*Hello friends! Sorry if any of you found that this chapter took a while... but once again, there were complications in realspace. I hope this makes up for it! I kind of felt bad, because I thought that I would get to write so much over the weekend, but I didn't... Don't worry though, I should get to write a lot more when February 12th (otherwise known as doomsday) has passed, because that's then this HUGE MEGA ENORMOUS project is due. But enough ranting! Enjoy!*

ANAKIN SKYWALKER

It took a moment for the new to compute. Padme was dead. The impossible had just happened. Anakin looked at his former padawan for a moment, his mouth moving in attempts to make words, but no sound was coming out. Tears began to run out of his crazed wide eyes.

He put his head in his hands, and sobbed silently. He seemed to have lost the ability to speak. A million thoughts were running through his head, but he couldn’t concentrate on any of them. They all took a backseat due to the red alarms flashing behind his eyelids when he closed them.

Shakily, Anakin stood up. He took a heavy step forward, then fell to his knees. He was pretty sure Ahsoka was trying to tell him something, probably not to get up, but he didn’t listen. He almost didn’t hear it, even. Every little noise was muted, except for the noises he was making. Those were unbelievably sharpened. It was like he was deep underwater, and she was calling down to him from the surface.

In a way, he was underwater. He was drowning in his sorrows. They came crashing over him, like tsunami-sized waves over a beach. He sank to his knees, and finally his vocal chords seemed to be ready to obey him.

“NOOOOOOOOO!” His scream ripped through the air. He didn’t care if anyone else heard him. Then metal in the room began to buckle and twist into different shapes than what it was originally made into, and the glass shattered, spraying their contents onto the floor.

Anakin was in agony. It wasn’t anger; it was sadness, and some sort of grief. It was making him die inside, slowly and painfully.

And that was when Ahsoka decided to step in.

AHSOKA TANO

She had watched Anakin’s reaction to the news in tears. It would have hurt anyone to see him in such emotional pain, but Ahsoka knew him. She knew him almost as well as Padme and Obi-Wan had. Therefore it was even more painful to be there when he was hurting like that.

Metal and glass had been bent and broken under the power of the Force. The part of her that had earned Ahsoka her nickname, “Snips”, took the opportunity to make a comment on the situation. He really needs to learn some control. Perhaps I could teach him. After all, even if you are – or were – someone’s teacher you can still learn things from your student. But later: now isn’t the time.

A wind was starting to pick up around him. He was clearly trying to use the old Jedi doctrine of letting your feelings out and into the Force, which was supposed to forever clear them from your conscience. But it wasn’t working. He was releasing too much energy under the form of emotions, and it was beginning to manifest. It was how one, whether they were Sith or Jedi, used to the Force.

The wind buffeting her the Jedi cloak she was wearing over her usual outfit, she took a shaky step towards him. She was nearly blown off her feet. Her own strength alone wasn’t going to get her to him. She had to try something else.

Clenching the muscles in her legs, which were powerful from years of running and jumping, she prepared to jump. She released her grip like the pressure taken off of a spring, and, summoning the Force at the last second, flew forward.

She landed unbalanced, due to the wind, but it was still close enough. She grabbed onto Anakin’s black woolen sleeve, and yanked him towards her, pulling him into a protective embrace. Her maternal instinct, which is unusually strong in the Togruta species, had taken over, with no concern for the outcome.

He went limp in her arms, clearly over his crazed state. They sank to the ground, with Ahsoka supporting his weight for him, because his legs didn’t seem to be able to do the job themselves at the moment. He sobbed in her arms, just letting go. She just held him tighter, giving him all the time he needed to recover.

After about twenty minutes of solid crying on her shoulder, he finally stopped, and looked up at her. “I’m so sorry… I’m just so angry with myself,” he whispered. “I could have saved her. But I didn’t. I remember now. I can see my chokehold; tightening around her neck… it was my fault. Just like with my mother.”

“No, Anakin, it wasn’t your fault. You were under the influence of the Dark Side, and Palpatine. There was nothing you could have done.”

“You – you remind me of her, you know. Of Shmi, my mother. Sometimes Watto would beat me so hard as a boy I would come home crying. She would just help me get it out and listen. So thank you, Ahsoka.”

“It’s all right, Anakin. It’s all okay now. You can make it through this. I’ll help you. I’ll never let you go again.”

She squeezed him gently, then helped him up. Then they walked out of the room and down to where everyone was waiting. There was much to discuss.