more difficult. Not that Anakin hadn't handled situations like this, and worse, before, but ...

He arrived home from Nemoidia feeling strangely tired, drained. Afraid. Alone, in some way he had never felt. It was an awful mood that gripped him, and he didn't know what it was about, or where it came from.

He remembered he'd felt this way a lot after Master Qui-Gon died.

Sereine heard of his imminent arrival before even Padmé, owing to where she worked. She came to Padmé's on the evening of his latest arrival home to find him sitting moodily at Padmé's kitchen table, turning a broken speeder transmission component over and over in his hands.

"Hi," she said quietly.

"Hi."

She made a pot of tea, and then she pulled a chair out and sat. Waited.

Finis came in, alerted that she had arrived, and sought her attention with his eyes.

"Hi, darling," she said, with a meaningful look at Anakin. Finis pulled out a chair and sat.

"Remember when you used to ask me all those questions, about what I'd do if I wasn't a Jedi?"

"Yes."

"I think ... I remember that when I was little, before I even thought about becoming a Jedi, I wanted to race pods. I think ... if I had never been a Jedi, I'd have found some way to get away from Watto, and I'd have owned and raced my own pods. When I was six ... that was what I wanted. I'm so far away from any of that now ..."

Padmé came in, a fussy baby in a sling around her neck, and pulled down four mugs. "You two look serious," she said. She put out honey and poured tea, working carefully with one hand, holding Leia's back with the other. 

She sat down. "Ani, are you all right?"

Anakin told her what he'd been withholding since the night she gave birth.

Padme's eyes went wide. "Anakin, how could you do this? How could you swear an oath to him? How could you willingly  turn to the dark side!"

"I haven't 'turned to the dark side,' Padmé. I'm just enduring it." Anakin ran a hand over his face. "I promised -- and he did  save you, Padmé, he did. The way you were hemorrhaging -- would you even have lived for any other help to arrive? I don't think so. I think if it were up to the medical droid, you wouldn't be here."

"But ..." His wife's eyes swam with tears. "But you did this -- and you didn't even consult me! You never even asked -- "

"How could I?" Anakin said. "I knew what you'd say! Padmé, you know what's going to happen. The Jedi are going to want Luke and Leia. They're going to -- "

Padmé shook her head wordlessly, tears spilling down her cheeks.

"They're going to take them away from us. They're going to break up our family. Listen to me, Padmé."

"No, they won't," Padmé scoffed. "But Palpatine's going to take someone. He's going to take you!"

Anakin reached across the table to her. "I'm not going to let that happen -- because of you. I love you too much for that."