The Moons of Iego: The Padmé Amidala & Anakin Skywalker Website

FAN FICTION : ALTERNATE UNIVERSE

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Through A Mirror Darkly

by leia_naberrie

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Chapter 1. Dreamer

She was beautiful. Good. Pure. Everything that was the opposite of him. And he had to have her.

"Not in this lifetime."

Vader looked up from the holo-image in his hand and glared at the accursed Jedi. "Don't you dare enter my mind."

"I don't have to," drawled the other casually, his voice more fitting for an aristocrat on a silk couch than a Jedi in chains. "Any fool could read the look on your face whenever you gaze at that thing you stole. It would be disgusting if it weren't so pathetic."

Vader lifted the hand that didn't hold the image and the wet darkness of the dungeon walls seemed to glow with the reflection of blue lightning. The Jedi's scream rose in a blood-curling crescendo to the ceiling that no eye could see.

Vader lowered his hand and the silence was filled with the echo of screams. "You would do well not to mock me, Jedi."

The Jedi hung limply in his chains. "You..." he coughed. "You would do well... not to mock yourself."

In the blink of an eye, Vader was beside his tormentor. He yanked the Jedi's head back with one gloved fist, bending it until the Jedi's eyes were staring at the ceiling. The prisoner could feel the muscles in his neck screaming as they stretched to their breaking point and for a second, he almost believed that he had succeeded in his task - he had provoked the Sith into killing him at last.

His head snapped forward as Vader let him go.

"There'll be no escape for you, Jedi."

The Sith's laughter was a mocking song in Kenobi's ears as he slumped back into his chains.

His laughter stopped abruptly the moment the dungeon doors shut behind. Lifting the holo-image back to his face, Vader slumped against the doors, and stared with hopeless obsession at the wonderful creature that he knew in his heart, should never belong to a monster like him.

Chapter 2. Prize

Everything could be bought for a price.

Across the dirty table in the corner of the cantina, a bag of coins was pushed by a gloved hand.

"When will you find her?"

Metal-encased fingers grabbed the bag. A pair of amoral eyes glowed as they gazed at the shiny contents.

"Give me a week, milord."

"A day." The bounty hunter laughed. "They haven't built space vessels that fast..."

"I have. A day."

Jango Fett looked at the Sith, considering. "Four days. I'll need to call in a favour first and that'll take some time. This woman won't be found unless she's betrayed." He looked into the mad yellow eyes that glared at him and smiled. "No one else would find her faster, I can assure you of that."

The Sith kept glaring, considering. Then at last -

"Three days. No more. And if you don't bring her to me by then, then you'd better go into hiding yourself."

Fett watched the darkness swallow up the creature and sipped his drink slowly. A bag of money. A hint of danger. A query that had been missing for years. Almost certainly impossible to trace.

The perfect job.

He threw back the drink with one gulp and grinned. If Sabé Jankerrie refused to return that favour she owed him, things could become very interesting indeed.

Chapter 3. Penance

5 Years Ago...

Her hands were shaking as she tried to slip her key card through the slot. After a few fumbled attempts, she finally dropped it.

Sabé glared blearily at the floor. There were three cards by her feet and she wasn't sure which was hers. She bent down to pick one, almost falling over her knees in the process, and her hand scraped the dirty floor.

She groaned and the door slid open. She would have fallen in if strong but gentle hands hadn't grabbed her.

"Oh Sabé," murmured the kind, but disapproving voice of her roommate, Padmé.

"Oh, Padmé," Sabé mimicked in a singsong voice as Padmé led her to their bunk. "You said you were coming out tonight..." she slurred accusingly to Padmé's head where it was bent over Sabé's feet.

Padmé didn't look up from her struggles with Sabé's cloth slippers. "I did, then I came back, unlike you." She grunted. "How do you walk in these things anyway?" She yanked off one slipper.

"Ow!" yelled Sabé.

"Sorry."

"You should be," Sabé said, her voice slurring again. "You missed the best ball. Oh the men!" and she fanned herself, remembering Jango.

Padmé managed to get off the second slipper with less effort. She looked up at her best friend, acutely unimpressed. "Imperial officers are not my style, Sabé."

"Oh not just Imperial officers!" Sabé cried. "There were some others... outlanders..."

"Really?" asked Padmé, getting to her feet. "Did you meet anyone special?" she added, sarcastically. Her roommate fell in love every other week, and twice on Leaving Nights.

Sabé fell back on the bed with a sigh. "I met Him," she said. Him. The one that she had been made for.

Jango.

She sighed again.

"That sounds nice," Padmé's voice said above her head, Padmé still sounding extremely unimpressed.

Sabé didn't blame her. Jango had to be seen to be believed. Not bothering to undress, she snuggled into the bed, content to daydream about him since her roommate clearly was not in the mood for gossip.

Padmé carefully tucked the bedclothes around her. The lower bunk was Padmé's actually, but it would not be the first time she had had to sleep on the top. "Good night, Sabé."

Sabé was already asleep, dreaming of Jango's kisses.

Today...

Sabé Jankerrie jerked out of her sleep gasping violently. Her hand waved for the automatic lights and she knocked down the water glass by her bedside. It shattered with the sound of tiny cymbals.

"What? Sabé?" her husband said sleepily from beside her.

"Nothing," she whispered quickly. "Go back to sleep."

She waited until she heard his snores again. She didn't have to wait long. Then she slipped out the bed and walked quickly to her study in the next room.

After making sure that the study was completely empty of humans and droids, she opened the secret safe that was hidden behind her father's portrait. She snatched out a small device from inside the cupboard and quickly shut it back. Then she stared at the datapad in her hand as if she could will away its contents.

...I know I can count on you.

He had found her. And he would destroy her unless... she destroyed her best friend. (For the second time, but Sabé refused to dwell on that.)

Sabé looked at the study, the plush furnishings, the state of the art architecture that had been in her family for generations. Looked at her father's portrait, her husband's, the holo of her children on the desk. Looked at the datapad that was branding her palm.

Did she really have a choice?

Tears slid down her cheeks as she started typing her reply.

Chapter 4. Betrayal

It had been almost 5 years since she had left and in her eyes, Naboo had not changed in the least. It was still as warm, still as beautiful.

Padmé kept her hood up as she strolled casually down the streets of Theed. A group of Imperial officers were walking down towards her and she curtsied when she passed them. The young officers doffed their caps to her and she remembered university days with Sabé with a smile.

It was Sabé that had brought her out of hiding but even for her dear friend, nothing but the most extreme emergency would have made her return to Naboo.

"My little girl... I am afraid. Tenlo must not find out if she is. I always knew what you and your grandmother were. Please help me."

As they had planned, Sabé was waiting for her in the gallery. Padmé spied her tall, statuesque friend in front of the newly commissioned portrait of the District Governor of Naboo. She took a circuitous path round the portrait until she had caught Sabé's eye. Then she made her way out of the gallery.

A few minutes later, Sabé followed.

There was a tiny little shop at the corner of the street that had been their favourites as students. It had been a long time since Sabé had been there, but it was a pleasant surprise to realize that it was still as private as she remembered, and they served the most excellent caf.

"I can only be gone for a little longer before Tenlo sends someone for me." Sabé said after the two friends had exchanged greetings.

Padmé gave her a look over her cup of caf. Dressed in careworn clothes, her hair in poor girl's braids, Padmé Naberrie appeared very different from the polished aristocrat that Sabé had met in school. On the surface, that is. When she looked at Sabé with those perceptive brown eyes that saw too much, the years fell back and Sabé felt as inadequate next to Padmé as she did as a teenager.

Suddenly, Jango's request didn't seem so hard.

"With Bibble ill, Tenlo is being considered for Deputy Governor," Sabé retorted. "If the world finds out he has a ... a..."

"I prefer to call them special," Padmé said gently. "But your reasons are not my concern. There are difficulties in bringing up those children. Why don't you get her to a Clinic? Get her treated properly?"

"Aren't you the one that told me that those treatments injured the children? That at best they come out retarded?"

Padmé sipped her caf. "I hear the techniques have improved."

Sabé stared at her. "I will not give my child over to those machines."

"Why? Because of your concern as a mother or because you don't want it to be on record that the Deputy Governor's daughter is Hyper-chlorian."

Sabé felt her face flush and she resisted the opportunity to pour the scalding caf in her hand into Padmé's face.

Calm down, she told herself. It's not like if you're arguing on something real.

"Maybe both," she said, raising her chin.

Padmé gave her friend one of those piercing looks. There was a little frown between her eyes. "For a moment there, I thought you were going to pour your caf on my head."

Sabé laughed out loud. "Actually into your face. It would do more damage."

A little smile formed on Padmé's lips. "I ask everyone these questions, you know. You need to know what you're going into. I can't reduce your child's midichlorian count. No one can - or should. Your child is not abnormal, just different, and in our world, hunted. My grandmother and I were not witches, we just try to give these children a chance to live safe lives, under the radar of Imperial observation."

"I understand," Sabé said quickly.

Padmé's smile disappeared and she gave Sabé one of those looks again. "Is there something you're not telling me, Sabé?"

Sabé spilt the caf she had started lifting to her lips. "No! I mean... what do you mean?"

"I feel like if you're keeping something for me."

Sabé laughed nervously. "Oh, are you going to tell me that you were a special child once?"

It was Padmé's turn to laugh. "Someone like me could never have been special. But I don't need to be ... I know you, Sabé. What's wrong?"

"Other than my husband's political career and my child's mental health being scales on a balance?" Sabé tried a sarcastic smile. A brittle, Imperial wife smirk. "Nothing at all."

Padmé nodded slowly.

Sabé spoke quickly. "This evening, Tenlo will be leaving for a dinner. I won't be going along. I'll feign illness or something. How long do you need?"

"An hour every day for five days."

"That can be arranged. Where do we meet?"

"My old place in the lower town."

"Is it safe? Are people there keeping it for you?"

"It's for sale. The cleaning droids come in once a week. I'll be gone before they return."

"How do you know this? Does someone keep tabs on it for you?"

"I pretended to be a buyer and checked the records on the HoloFeed," Padmé said slowly; that suspicious look was returning to her gaze.

"So," Sabé said quickly, "Chare and I will come there. Should we bring anything?"

"Bring her, and something of hers that she's fond of - a toy, a blanket, anything that she's emotionally invested in."

Sabé nodded quickly. She drained the last dregs of her caf. "Fine. We'll be there. I have to go now." She got up. Then hesitated. "It was nice seeing you again, Padmé. Despite the circumstances."

She hurried off out of the caf shop and into the street. In a few seconds, she disappeared into the crowd. Padmé was left behind to settle the bill with credits. Of course, it would not do for it to be on record that the wife of the Deputy-Governor-elect had been in this place at this time.

Padmé sat sipping her caf, and wondered at how much could have changed in five years.

Chapter 5. Prize II

His tools made quick work of the obstacles they had placed in his way in the name of security - doors, windows, and an astro-droid. Jango slipped into the abandoned apartment as easily as a shadow.

It was a nice little place, fitting for the student that had last owned it, but Jango was not interested in the quaint furnishings and art. His weapons drawn, he slipped from room to room, searching for his prey.

Within a few seconds, he knew he had been fooled. There was no sign that anyone sentient had lived here in the past few years or been here in the past few hours.

He was almost smiling when he took out his COM link. A big part of him would have been very disappointed to have found his query so easily. Surely, an elusive prize like a Guardian deserved a more fitting hunt.

You betrayed me, Sabé, Padmé thought sadly as she sat sipping caf in the small shop she and Sabé had been regular patrons of... oh so long ago. The shop where her best friend had lied through her teeth as she set an elaborate trap for Padmé.

What made you do it? Something to do with Tenlo, I'm sure. That much of your story was true. But I bet a Jewel of Zenda that none of your children are Hyper-chlorian.

She checked the datapad readout that rested beside her caf. Her old astromech droid sent another text update on the situation in the apartment. The intruder was leaving. Then the screen blurred and resolved itself into the picture of her unwanted visitor - a sturdy helmet, with a uniform almost made entirely of armour. Padmé felt her heart skip a beat.

This was no Theed police investigator or even an Imperial officer. This was no more or less than a bounty hunter.

Calm down! She almost shouted in her mind as she fought the urge to bolt out of the caf and run, run and keep running until she reached the nearest spaceport. It was only an hour's hard running. She could make it.

You missed the danger and you're safe now, her rational voice insisted. Don't draw attention to yourself.

Oh Sabé, what have you done?

"Refill, ma'am?"

Padmé muffled a scream as she spilled hot caf over her hands.

The waitress droid made a solicitous sound as she mopped up the mess. A few of the other patrons - mostly students from the University - raised their heads to look at the commotion. Padmé cursed inwardly and bent her head low in her hood.

"Refill, ma'am?" It asked again.

"Yes, please," Padmé whispered. She couldn't leave anytime soon. She had attracted too much attention to herself. She could still feel interested eyes on her when the droid left. And her hands were shaking so badly when she tried another sip that she spilled caf again.

It was almost a half hour before she finally left. She walked quickly down the street, resisting the urge to look over her shoulder and behave suspiciously.

Oh Sabé, is this what our years of friendship have been reduced to? What trouble you must be in to betray me like this.

The urge to weep was strong but Padmé controlled it. Sabé had been all she had left. She had only a very young child's memory of her big sister, Sola and none whatsoever of her parents. And then Winama had... had...

Someone ran into her side and she screamed.

"Sorry!" yelled the small child, picking himself up and resuming his race. His mates followed at his heels, pushing and apologising to Padmé as they ran past her. She felt besieged by the swarm of children and she struggled to the nearby wall to avoid them.

Calm down!

She glanced at the holo sign above her. She was only ten minutes walk from the spaceport. Only ten minutes from safety.

The last child ran past. She pushed herself from the wall and pulled herself together. Carefully adjusting her hood, she took two steps forward.

The hand like closed on her shoulder and the needle entered her neck before she could even feel pain.

"Guardian Naberrie. What a pleasure," whispered the voice of her captor as she slipped into forced unconsciousness.

Coruscant

"Have my fee ready."

"You have her? You have her?"

"I've never lost a quarry yet, my Lord."

"Curb your arrogance, bounty hunter. You will be well paid. If what you say is true."

Vader switched off the COM link then clenched his fists, his whole body, as pure, sheer joy coursed through his veins. He took out the holo that was always on his person now and gazed at it with burning intensity.

Mine.

Chapter 6. Lessons

The holo image flickered then sputtered to life. The blue image was a meter high with startling clarity. One could almost read the expression on the old man's face. And as always, when that face gazed on Vader, it was an eerily paternal mixture of affection and severity.

Sweeping his cloak to his side, Vader went on one knee with a flourish.

"Master," he said reverently.

"Lord Vader," Emperor Palpatine a.k.a. Lord Sidious replied sternly. "How goes your interrogation of the Jedi?"

"He has provided information on the whereabouts of certain covens in Dantooine, Hoth and Endor."

"Provided?" asked the Emperor with a small smile.

Vader returned the smile. "The Jedi is quite obstinate. It has been entertaining persuading him. Unfortunately, his persuasion took longer than it might have favoured us. The Hands have investigated these leads with only relative success. The Jedi seemed forewarned of their arrival. The Hands met abandoned settlements in all but Hoth and there, after much resistance, they succeeded in capturing a young Jedi humanoid."

"And has that one been able to provide information?"

"She's less obstinate than Kenobi and even less informed. I have placed her in stasis for you to decide what to do with her."

"What do you suggest, Lord Vader?"

Vader paused. "She is young, not skilled in combat but I suspect her talents are more medicinal. She would make a good addition to the Hands."

"Look at me, Lord Vader."

Vader raised his chin. There was a long silence as the two Sith stared into each other's eyes. Vader could feel his Master cutting a fiery path through his mind and he braced himself, allowing it. It was mild torture compared to some other experiences he had gone through in his long apprenticeship. And it was torture that some of the Hands would have killed to have inflicted on them.

The Emperor broke the stare first, looking away from his apprentice with a dismissive sneer.

"At times like this, I cannot decide whether it is gullibility or sheer idiocy that motivates you," the Emperor roared. "Perhaps it is both."

"Forgive me if I have offended you, my Master."

"Ferus Olin would not have hesitated to kill that Jedi the moment she proved useless. I'm certain he would have been more persuasive with Jedi Kenobi as well."

Vader could feel his hackles rise at the mention of his rival's name. "Olin is a spiteful child," he said flatly. "He would have killed Kenobi in frustration and we would have got nothing from a valuable lead. Forgive me, Master, for thinking that the idea of preserving a potential resource is superior to venting a malicious and purposeless rage."

"You forget your place, Lord Vader."

"I remember my place." Vader's voice was respectful but forceful and even though his head was still bowed, every line of his body shouted pride. "I am a Sith Lord. I am the only apprentice of Sith Master Sidious. His only heir. I will not stand to be compared to a lesser Hand, not even by Lord Sidious himself."

Dark energy hit Vader's mind with such a fury that it would have broken a lesser being. Instead, he had anticipated it and he let his own fury fly free, catching the other's in a lock hold that was almost as destructive as an unchecked blast. The next few seconds seemed like an eternity as the two wills battled for dominion in Vader's mind.

Yield!

Never! And just when Vader felt that he was going to die in the attempt to withstand his Master's rage, the Emperor let go.

The Emperor had the laugh of a witch's cackle. "Your powers are great, my apprentice. Your arrogance is not unfounded."

Vader gasped as he struggled to compose himself. His head felt like if it was on fire.

"Indeed you are a true Sith. But you cripple your own strength. Let go of your compassion. Let go of human affection. Let your hatred and rage dominate and destroy them. Then will you be more powerful than your Master."

"I... thought... I already was," Vader managed between coughs.

The Emperor's cackles were sinister echoes through the holo-feed. "You still have much to learn, my young Apprentice."

And with that cryptic note, the transmission ended.

A lesser Hand would have collapsed on all fours then, taking advantage of the sudden privacy to indulge in some respite from the incredible torture.

Vader was no Hand.

He got to his feet, acutely feeling the weight of his body on his aching joints, and he savoured the pain, channelled it to that dark centre from where he fuelled his rage. Then he strolled out of the transmission room, his cloak sweeping behind him.

Very soon, my Master, I will show you that there are no more lessons to learn.

Very soon.

Chapter 7. Capture

10 days before

It had taken three Hands to hold off the Jedi and in ten minutes, he would have destroyed them all.

"Most sincere apologies..." Just in time, he dodged being impaled by Olin's sabre. "I had no idea I'd overstayed my welcome," he panted as he Force-blocked Thel-Tanis' vibro-blade.

"Says who, Jedi?" snarled Olin and his sabre clashed with Kenobi's and locked. For a few seconds, the two men were eyeball to eyeball. Kenobi's blues stared into Olin's greys and saw madness. "We just started this dance."

The Jedi threw out his leg and tripped Olin who went down sprawling. Pressing the advantage, Kenobi used his lightsabre to stab at the man on the floor. Olin moved at the last minute and the blade missed his chest and buried itself in his shoulder.

Olin screamed, crumpling into a foetal position. "Stop him!"

His cry enraged the other Hands and they came at Kenobi as one. He helped himself to Olin's sabre and faced the two Hands. Within seconds he was at a distinct disadvantage. Backed into the wall by a pair of ferocious creatures, he dropped the extra sabre and used the Force. A Force push threw Thel-Thanis into the wall. Veld's lightsabre went spinning into the alley from a carefully aimed Force pull. Seconds later, he followed his own weapon and collapsed on the dirty ground in broken heap.

"Fools!" Olin shouted.

"Pardon me," Kenobi panted, already turning and sprinting. "But I don't like dancing."

From where she lay, Thel-Tanis threw another vibro-blade. This time Kenobi caught it and sent it back to its owner.

Time seemed to slow. The fall must have injured her badly because she seemed incapable of moving away. Her eyes were two points of enraged fear in the darkness as they stared at the weapon that was spinning inexorably towards them.

Kenobi was turning, making his escape: his hands and feet finding easy purchase on the slick, high walls of the narrow alley; adrenaline and the Force scaling him up as easily as if he were any one of the lower level creatures.

Below the Jedi, Olin's bellow, Veld's whimpers and Thel-Tanis' silence seemed strangely drawn out and long, like if they were coming from under water. Then Kenobi's sense of alertness spiked and still clinging to the wall, he looked over his shoulder.

The singular motion saved his life. The blade - Thel-Tanis' blade - that had been aiming for the point at his back where his chest rested, buried itself into his shoulder instead.

With a scream, the Jedi fell from the wall, landing very badly on his side.

"A real Jedi. How exciting."

How could he have missed that aura? Kenobi thought, through a haze of pain as he yanked the blade out of his shoulder with a shaking hand. It was like a blanket knitted with blood and gore, a thick oppression of the Dark side of the Force and it radiated from the man that stood above him, cloaked entirely in darkness.

The Hands seemed to blur into the background. Vaguely, the Jedi sensed that the girl was uninjured, the mad one was furious and the male humanoid was unconscious. But only vaguely. All his senses were now focused on this creature before him - a creature that he instinctively knew would not be so easily defeated.

"A real Sith. How flattering," Kenobi gasped as he struggled to his feet, trying and failing to stare down someone that stood well above him.

The Sith barked - probably his version of laughter - and did something strange: He took a few steps back and drew his saber. Like a living thing, the red blade sprouted from the silver cylinder. The duelling pose was classic.

"On guard, Jedi."

Despite himself, Kenobi laughed. "You must be joking."

"Humour me," said the humourless voice.

"And if I don't?"

His mind registered the pain before his eyes caught the motion of the striking blade. The Sith was back to standing motionlessly and Kenobi struggled not to crumple back to the ground. He looked down and confirmed that yes, the Sith had struck his thigh. And he, Kenobi, had barely seen the move.

"On guard," the voice repeated with deadly softness.

For the first time since the Hands had found him in the cantina and chased him down the alley, Jedi Kenobi felt real fear. Shaking as he struggled for balance on his injured thigh, he raised his sabre in front of him.

"Well, I always try to save the last dance for someone special," Kenobi said by way of explanation. Then he charged at the Sith.

Almost lazily, the Sith sidestepped the charge, just lifting his blade at the last moment. Kenobi stumbled to a halt. He felt the blood soak into his robes. His chest was on fire.

The Sith's barking laughter filled the alley. Kenobi could see his own shadow on the ground, silhouetted against the red glow of the other's blade.

"This is where the fun begins."

Chapter 8. Dreamer, Part II

Her eyes were a pair of deep, dark pools beckoning to him. He could... would drown in them. She was so beautiful that he had nothing with which to compare her to. He just knew that his ribs closed in on his heart whenever he thought of her. His mind left him whenever he gazed at her image.

In less than 48 hours, had been Fett's last message to him.

If it were possible to wear out a holo, he would have worn out this one. He held her image fragilely in his dark-gloved hands and thought of what it would feel like to hold her... Felt a rush of fear and anticipation at the thought of something so beautiful, so fragile in his unworthy hands. His fists tightened around the holo as he contemplated his wretchedness in comparison to this thing of impossible beauty.

It doesn't matter.

In his mind, he could hear the Jedi's laughter.

This unfortunate train of thoughts was interrupted by the soft beeping at the entrance to his private chambers. There was a shuffling noise, followed by the soft murmur of voices as his fastidious protocol droid attended to the visitor.

There was no need for an announcement of the visitor. His nostrils were already flaring when the droid shuffled back to him.

"Master Vader," C-3PO declared in his characteristic prim manner, "there seems to be a conflict with the scheduler. I have no record of a prior appointment with-"

"Shut up, droid," Ferus Olin announced and Force-pushed the protocol droid into the wall for emphasis.

Vader let his eyes wander casually to the crumpled heap of droid slowly unfolding itself at the far side of his chambers while his hands casually but discretely hid the holo of Padmé Naberrie into the folds of his robes.

It was fortunate for Ferus that Vader's hands had been busy when he burst into the Sith's chambers. Otherwise he might have electrocuted the Hand just to teach him a lesson.

Although C-3PO found a clumsy balance against the wall, his personality was far from rattled. "Your manners remain as appalling as always, Master Ferus. If you were a droid, I would have had you re-programmed."

Ferus smirked. "Since you are a droid, Threepio, I'll just have you scrapped," and he raised his hand again.

As well as a droid could flinch, Threepio did. But the blow he expected did not come. Vader took one look at the raised hand and broke its index finger.

"Aargh!"

Ferus crumpled to his knee in pain.

"Leave us, Threepio," Vader said quietly, coming to his feet to stand over the adept.

"As you say, sir, of course," C-3PO said at once and shuffled out of the chamber.

Ferus' eyes were red with fury as he glared at Vader. His eyes wandered to the droid as it went and became murderous.

"You can't protect him forever," he reminded Vader. "One of these days, I'm going to catch that pompous tin can on its own and when I do, the furnace of my chambers will burn a little warmer."

Vader snapped the middle finger.

Tears sprang into Ferus' eyes and he was more furious for the tears than he was at the impromptu torture. But he finally understood the point Vader was making and he shut his mouth, getting to his feet with a forced casualness that only emphasized his acute pain.

The darkness in the Sith fed happily on that pain and Vader actually smiled at Ferus.

"You didn't just burst into my chambers to be tortured, I presume?" he asked pleasantly.

Ferus' glare would have killed a lesser being. "No," he snarled. "I assume you summoned me for that pleasure."

Vader's eyes narrowed. "I didn't summon you."

"No, of course not," Ferus hissed. "I broke into your personal console and sent a summons to myself because I had nothing better to do than have my fingers broken by our Master's favourite pet."

Sometimes the idea of torture was more powerful than the torture itself. Vader and Ferus watched the latter's little finger bend slowly into an impossible angle. Ferus' face was completely white by now. Fear was like a thousand mad spiders running along the perimeter of his aura.

The Sith's aura practically gobbled them up. It was only when the other looked at him with mute pleading that the Sith gave the Hand some measure of respite and snapped the finger.

Ferus went down on his knees again, screaming.

"So you got a message from my personal console requesting your presence here." Vader walked around the crumpled figure of Ferus, thinking aloud. A message that I did not send. Who then sent it? And why?" He threw the question over his shoulder to the adept.

Ferus' screams had quieted into deep sobs and he did not answer.

Vader shrugged. "Where were you when you got the summons?"

The answer was almost incoherent but Vader had had a lot of practice filtering through garbled moans. "The dungeons..."

Vader turned sharply. If he hadn't already has cause to wound the adept, that answer would have been more than enough. "You were visiting the Jedi." It wasn't a question. His voice was alarmingly quiet as he walked back to Ferus.

"Yes..." The word was a snarl of fear.

"Against my express orders that you never go near him."

"Yes."

Vader stood before the adept, looking down at the man that was so close to his own age... someone whom by chance or fate, might have been the one standing while he, Vader (only his name won't have been Vader) knelt sobbing on the floor.

No, that would never have happened. Perhaps indeed, the Sith Emperor might have been possessed by a temporary madness and might have picked Ferus to be his apprentice. Perhaps.

But he, Vader, would never cower before the other Darth. Before either of them. He would have become a Sith Lord eventually. Either by Sidious making him one - or by he unmaking Sidious.

"Get. Up." Vader snapped.

Ferus got to his feet. His face was an angry, splodgy red and Vader looked away in disgust. Of course, no adept would ever be as capable of forbearing pain as a Sith Lord, but Vader suspected that of all the adepts, Ferus' capacity to withstand torture was the least.

Which was ironic considering how much he enjoyed inflicting it.

Vader slipped his hand into his sleeve and activated the tiny device that would send a Level 1 Security Alarm to all the security units in the Imperial Palace.

Ferus' eyes widened as the lightning in the chambers changed from their erstwhile white glow to flashing red. His shock changed to another yelp of pain as Vader grabbed hold of his hand (the one with only two unbroken fingers), and started dragging him out of the chambers.

"Whoever made you come here wanted you away from the Jedi," Vader said, ignoring the other man's heavy breathing as they stepped out of the chambers. "And I don't think it was just to spoil your fun."

Minutes later, the two stood side by side in a security office and watched the feed from the holo-cam positioned at the entrance to the Jedi's dungeon.

Vader's face seemed to harden with each second of the playback. Ferus' eyes nearly danced out of his head.

"I told you so," he hissed at Vader. "You should have let me kill that Jedi child while we had the chance."

Vader resisted the urge to strangle Ferus and be done with the fool once and for all. Instead he picked up a COM link.

"Thel-Tanis." Her voice was crisp.

"The Jedi have escaped. Take a team of five and hunt them down."

"Yes, my Lord," she replied without question.

Darra Thel-Tanis would never have become an apprentice but as a loyal Hand, she was invaluable.

"Start from..." Vader inhaled deeply and closed his eyes. In the lava plain that was his mind, he saw them like two streams of clear water making an impossible course across the landscape, "...the tunnels to the East. Block all the exits and have the ghouls chase them out."

"Yes, my Lord."

"And Darra..."

"My Lord?"

"Burn, maim as need be but bring them both to me alive."

When she answered, her voice had lost some of its sureness. "Y-yes, my Lord."

Vader switched off the COM link.

Ferus opened his mouth to speak and the Sith Lord promptly snapped the remaining two fingers.

The spiders almost obliterated the adept's aura, running frenzily around him as his body lay on the floor, twisted so that his damaged hand was cradled against his chest. The darkness in the Sith fed on the other's agony, taking satisfaction from a nourishment it could understand.

Underneath his robes, the holo of Padmé Naberrie seemed to burn a tattoo against his chest.

Unworthy. In his mind, the Jedi was laughing.

Chapter 9. Prize, Part III

Two nights after she had lost consciousness on Naboo, Padmé woke up. Her head felt like if it was on fire. Her mouth was bitter and dry. She lifted herself from the wall on which she rested, tried to find her bearings. She was in a windowless room, wide with high walls, cartons neatly stacked against one wall, no visible entry or exit. A storage room. The muffled hum of turbo-engines, and the characteristic rocking beneath her told her she was in space - sub-space or hyper-space? - she had no idea.

She tried to get to her feet and a strange weight on her right ankle made her look down. She fell back against the wall as her blood ran cold.

Her foot was chained to the wall.

She was in a cargo hold in a moving space vessel. The bounty hunter's vessel - she remembered the details of her abduction now.

He had brought her here... and was taking her... where? She had no idea.

How she could escape... seemed even more unfathomable.

The first hour of consciousness was a desperate one for Padmé Naberrie. Alone, and defenceless in the bounty hunter's ship as it charted a course to her unknown but definitely unwelcome destination, Padmé almost fell victim to the demons of despair.

She thought of her parents and how they had died before she could even remember them. Thought of her sister, Sola, dying in front of her. Thought of her grandmother and how her body had never been found. Thought of her sister/friend Sabé and how she had betrayed her.

A strange creak from the far corner of the hold took her from her dismal thoughts. Padmé tensed, searching for the source of the sound until she saw the ladder descending into the hold.

The old instinct of survival kicked in and galvanized her out of despair. Yes, she was chained by one foot but her hands were free. She sprang to her feet and felt her person for the tools she usually kept on herself. Nothing. Not even shoes. All she had were the clothes on her back. Even her poisoned hair-pins had been removed. Not fazed in the least, she grabbed the chain that pinned her to the wall. It was strong and unbreakable but almost the length of the span of her arms.

Her search took her seconds. A pair of metal-encased legs was descending the ladder when she fell back to her reclining position on the wall, the chain held loosely in her hand.

Her captor's shoulders passed through the trap door and she waited. His head was enclosed in armour as well. In fact, his armour was not dissimilar to the uniform of the Imperial troopers and she wondered if he was a rogue trooper turned bounty hunter.

"Who are you?" she cried faintly. She didn't have to pretend. Her voice was weak with disuse. "What do you want with me?"

He regarded her from where he stood before the ladder. Padmé did her best to look as innocent and defenceless as possible.

He stooped slightly and stretched out his hand. He threw something towards her. It skidded across the smooth floor until it hit her body.

She looked down. It was a small protein bar. She looked up defiantly, "How do I know it isn't poisoned?"

He just stared. They both knew that if he had wanted her dead, he would have killed her a long time ago.

Padmé suddenly realized she was extremely hungry. She picked up the bar with the hand that didn't hold the chain, tearing it open with her teeth and swallowing half of it in one gulp. She was ravenous. How long had it been since she had left Naboo?

He turned to go.

"Why are you doing this?" she cried after him.

"Money," was his bland reply, his voice muffled but still audible through his helmet. He started climbing up the stairs.

"How much? I can pay you! I have friends..."

He ignored her.

The chain slipped from her fingers.

There was a tiny camera at the far corner of the hold. Padmé discovered it mere seconds after he had gone.

"How long have I been here?" She asked the next time he came with a protein snack.

He took his time before answering her. "Ten hours."

"Where are we going?"

"Coruscant."

Her heart leaped at that. Coruscant - the Imperial capital. Who? Why?

He was turning to go.

"Who hired you?"

He ignored her.

She could move a few feet with the chain on her ankle. At least the distance to the cartons that lined up the wall. They improvised as a 'fresher.

There seemed to be no ventilation into the hold. Padmé endeavoured to use the cartons as infrequently as possible.

"When will we get there?"

"In a few hours."

Padmé watched him from her small corner on the cargo bay. She felt a great deal better than she had when she had first woken here. She was full of protein bars and physically stronger for it. Also, she was mentally stronger. She had been thinking and had come to a strange, but irrefutable realization.

A realization that enraged her and consequently, gave her courage.

She wasn't giving in without a fight.

"I do have friends, you know..." she said clearly. "People that would pay you almost three times whatever bounty you were offered for me." She slowly unwrapped the bar and the noise seemed loud in the silence that followed. It was hard to tell from his helmeted head, but it seemed like if he was watching the movements of her hand...

"Jango Fett."

He started violently, his heavy armour clanging loudly against the walls. It was the first reaction she had ever got from the mercenary.

"That's who you are, aren't you? That's why Sabé betrayed me to you..."

He left.

The protein bar had not been tampered with. But after gulping the snack and chewing it for a long time, Padmé made use of a carton/fresher and angling herself away from the camera, discreetly spat out the unswallowed contents.

Then she waited.

"We are here."

Journey's end. It was almost a relief, in a way.

She felt him approach from her slumped position. Her breathing was deep and steady. To all intents and purposes, she was out cold and had been since she had swallowed the last bar.

He walked towards her, his armour loud on the metal floor, and she felt a swift poke in her stomach.

She stifled a cry and instead moaned softly, folding into herself.

He seemed satisfied and walked round her. She felt the touch of metal against her ankle and waited...

She was being lifted, her weight placed over his shoulder and she felt herself ascending. He was carrying her over the ladder.

She tried to relax. Tried to keep her weight as dead as possible... Tried to hold herself in and wait...

She felt him slow. Felt the back of her legs brush against a wall...

She attacked.

Chapter 10. Escape

Two days ago...

The Imperial Palace was the home of the Sith, the evil ones, the lovers of the Dark Side of the Force. Nothing else could have lived in this rankness, in this decay, in this den of hatred and despair.

Kenobi felt the hand brush against his throat, the hand that was not there, and he almost failed to pull from that Dark grip in time.

The effort cost him strength he didn't have and he leaned against the damp walls of the tunnel to catch his breath.

Next to him, the young Jedi apprentice whimpered in pain, clutching at her throat frantically.

"It is only in your mind," he said softly. "You can fight it off."

"I can't," she whimpered. "I'm dying..."

He grabbed her chin fiercely, forced her to look him in the eye. "No, you are not. Fight, Padawan! Fight!"

He held her gaze, all but forcing her to accept his own will to live, his refusal to let the Dark Lords win, until he could feel the answering strength burn back from her eyes. She shook her head as if she was getting rid of a pesky insect.

Obi-Wan smiled. "Exactly. They are little more than parasites."

"Parasites, are we, Jedi?" A voice from the end of the tunnel bellowed.

Both Jedi spun violently. So caught up in fighting against the Force-choke, they had had no awareness of the approach of their adversaries until they were almost on top of them.

Obi-Wan peered into the darkness of the tunnel mouth, into the darkness that cloaked the six waiting there and his heart filled with hope. The Sith was not amongst them. They still had a fighting chance.

"What do we do, Master?" The Padawan asked. She was standing so close to him that he could feel the violent tremble of her limbs.

Obi-Wan placed a hand on her shoulder, tried to communicate his own serenity to her and answered the Dark One instead, "Plague is more like it," he retorted. "A plague on the face of the Republic, but like every disease, you will either be wiped out with a cure or you will wipe out your hosts and starve. Either way, you die."

"Jedi scum!" shouted a male voice.

Obi-Wan laughed. "How eloquent."

The fool charged, as he had expected. These adepts had no restraint.

"Whie, no!" shouted Thel-Tanis.

"Ready, Padawan?" Obi-Wan whispered to the young apprentice.

Her eyes widened as she saw his outstretched hand but she set her jaw and stretched out her own hand.

The tunnels blazed with unsteady light as the young Hand ran the length, his lightsabre swinging wildly in his grip. He was within cutting distance when the two Jedi struck, raising their hands, letting Force lightning flow from their fingertips.

"Whie!"

The lightning struck the Hand in his chest, flung him off his feet and backwards, sending him flying down the tunnel. Obi-Wan raised his other hand to the air, and called the lightsabre from the other's slack grip before he flew out of reach.

The Jedi stopped their attack but the boy was still a glowing, spinning figure of electricity when he crashed against the floor.

"You'll pay for that, Jedi!" Thel-Tanis roared.

Obi-Wan laughed, as the lightsabre came alive in his grip. "Any more toasts?"

Less than two days ago...

The Emperor was only an electromagnetic beam poised on a fragile receiving instrument but his rage was enough to shake the walls of the Throne room.

"The Jedi escaped!"

Vader flinched despite himself. It was not always that the Emperor displayed rage for less than demonstrative purposes. But each time he did, it was seared in Vader's memory.

"One Jedi escaped," he said all the same, even though he should have known better than to speak.

The Emperor lashed at him, sending him flying across the Throne room.

(Not unlike the way the Jedi Kenobi had sent Whie flying down the tunnel but at that time, Vader did not know that).

He kept his apprentice pinned on the floor, his powers a dead weight on Vader's chest.

"How dare you show insolence!" he roared. "A Jedi apprentice in exchange for the lives of three of my most promising Hands! How dare you!"

"I-I," Vader gasped as the Dark Side seemed to strangle his very ribs. "I will get him b-back, my Master. Al-already, I have people on his trail."

The grip only increased until Vader was sure his ribs would crack and tear his lungs. It won't have been the first time.

"You didn't get him in the first place," the Emperor reminded him. "He came here first and still you don't know why."

A rib cracked and blood rushed into Vader's mouth. "I-if you kill me, you will n-never g-get a more powerful..."

Another rib cracked.

"I'd rather have competence than power."

You won't kill me. Not now. Not after everything you've invested in me. Vader said with his mind. His mouth was filled with blood and the pain was too much for him to even lift his jaw.

"You have much to learn, my very, very young apprentice." The Emperor snarled.

And everything went black.

One day ago...

He had woken up several times in the past twenty-four hours. First to drag his damaged body on all fours through the length of the throne room to his adjoining private chambers. He slid through the doorway and promptly lost consciousness. Then he woke up to Threepio's anxious babble as the droid dragged him to the med centre. He passed out the third time Threepio dropped him.

When he woke up again, he was lying on the med-bed, bright light pouring into his eyes, his chest stripped bare as the most excruciating pain racked his body. He closed his eyes from the light and held onto consciousness with all the tenacity that the Dark Side provided him.

Pain is my gift. Pain is my strength.

The med-droids were cutting him open, mending his bones and stitching his lungs without anesthesia. Vader won't have had it any other way.

When the operation ended, he finally let go and closed his eyes for the last time.

He dreamt of her... and he woke up so violently, that he fell out of the bed and opened his stitches.

"Master Vader, really you must take better care of yourself!" Threepio nagged as he helped Vader back on the bed. "The EM-DEE recommended at least three days of complete bed rest."

Three days. How long do I have? A day?

Less.

The bounty hunter had said 72 hours. Even now, she was probably on Coruscant. Waiting for him.

If his ribs had not already broken with his tumble, they might have snapped again, against the pounding of his chest.

"Get me the Jedi."

Threepio gasped. Apart from his droids, no one ever knew when Lord Vader was injured. His private chambers contained his personal med centre. He would trust none of the Hands to come near him when he was injured. Every week, Threepio ran a scan on the black-bodied medical droids that Vader had built himself.

The way of the Sith was the way of treachery.

"Master Vader-"

"Get her!"

The droid left. Vader breathed in the pain, feeling his lungs fill with blood.

Pain is my gift. Pain is my strength.

She came in a few minutes, looking almost as bad as he felt. Her face was scarred, and he could see scorch marks on her wrists. As she walked towards him, her eyes wide and her very aura in the grip of fear and awe, she was limping painfully.

"Tell me again why I don't just kill you," she said after he had explained to her what he wanted.

Vader looked up at her damaged face. "Because you've killed three Hands and without me, you'd be dead right now. Without me, you'd have been dead from the moment they brought you here."

Her chin lifted. "I don't fear death."

"You don't have to fear death. You should fear the way you die. You think you've been tortured now? You think you know pain?" He laughed and coughed out blood. "You know nothing."

She flinched, her face twisting, but she said nothing.

He held her gaze. "Choose now, Jedi. To live and avenge your enemies. Or to die - alone and forsaken, in great pain - and for nothing."

She swallowed hard, her eyes never leaving his face. Then without a word, she laid her hands on his chest.

Now

The pain of his broken ribs was a distant memory in Vader's mind, something he would recall when he needed strength, when he lacked motivation.

It was nothing compared to the pain he felt when, despite the Jedi Healer's skills, he still arrived at the rendezvous point one hour behind schedule - but still in time to see the bounty hunter's ship consumed in flames.

No! He said in his mind even though he could feel the two beings that were even now, being suffocated by the flames. No!

He began to run.

Chapter 11. Prize (the End)

The perfect job had turned into the perfect nightmare.

Jango cursed himself for a fool. He should have been more alert for a last-minute escape attempt from a Guardian. He should have anticipated that, after knowing they were close to landing, she wouldn't have eaten the last drugged protein bar.

His carefully honed perception had sensed the sudden tenseness of her body before she attacked him. That was what saved his life.

Her hands had already slipped onto the little skin that showed at the trunk of his neck and unlatched his helmet. He had no doubt that a few seconds later and her deft fingers would have found that weak point at the base of every man's skull - that weak point where unconsciousness could be induced by a very small amount of pressure. What the Guardian would have done with his unconscious body, Jango had no intention of finding out.

He snatched her hands, clenching his fists painfully round her small fingers and she threw back her head and bit him in his neck.

Yowling, Jango threw her off, completely horrified. She smashed into the pilot's seat, breaking her fall slightly by grabbing the console. His hand was reaching for his blaster when she pounced again, knocking him down with the weight of her body and going for his helmet. He swiped her face with the blaster in his hand, throwing her off his body with a cry. Before she could stand again, he trained the blaster at her, cursing himself that it was still set to kill. But he didn't dare take the blaster - or his eyes - off this one to change the setting.

"Don't move!" he snarled from his open mouth. She had knocked off his helmet.

She got to her feet slowly, holding her hand to her mouth. There was blood on her fingers.

"I said, don't move!" he yelled, horrified. He had no idea why the Sith Lord wanted this Guardian but he clearly recalled the instructions he had been given:

"...alive and unharmed..."

She smiled grimly. Her mouth was bleeding where the blaster had smashed into her face.

"Don't be foolish, Jango. You're not going to shoot your bounty," she said. Her voice was harsh, he could tell that she was in a great deal of pain.

But she came closer.

"Good point." He pointed the blaster at her with one hand and threw his helmet at her with the other.

She dodged the helmet but it was a mere distraction. And it worked. He was on top of her, tackling her to the ground. A brief scuffle ensued as they rolled over the deck floor. Tools fell from their ledges as they banged against the wall.

She was a small creature, almost waif-like, but her hands were strong and she fought with nails and teeth, unerringly going for the jugular. If she had been fighting an amateur street urchin, she would have fared very well. But Jango was an entirely different cup of caf and finally with one powerful move, he smashed his open fist into her temple - no need injuring her more than he already had - and she fell back, dazed.

Quicker than he would normally have done, he had her on her back, and straddled over her as he tied her wrists firmly to each other with the binders he pulled from his utility belt.

"Get off me!" she screamed.

A bit late in the day to play the lady, Jango thought silently as he dragged her to her feet with the binders.

She snarled. Literally. Her teeth snapped in the direction of his face and her binded fists tried to swipe him. He pushed her violently in front of him, marching her to the door.

"Behave yourself. I may not kill you but I can harm you," he snapped.

"I don't know what Sabé ever saw in you," she hissed.

He threw her hard against the wall. An angry aim that sent her against the ledges. She screamed.

He waited for her to turn around and she did so, gasping. She stood, slumped against the wall, her face bruised and bloody, her eyes unforgiving.

His blaster was trained between her eyes.

Her body was aching all over but pain was nothing compared to fear. Her eyes flickered from the bounty hunter's relentless face to the scattered debris in the small space. She would use anything that could give her an advantage.

"Hurt, didn't it?" she said softly.

"Don't move an inch if you don't want me to stun you." He warned. He walked to the security keypad by the hatchway and started punching the lock code.

"She must have had a heart attack when you turned up like a bad coin. I remember when she met you back in the university. Did she tell you that you were her one true love?"

Jango Fett's left fist - the one holding the blaster to her face - clenched fiercely. The right hand hovered over the keypad.

"What a joke," she continued relentlessly. "We used to laugh about it together in school. A Mandalorian vagabond in love with the Naboo academic. I think she found you quaint in her own little way."

"Shut up," he warned.

"But in the end, water finds its own level. Someone like you never had a chance with someone like her."

He fired the blaster. She was already spinning away from the shot, anticipating just when his rage would snap. The laser struck the console and it sparked.

(Neither of them noticed this).

'' "Oh dear, it does hurt!" she said, laughing in gasps from where she crouched behind the pilot's chair.

He fired the blaster again and she dodged once more. She was goading him and he knew it but if he didn't shut her up soon, he'd wind up killing her. He stalked after her, catching her by her arm when she tried to dodge again.

"Shut up or I'll... Aaaaaargh!"

He screamed as, still with her back to him, bending through a clearly painful angle, she struck him with her binded wrists. There was something in one of her fists, something sharp that cut his face. He yowled for the second time that day, and instinctively, he sent his elbow into face. She went down cold, once and for all.

(The spark had ignited against one of the damaged console buttons. A small thread of fire was now running along the console.)

He staggered back, suddenly feeling unaccountably weak. He raised a gloved hand to his chin and brought out blood. He stared at the woman at his feet, blinking rapidly out of strangely dimming eyes to see what she had struck him with. She had fallen on her side and there was something glinting in her right hand.

He leaned over to see and fell to his knees.

(On its merry path of destruction along the control buttons of Jango's ship, the fire was halted by an obstruction. A tool that had fallen during the bounty hunter's scuffle with his bounty. It was a small lube canister, used for oiling the gears in the trap-door ladder mechanism. A utilitarian piece of extreme flammability that would have normally been kept in cargo if the owner of the ship did not engage in unscrupulous activities)

Jango crawled towards to the woman, on all fours now. He could smell something burning but it seemed far away, apart from him. Besides, he didn't have the strength to turn around. Suddenly the most important thing in Jango's life right now was to know exactly what his last bounty had struck him with.

(The small fire hovered around the canister, as if unable to make up its mind what to do about this obstruction.)

He stared at the needle in her hand, one of those long hair-pins he had pulled from her head. He had kept them on the ledge, along with the rest of her things. He should have chuted them out of his ship. He should have never taken this job. He should have stayed away from Jankerrie. He should have...

The canister exploded.

Chapter 12. Guardian

It was not a memory. More like a mental jigsaw puzzle pieced together from different sources -a vague recollection of her sister's retelling when she was four, official Imperial records that she had found when she was eleven, and a letter that Matol Jankerrie, Sabé's mother had given Padmé when she was sixteen...

Winama, who was probably the only person alive that really knew, never told Padmé how her parents died.

Some of the pieces in the puzzle would be missing forever.

A quiet evening, the mother sleeping by the window, the father and the big sister teasing the baby by the hearth. A serene evening in the Naberrie household. Nothing to indicate that their family would soon be destroyed.

There had been no warning.

"IMPERIAL POLICE! OPEN THE DOOR!"

The loud knock alone would have broken down a sturdier door. Jobal Naberrie jerked out of her sleep, her eyes wide with shock. Ruwee looked up from his little daughter and his face paled. Over Sola's surprised eyes, the two adults exchanged looks.

"Pa-"

Ruwee's hand went over her mouth at once. "Shhh, Sola..."

But it was too late.

"OPEN THE DOOR!"

Jobal went to her husband, stood by him.

"The children," was all she said.

Ruwee looked down at Sola and Padmé. The little girl was five, her sister a baby.

"Papa," Sola said quietly, her voice trying bravely to keep steady. "What's happening?"

Ruwee smiled at her, kneeling down so he could look her in the eye. When he spoke, his voice was extremely hearty. "We're just playing a game, you see..."

Behind him, Jobal had gone into the study. Sola's eyes followed her mother anxiously and Ruwee gently but firmly turned her back to him.

"Just like hide and seek..."

"WE'LL GIVE YOU FIVE MINUTES AND THEN WE'LL BREAK THIS DOOR DOWN!"

Jobal came back to the room, a dark object in each hand. Ruwee moved quickly so that his body blocked her from his daughter's view.

"... only this time longer."

"FIVE..."

"Ruwee..." Jobal said in an urgent whisper from her post at the window. "They've placed a code breaker on the door."

In one swoop, Ruwee picked up the baby on the floor, grabbed Sola by the arm and started sprinting with her through their house.

"FOUR..."

Padmé started bawling.

"And this time, you'll try hiding somewhere else..." Ruwee said in the same eerily cheerful voice. "Like, in the garden in your school."

"Papa," gasped Sola, jogging to keep up with him. Everything was happening so quickly. The rude people at the door... This strange game... Her mother holding two blasters in her hand... Papa not bothering to comfort Padmé when she was crying her eyes out.

"THREE..."

Ruwee took her to the back door, the one that led into the garden. The sounds from the front door faded. Ruwee paused at the door, looking round frantically before they dashed into the garden ahead. They ran to the fountain where before her astonished eyes, he opened up a little cage door buried in its side.

Inside the door, all she could see was darkness.

Ruwee shoved the crying baby into Sola's arms. "See it's a clever game, Sola. Just keep going and you'll get to the school."

"Pap-"

From somewhere in the house, there was the sound that Sola would later know as blaster fire.

Ruwee shouted and then he shoved his children through the door. There was a tunnel inside that could fit a very small child.

"Take care of each other," he said and there was no false heartiness in his voice.

Then the tunnel door closed and they never saw him or their mother again.

Naberrie, Ruwee

Naberrie, Jobal

Husband and wife

Found guilty by Imperial Tribunal on three counts of terrorism and occultism.

Sentenced to death and executed by order of his Imperial Majesty.

Eleven-year-old Padmé Naberrie read the carefully recorded files of her parents' death. Then she asked the Archivist at the Junior Legislator Academy very nicely for permission to make copies.

When she followed Sabé home for the holidays, she sent the copies via anonymous mail to her grandmother.

During that holiday, Winama came to visit. Unannounced as always. Padmé went for a walk with her mother, Matol Jankerrie's worried gaze boring through her back as she left the house.

Not one to beat around the bush, Padmé asked her grandmother as soon as they were out of earshot: "Is this why they killed Sola?"

Winama's old eyes closed briefly as pain filtered through her features but all she said was: "Your sister died in an accident."

Padmé stopped walking. Anger like she had never felt filled her. "They killed her and you know it! You are the cause of it!"

Winama closed her eyes again.

But Padmé was feeling merciless. "That's why my parents died, isn't it? That's why I can never live with you, isn't it?" Her hands balled into fists. Never had she felt so powerless in her life. "Answer me!"

Tears stained the woman's cheeks but she didn't open her eyes. "Padmé, please..."

"Tell me, Nana, are they worth it? These people that you've sacrificed your family to defend? Are they worth me?”

Winama opened her eyes and just stared at her granddaughter.

"Padmé, my little one..."

Padmé stepped away from her grip. "Choose now - me... or these Jedi." Despite herself, Padmé shuddered at saying the name out loud. It was superstition but it was a powerful one that saying their name would send them coming.

Winama's eyes actually widened at Padmé's daring but she shook her head, "It's not that simple. If you can only let me explain."

"No."

"Padmé, please..." The old woman's hands stretched despairingly for Padmé but she didn't say a word - didn't say the words that the little girl so desperately needed to hear. Winama's hands hung empty for a long time.

Then they fell down in defeat. "Padmé."

"No," said Padmé, choking.

Then she turned on her heel and ran all the way back to the Jankerries'.

When she got home, Matol took one look at the girl and swept her into a hug. That was when Padmé realized that she had been crying all the way.

Guardian - Self-proclaimed protector of the Jedi occultists. Could be of any species of sentience. Usually not suffering from the hyper-chlorian abnormality that gives the Jedi their unnatural abilities. Still highly dangerous sentient, with strong connections and influence over widespread Jedi coven. The penalty for anyone professing to be a Guardian, training to be a Guardian or colluding with one is death.

Letter to my daughters

My darling Sola and Padmé

My little angels. If you are reading this, I know I must have already gone.

Matol Jankerrie closed the door gently behind her. She had barely walked down the corridor, when she heard the first sobs from Padmé's room.

Winama stood by her window and watched the sixteen-year-old girl make her way to her house. She was old enough that when her heart stopped, it was not only figuratively. Love and fear warred within her. Was Padmé here for a reconciliation? Or was this a trap? It would not be the first time that a Guardian's own family had betrayed her.

The doorbell rang and Winama went to open it at once. Betrayal or no, she could never turn her only living grandchild away.

Padmé stood at the door. She hadn't grown any taller since Winama had seen her last at eleven. But she was clearly a young woman now. At first, she just looked to Winama like a distorted image of the late Sola. But then the old woman looked closely and suddenly, Ruwee, Jobal and even herself were suddenly staring at her from that face.

Emotions suffused Winama but she held them in check. There was no expression on Padmé's face.

"Can I help you with something?" Winama asked. Her voice tried to be cool but it broke at the end.

Padmé just stared at her with that expressionless face.

Then she ran into her grandmother's arms.

There was smoke, and there was fire. And her subconsciousness warned Padmé that she was going to die.

It is a pity to die, she decided in that place in her mind that was never fully awake or asleep. But everyone has to someday.

And it was good that the one last piece she had of that unfinished puzzle was a happy one...

Chapter 13. Dreamer, the End

The smoke was not unlike a living thing, a wild animal that he had to claw through to get to her.

But he did in the end. He had never met her outside his dreams, never been close to her aura outside his secret, desperate longing until now. Yet an unerring instinct led her to where she lay, appropriately in the centre of the flames.

Not far from her was the bounty hunter, Jango Fett. Not dead, but he would be soon. Vader didn't give him any heed, all his intent on the woman that lay so near but so tantalizingly out of his reach. She lay on her side and face, her arms flung over her head. The robes that she wore were scant protection for the flames that were drawing ever nearer to her. She wasn't dead either but in a few minutes, before the flames even got to her, the smoke would choke her.

The Sith hesitated only long enough to throw his hood over his head, then he leaped through the fire to her side.

There was no time to freeze the moment, the instant when he had her in his arms, her small body - he had no idea that she was this tiny - cradled carefully in his arms. His hands shook a little when he covered her face and neck gently, tucked her into his shoulder, and got to his feet.

The flames seemed to have risen like a wall, barring his way. There was an agonizing moment when he couldn't remember in which direction the gangway lay. He forced himself to think, to focus on escape and not the creature he held in his arms, on the strangely painful yet exhilarating emotions her proximity was affecting his senses.

That way. He drew in a deep breath, held her firmly and jumped through the flames.

He landed on a run, all but flying down the gangway, the flames hard at his heels.

No normal being could have made it out of that ship alive. It was on the brink of the final, obliterating explosion and every inch of it was yellow with fire. But the Sith came out of that vessel with his burden, a silhouette of darkness and power, backlit by the flaming ship.

He reached his vessel just in time. His unerring sense of destruction had given him fair warning. His own craft was the shield that protected him when the bounty hunter's ship exploded for the second time.

Shrapnel went flying through the air. He imagined the debris raining down on unsuspecting Coruscanti hundreds of metres below and the Darkness that was integral to his nature, smiled at the thought. The storm seemed to go on indefinitely. He laid his precious charge on the ground, shielding her with his arms and body and studied her covetously.

Her face was damaged, her mouth and jaw bloodied, she was... When he had looked at her images, he had thought that there were no words to describe her beauty. Now he realized that there were no thoughts.

Reverently, Vader pulled off the glove from his hand and cleaned off the blood and sweat from her face. His fingers stained red, and he pressed them to his tongue, pagan like, to taste her blood.

Mine. At last.

Her eyes fluttered open. Deep brown pools of confusion looked at his face. His heart stopped.

"This party is over."

Senses consumed by her presence, the Sith had barely been conscious of his environment. The shock of horror at his own vulnerability had barely registered before he felt himself thrown a few distances from his vessel. From her.

No!

Rage was too weak a description. His blade was alive before he had even got to his feet.

The three Jedi in front of him, their own blades alive in their hands. Vader recognized the one in the middle.

"Kenobi," he hissed.

"Hello there," was all the Jedi replied. Then he raised his saber in the classic attack position. His companions imitated him.

They stood between him and her. Vader felt the saber trembling in his grip. It pulled him forward before he had even made the decision to strike.

Chapter 14. Duel of the Fates

The dead bounty hunter's ship, Lord Vader's personally customized hyper-space enabled fighter vessel, and the Jedi's unregistered craft were the three silent spectators to the battle on the landing platform, high above even the skyscrapers of Coruscant. It was a battle, the likes of which living eyes had not seen since the Darth Bane and his apprentice had battled against the legendary Jedi Knight Yoda in the early days of the Empire. That battle had changed the fate of the galaxy as we know it. This one might very well do the same.

Blue lightsabres clashed against red and locked. Vader's eyes, bright and yellow with Sith darkness, stared into the pale eyes of Kenobi, and the darker eyes of Ventress.

"Yield, Jedi," Vader hissed, malevolence dripping from his tongue.

Kenobi's eyes twinkled. "Three against one hardly seems fair."

Vader's eyes narrowed and he pulled at his sabre, trying to unlock it from their grip but they held fast.

Ventress smiled, the curling of her lips making her fierce face more sinister. "We really should have come with more."

A clever ruse. While other two Jedi got the Sith distracted with their taunting, Xanatos was sneaking up on Vader from behind, sabre drawn and ready to cut him down.

Vader snarled. Xanatos had got within striking distance when an invisible shard of malice struck him, knocking him off his feet sending him hurtling across the platform.

Kenobi and Ventress moved in quickly, trying to keep the Sith trapped but he was already out of their grip. Switching of his sabre, he unlocked himself from the deadly embrace and backflipped away from them, after Xanatos.

The Jedi had barely got to his feet, when Vader was before him. Red flame slashed at him, slicing through his vest.

Xanatos didn't scream but Ventress did.

"I agree. Hardly fair," Vader decided and slashed into the open flesh of the Jedi's stomach.

The third slash would have torn Xanatos into two but Kenobi got there first. Vader's red sabre clashed with the Jedi's blue one. Ventress was coming at him with a flying leap, her blade swinging over her head.

Vader actually laughed. No Hand could give him a work-out as thorough as this. Using the lock with Kenobi's blade as a fulcrum, he rose to meet her, kicking her in the stomach just as her blade slashed at his jerkin, and then on the return motion, using his legs to take out Kenobi's from beneath him.

The two Jedi and the Sith all fell to the floor. Vader sprang to his feet first, dropping his sabre and letting Dark Lightning spill from his hands to his enemies.

After the initial shock and rage at the Jedi's interference, he had found an unsteady balance of sorts. Nothing irked a Sith Lord as much as being thwarted and he let his rage burn cold, his spite gave him extraordinary focus.

The three Jedi were skilled: they wielded the Force and the blade with a mastery few Hands could imitate. They fought as a unit, each complementing the other two, literally and figuratively covering each other's backs. When one of them was in danger, the other two would rush to his or her defence. They were determined not to lose any of their number to the Sith's blade. It was in that strength, that their weakness lay. For they could not defeat him without one of them being sacrificed - and that was something that they were clearly unready to do.

The three Jedi were dead. They just didn't know it yet.

His prize waited for him by his ship. It was time to end this now.

The Lightning caught Ventress full and her screams of agony were music to his ears. Kenobi's blade was up before Kenobi was, and he held the weapon like a shield above his kneeling posture. Electricity reflected back at the Sith Lord and with a laugh, he caught it with his hand.

The Force had never felt so strong within him as he received his own Darkness back into himself. He could feel the outer edges of consciousness stretching, extending from the flimsy boundaries of his own physical limitations and into the people around him - Ventress' gradual paralysis... Xanatos's lifeblood draining from him even as he clumsily called on the Light (Vader's aura shied away at once) and used elementary Healing powers to knit the open maw of his stomach... Kenobi calling on every element of the Force to withstand the onslaught of the Sith and failing, his arm almost breaking with the effort of holding off the Sith... Padmé Naberrie's gradual rising to consciousness.

And like before, Vader's very reaction to her weakened him. His hand shook slightly, fatally, and this time, when Kenobi's blade directed the lightning, it struck Vader in his chest, in the very wounds that a young Jedi apprentice had only just knitted a few hours ago.

Kenobi's hand came up and he directed his own Lightning at the Sith. Vader roared with pain, trying and failing to get his focus as he felt his wounds opening slowly.

"Still the dreamer, Sith," Kenobi whispered, getting slowly to his feet. He concentrated all his focus on Vader, determinedly ignoring Asajj's cries until Vader's hand lifted from the woman and turned on Kenobi.

Kenobi just ducked from the second blast of Lightning. He rolled on the floor, and stretched his now free hand. When he got to his feet, Vader's lightsabre was in his hand. The red flame opened in time to deflect a more carefully aimed blast of Sith lightning.

The look of outrage on Vader's face was a masterpiece to Kenobi's eyes. Around him, Xanatos and Ventress were getting to their feet. The Light was strong at this moment and it was getting stronger. The Lightning that poured from the Sith's hands were weakening. He could feel the three Jedi move until they had him in the centre of a small tight circle. Around him, the Force was like a tightening noose on his neck.

"You will never have her," Kenobi whispered. He let himself sink into a lower level of consciousness and he could feel his brethren do the same. As one, the three Jedi struck.

Vader drew on the Darkness and flew back, away from the tightening circle. And the Jedi flew with him, keeping him right in their centre. The Sith had lost his weapon but he was far from weaponless, he drew on the Force as unfamiliar as it felt now, and shrapnel from the bounty hunter's ship lifted from the ground and aimed themselves at Xanatos.

The Jedi's blade cut them before they reached him. Ventress raised a hand and sent them flying towards Vader. He deflected them back, as much as he could and in that moment, Kenobi went under his guard and ripped the Sith's chest with his own blade.

In his mind, Vader howled but out loud, he had to conserve his strength. Resisting the urge to snarl into the Jedi's face, he feinted quickly, grabbed Kenobi's wrist, and pulled the sword arm until it was across Vader's own body. His grip on Kenobi's wrist tightened. The bones snapped and the sabre hung uselessly in Kenobi's grip. His fingers had locked around the cylinder.

Kenobi's second blade, Ventress' green one and Xanatos' lilac one all struck Vader at the same time. He fell beneath them, taking Kenobi with him. The red blade was not deactivated. It had cut through cloth and skin and was touching bone when Vader rolled away, the Jedi still with him so that when Xanatos and Ventress struck again, it was Kenobi's thigh that took the impact.

Despite everything, Vader laughed. A fountain of blood came out of his mouth.

Kenobi jerked futilely in the deadly embrace. Vader's grip on his wrist was like iron. He had raised Kenobi's arm across their bodies and under Kenobi's neck. The red sabre now hissed viciously in his loosened grip, the handle by Kenobi's neck, the blade a safe distance from both their bodies. Apart from the fact that his body now served as shield between the Sith and his own companions, Kenobi's own arm was now choking him. As situations went, it was all rather grim.

Xanatos studied the scenario carefully and then aimed at Vader's arm. The Sith moved a little and the sabre struck Kenobi's.

Vader laughed again. He couldn't help it even though it hastened the drain of life blood from his body. His awareness was fading. He had a strong feeling that he might be dying.

Ventress aimed her blade at Vader's temple. The Sith shifted a little (small motions were all he could manage now) and Kenobi's right cheek tore open. By now the Jedi was almost as badly wounded as the Sith. He was drawing on the Light side to keep him alive. It was an action that both weakened and saved the Sith with whom he was in such close proximity to.

Xanatos struck again. Kenobi's left cheek bled.

"I think you should stop doing that," Vader noted conversationally through the steady stream of blood gushing from his mouth.

In his fading consciousness, he could feel all three Jedi fighting against their rage. He couldn't blame them. It must have been so annoying to be so close to defeating him and now being tricked into this horrible stalemate.

Then the accursed Kenobi chose to break it. "Leave me. Get the Guardian. She's more important.”

They could not defeat him without one of them being sacrificed...

"No!" screamed Xanatos and Vader as one. Then they both stared at each other.

Ventress took one look at the two of them. Then she switched off her blade and started running towards Vader's fighter.

In Vader's mind, time seemed to slow. His connection to the Force that strengthened him had been weakened, his supernatural awareness all but faded. Now that Ventress was out of his sight, he could not track her. For all he knew, Padmé Naberrie was already gone.

NO!

With strength borne of sheer desperation, Vader threw the Jedi away from him. Xanatos' blade was ready and it passed easily into the Sith's body. Vader gripped the handle. A few minutes ago, he could have broken it just by flexing his grip. Now, he could feel the narrow cylinder slipping through his blood-soaked fingers.

It was a wonder that he still had blood to bleed.

There was a look of un-Jedi-like spite in Xanatos' face. Kenobi rose before Vader. Two blades were now swinging above his head.

"Now you die, Sith."

And the blades came down.

"STOP!"

Chapter 15. Penance, the End

Now

Sabé tried not to think about what happened to Padmé. She made a discreet call at Padmé's old house and got no response. She never heard from Jango Fett again though - that was her consolation whenever the fate of her friend gnawed on her conscience.

(That it was not the first time she had betrayed Padmé should have gnawed on her conscience as well but that was an old pain that Sabé was adept at ignoring.)

She never counted on the Jedi themselves approaching her. Of course, Sabé knew a great deal about them. In the old days in the university, when she wasn't going in or out of a new relationship, she was as avid for knowledge as Padmé had been.

Seven Years Earlier

"It sounds so romantic," Sabé declared with a big sigh.

Padmé looked skeptically at her from across the picnic blanket.

It was a free afternoon in the university and the two girls were having their meal outside. Sabé had just finished a work of fiction, an underground publication on the history of the Jedi.

"Well if it didn't, people won't read it, would they?" Padmé said rather waspishly as she spread oil on bread.

Sabé's eyes narrowed at her friend. Did she always have to sound so condescending all the time? A stranger meeting the two for the first time would have though that Padmé was the child of aristocracy while Sabé was the charity case Jobal Naberrie had taken in out of compassion to her old friend, Matol Jankerrie.

But all Sabé said was: "What if these stories are true? And the Jedi are meant to be the protectors of the Republic who use their powers to keep us safe and in harmony with each other? What if the Emperor is really a Sith Lord with a small army of evil Jedi?"

Padmé snorted, and elegantly swallowed her bread. "What if you write that for our History paper? I can imagine how well Professor will grade you for that."

"You never take anything I say seriously," Sabé said, pouting.

"That's because you rarely are, my dear." Padmé winked. "But pretty girls don't need to be serious, isn't that what you always say?"

But all the sense of elation Sabé had felt after reading the story was gone. She reached for the bread silently and thought about also asking Padmé what if her old grandmother, whom Matol and Padmé had declared mad, was actually one of the very real Guardians who were supposed to protect the Jedi.

Maybe it was the look in Padmé's eyes as she passed Sabé the green sprigs but Sabé didn't dare.

In the end though, it was Padmé who wrote that History paper.

Now

The Jedi met Sabé, of all places, in the audience hall of the Young Legislators' Academy. Her eldest son was giving a presentation. Once again, Tenlo couldn't make it - Imperial business so it was only Sabé that was there to cheer the little boy.

She shouldn't feel bitter. He was lobbying for Deputy Governor. Still...

"...you'd like him to pay more attention to his family as well as his career," said a gentle voice beside her.

"Yes, of course," Sabé began without even thinking. Then she started. She looked at the stranger - a distinguished old man with peppered hair who had been sitting calmly all the while beside her - and her heart began to pound painfully.

The gaze that answered hers seemed to look right into her soul.

"I don't think," he said softly, "that introductions are in order. You know who I am - or more precisely, what I am."

"No," she whispered urgently. "No."

The man's eyes turned to the stage in front of them. To all intents and purposes, he was studying her boy's performance with rapt attention. "It's a very delicate position your husband is in now. Bibble ill, he a shoo-in, but certainly not without competition. I understand you won't want to do anything to upset that."

"No!"

"So you'll understand when I say that I'm also in a delicate position and you'll help me. I'm looking for someone. Someone very important to me. To a lot of people like me. We know she came to Naboo to see you a few days ago. And then she disappeared. Tell me what you know."

"Nothing!" Sabé hissed furiously. Her eyes looked frantically at the people around her but they were quite out of earshot. Her eyes bore into the side of the Jedi's - what else could he be? - head. "Leave me alone."

"That is something I am afraid I cannot do. I can make you tell me where she is. It will hurt you quite badly and as a Jedi I'm not supposed to do that. But this woman is very important to us and we are prepared, we've always been prepared, to take certain measures to keep her and her kind safe." The Jedi turned to her and she could see the promise of fear in his eyes. She swallowed.

"I never wanted to hurt her," she said at last.

"I find that very hard to believe," he said gently and his eyes went back to her son.

Four Years Ago

After the class, Sabé had returned in time to catch Padmé shutting her suitcase. One quick glance around the room showed Sabé that everything of value that had belonged to her roommate (and best-friend and foster sister) had been stripped from their shared rooms.

"What are you doing?" Sabé asked.

"Graduating." Padmé smiled broadly. Sabé sat down on the bed, her knees weak. She looked at Padmé in desperation. "Y-you don't have to go. Just apologize to the Professor. Take it back. It was only a joke, wasn't it?"

Padmé laughed. "She's probably already calling the Imperial police by now. My History paper is more than enough evidence of sedition and treason for them to lock me up and throw away the key. No, Sabé. It was not a joke."

"Then what do you plan to do?" Sabé asked urgently. "I thought you didn't believe in the old stories - you called them myths. And then your grandmother-" Padmé gave Sabé a very sharp look but for the first time in their lives, Sabé actually braved her friend's displeasure, "-and your whole family seems somehow tangled up with them and you never wanted anything to do with them until a few years ago." Her eyes narrowed as realization dawned. "That's when it happened, isn't it? That's when you started changing!"

Padmé lifted up her suitcase. It was only the one - most of the things that she 'owned' were actually Sabé's. "Brilliant observation, Sherlé Hollerie."

"Where are you going?" Sabé asked desperately.

"It's better if you don't know."

Padmé made for the door. In an uncharacteristic fit of rage, Sabé got up at once and blocked her friend.

"Don't you dare walk out on me without letting me know what you plan on doing! Don't you dare! After all my family's done for you and your sister, is this how..." Her voice trailed off, then started again with equal passion. "What do I tell my Mother? Look at me!" Because all this while, Padmé had been looking away, eyes a little above Sabé's shoulder.

She turned back at Sabé's demand, her eyes flashing with anger - and with tears.

With a wail, Sabé threw her arms around her friend's shoulders. Padmé hugged her back with desperation and abandon for the first and the last time in their lives.

"I thought we were going to be sisters forever!" Sabé wailed. "Going to each other's weddings. Our kids would get married! Why do you have to do this, Padmé?"

"I'm sorry, Sabé. I'm so sorry! But I can't sit by idly and let this go on. I just wasn't made like that. I have to do my part."

"Can't you at least try to explain it to me? Why it's so important?" Sabé asked, sniffing.

Very reluctantly, Padmé stepped out of the embrace. Her face was smudged with tears and she sniffed too. "The last thing I ever want to do is harm you in anyway. Goodbye, my friend. May-may the Force be with you."

Now

"Mommy, who was that man?" her son asked solemnly when Sabé came to meet him after the performance.

He heart stopped. "Which man, dear?"

"The one that sat beside you during the rehearsal," her son said solemnly. "He upset you."

"Did I look upset?" Sabé asked in a teasing voice to mask her worry.

The boy frowned, thinking. "No, not really. But you felt it though. Somehow. You shouldn't have worried. He wasn't a bad man. He only pretends to be so that bad people don't hurt him."

He skipped ahead of her out of the auditorium.

Sabé was frozen where she stood for a long time. Then she quickly caught up with her son and held his hand firmly.

"Mom-" he said, with all the injured pride of a four-year-old but she didn't let him go. He felt her fear and wondered about it. And because she was his mother and he loved her, he let her hold his hand all the way home.

Chapter 16. Saviour

"STOP!" She was too weak to stand and leaned against Asajj's shoulder. Her robes were filthy, her braided hair in wild disarray. A streak of red stained her jaw where the bounty hunter had smashed it.

Yet the power and authority in the Guardian's voice froze all three Jedi in their poses.

The sabres that had been about to sever the Sith's head from his body hummed motionlessly but menacingly inches above his bowed hair.

The Sith seemed frozen as well, his head bowed and his shoulders unmoving.

It was Asajj that first regained her composure, "M-my lady?" The confusion in her voice was reflected on the faces of the other two Jedi.

"Stop," the Guardian repeated. Her gaze fell on each of the Jedi in turn. "You cannot do this. You cannot kill an unarmed man in cold blood."

Without lifting his sabre or his eyes from the Sith, Kenobi retorted, "My lady, he is a Sith." His sabre wavered a bit, coming dangerously close to singeing the Sith's pale hair. "His blood will always be cold."

"It's his weapon I see in your hand," the Guardian said sternly. "If I were a stranger to you three coming upon this moment, I would have thought that you were the Sith and he the Jedi. I see three warriors overpower the one. I see murder."

Kenobi recoiled as if slapped. Xanatos looked from one to the other, clearly confused. Asajj cried out in outrage, "With all due respect, my lady! All we've done here was in your service!"

The Guardian's hand pointed to the Sith who was almost bowed over his knees. The little of his skin that they could see was waxy. He had lost a lot of blood. He was probably slipping in and out of consciousness by now. "That you kill a man when he is no longer a threat to you? Not in my service. Never in my service."

"He's a Sith. His very existence is a threat," Asajj hissed.

"And so would yours be," the Guardian said with equal passion, "all three of you, if not for the grace of the Force and my Grandmother."

Silence fell, thick like shame, amidst the three Jedi.

Kenobi lifted a hand from his two-handed grip on the Sith's sabre hilt and touched his own face. To all appearances he was merely wiping off the blood on his cheeks; in reality, he was trying to heal himself, both mind and body. He was weaker than he looked, having been wounded badly by his own brethren when Vader used his body as a shield; his proximity to the Sith had hampered his drawing on the Light Side for healing. The accursed Sith was all but dead at his feet now and Kenobi should have been able to draw on the Force more strongly. But for some reason he couldn't.

In the tentative bond he had with his brethren, he could tell that they faced the same difficulty. It was the Sith, poisoning the Force with his very existence. Their very existence. They had trapped him, all but killed him. And they had done it in rescue of the Guardian. What nobler cause could there be? This was - should be - a moment of great victory for the three Jedi, and for every Jedi in the known galaxy.

The Guardian took a step away from Asajj, limping slightly as she walked towards the Sith.

"Stay back, my lady," Kenobi said quietly, still not lifting weapon or focus from the creature that lay cowed before him.

The Guardian paused, a stride away from the trio of warriors. "He is dying. If you're going to do something, Obi-Wan, then do it quickly."

Kenobi did raise his eyes then and something that was a mix between irritation and affection twisted his mouth. "Of course, milady," he said curtly. The red blade in his hand flickered and died.

There was a pause, and then Xanatos did the same.

"No!" cried Asajj.

Kenobi carefully put the cylinder in his belt. "It is the right thing to do." He bent to squat beside the Sith. Despite the fact that the Sith appeared unconscious, Kenobi's senses were alert for any deception. He needn't have been: Vader's skin was cold, his pulse weak, and his mind quiet. He was minutes from his death.

"It is almost dead," Asajj spat as Xanatos imitated Kenobi, laid a hand on the wound he had made in the Sith's stomach. "You might as well put it out of its misery."

The others ignored her. Between the Jedi men, they stretched the Sith out on the ground so that he lay flat on his back with his arms close to his side.

"Can you save him?" The Guardian asked, stepping closer.

"Stay back, my lady," Kenobi said sharply. He had his hands on either side of the Sith's face. Xanatos had placed his other hand on the Sith's knees. There was a moment of silence. Then as one, they exhaled softly and closed their eyes.

Asajj felt it when it happened. The Force, somewhat dampened during the fierce battle, now started thickening, rising, growing, binding them all. She and the others were forced out of the boundaries of their own consciousness and into each other's. Asajj could feel the Guardian's fortitude and fierceness as well as the ache in her jaw from her scuffle with the bounty hunter. Xanatos could feel the slow knitting of the wounds he had given Kenobi as well as the other's characteristic serenity, and unflinching obedience. They could all feel the Sith's lungs knitting, the bone marrows doing double duty to compensate for the enforced anemia; the Sith's soul was a swirling, conflicting pool of darkness and evil. None of them wanted to touch it any more than they had to. But the Force seemed to like this soul - the Force seemed to like him. It flowed through and around him more strongly than anything the Jedi had ever felt and it forced them to meld with him... to heal him. Suddenly it was no longer their choice - but the very will of the Force that demanded the Sith to be saved.

And as the last sinew of muscle was knitted in the open wound in his stomach, he let in a sharp gasping breath and his eyes opened.

Chapter 17. Saved

Of course the first thing he saw was her. His dream made flesh. He had had such strange dreams now, dreams of the Force abandoning him, of a brighter kind of Power poisoning him and healing him at the same time. He had seen his own blade and the blade of a Jedi swinging to his head, had all but felt it cutting through the muscles in his neck, cleaving his head from his body, ending his life before he had even begun it.

Then he had heard her voice. Strong, soft, everything he ever imagined it would sound like and like nothing he had ever imagined at all. He knew atavistically that she was saving him with her words. Of all times for his strength to fail him. He had wanted to raise his head and watch those lips form his salvation but his bones and muscles hung limp, lifeless in his bloodless body.

He had wanted to look at her, to thank her with his eyes because he would only ever be grateful to her, to take her in his arms and spirit her away to a golden cage where only his eyes would ever gaze on her beauty; only his ears would ever listen to her voice.

Or failing that, he wanted to crawl to her, lie docile at her feet, her willing slave, ready to do anything she bidded, willing to be anything she wished.

Or failing that, he wanted to hide from her, to crawl away like a legless creature because that was what he was - legless, defeated, shamed before her.

The choice had been taken from him. He had felt the last of his life seep into the cold duracrete floor of the landing platform. He had died. The Jedi's Force had brought him back.

Not the Dark Side that loved him, that cloaked him with pain and power. It was some other Side of the Force, a Side that didn't love him, that burnt even as it healed, that wounded his mind and soul by giving him back his memories like shards of a broken mirror.

Vader wondered why his Master had always called the Jedi's Force the 'weaker Force'. It was useless in combat of course but if wielded properly, it could injure in more subtle ways. It could drive a person mad.

It passed through his essence, cutting a burning swathe as it prodded each midichlorian, making them squeal with pain as it poked, examined, turned them over so that they lay raw and harmful against each other.

It healed him by poisoning him.

And that was when Vader opened his mouth and screamed. Only no sound came in. Only breath. First the one, then another, and another until his lungs were pumping air instead of blood, his heartbeat pumping stronger and fiercer and with it his soul. And finally, as easily as flying from the heights of the Imperial palace, he was calling on the Darkness, the Side of Force that loved him and drove the other from him.

Only then did he open his eyes and see her before him, no longer a dream, no longer beyond his reach, her face was so near he could kiss her...

(...The needle slipping into his neck... another kind of poison in his blood...)

...would have kissed her even through the falling darkness, but she had slipped away from him, back into the light, and when he reached for her, she was no longer there.

The last thing he heard was Kenobi's hated voice in his mind:

"Better luck in your dreams."

Chapter 18. Guardian, part II

Five Years Ago

Imperial Records

Items recovered from one Winama of Naboo, alleged 'Guardian', aider and abetter to the 'Jedi' (self-proclaimed sorcerers, cultists and terrorists):

One set of robes, origins possibly from fine Alderaan silk. Incinerated.

One datapad. Encrypted. Deciphered after two weeks by Imperial Intelligence. Revealed locations of abandoned Jedi covens.

One vial of unknown liquid substance. Analyzed in Imperial Research Facilities. Properties unknown. Lethal effects by direct contact. Lethal effects by inhalation. Lethal effects by ingestion. Transferred to Hazardous Chemical Decimation facilities. Properties still unknown.

Flimsi-plast image. Poor reproduction. Subject appears to be dark-haired young female. Image could not be improved by technical enhancement. Missing.

A faded, out-of-focus flimsi-plast. There was a part of him that tried to understand why he had even noticed it amongst the old woman's things presented to him by the Imperial Officers. Of course, he understood why he took it - what a Sith wanted, a Sith took. What he didn't understand was why he stole it, why he wanted it a secret from the officers, the other Hands, his Master.

Perhaps, it was because secrets were the best form of possession. Perhaps it was something more. Because when Vader had stared at the blurry out-of-focus image, the lines seemed to sharpen for him. He could see the face behind that image, a face of such indescribable beauty that he knew it could not be real.

It was strange that he almost never found that image. When the Emperor had informed Lord Vader of his first mission as a Sith, Vader had been outraged.

"Interrogating a civilian? That's a job for the Imperial Police, not Sith! It's overkill, Master!"

The Emperor's punishment had been swift and effective. By the time Vader had picked himself from the floor, the words "you will learn your place" were drilled into his brain.

On top of that, the Emperor had further humiliated him by revoking the privilege of conducting the mission on his own. His former peers, Darra Thel-Tanis and Ferus Olin, accompanied him.

By the time they arrived at the Imperial Holding Facility in Chandrilla, Vader was ready to unleash himself at the first possible victim.

This happened to be the Officer-in-Charge, a blustery red-faced man who had been used to the late but not mourned Lord Vapaad, and was not aware of the recent changes to the Emperor's court.

The Officer made the mistake of taking Vader at face value. When he realized his errors, he apologized profusely, all but grovelling before them. Vader calmly ignored the man's blubbering and ordered Ferus and Darra ahead. He then spent a few minutes re-educating the man. It was a more direct form of education that involved finding a pathway into his brain and re-structuring it. As the man's oversized body broke into spasms, Vader's mood improved greatly.

Apology accepted.

This pleasant pastime was unfortunately cut short by a familiar voice over his shoulder.

"What are you doing, An..." Darra's voice trailed away at the look in the boy's eyes.

The newly minted Sith stared down his childhood friend until she looked away.

Swallowing carefully, she said very respectfully, "Lord Vader, Ferus is about to begin the interrogation of the prisoner."

Vader cursed, his recently restored good mood gone. Abandoning the destroyed Imperial officer, he started walking rapidly down the corridor of the Imperial prison.

"He said you gave him permission," Darra said, almost sprinting to match Vader's longer strides.

They were drawing closer to their destination and the screams were becoming louder.

"Give me strength!" Vader roared and burst into the holding cell. "Olin!"

The prisoner, an old woman who looked barely alive was chained hands and feet to a metallic chair in the centre of the cell. The cell itself was not at all like the dungeon where Kenobi was chained at the start of this story. It was a four-walled affair with a tiny cage of a window at the extreme end. A standard class high-security facility for a high-security prisoner, nothing more.

Guardians, for all their influence, were normal beings.

Ferus the Emperor's Hand was leaning over the woman and carefully drawing lines in her bare arms with a blade when Vader burst in.

Ferus looked up casually at his erstwhile mate. "Oh, it's you. Keep your voice down. I'm in the middle of something here, Ana-."

Vader's wrath lifted the other boy from his feet and flung him far, high and hard against the wall. It was only Darra's quick reach in the Force that prevented every bone in his body from shattering when he hit the floor.

Vader turned on her with a venomous glare.

"I'm sorry!" she cried. "But you're not going to kill him over a Jedi-Guardian!"

Ferus was picking himself up with a groan. Darra had broken his fall, not cushioned it. Vader turned his glare from her to him.

"Get him out of my sight at once!"

Darra quickly ran to comply.

"You think you're a big man now," Ferus snarled as the girl placed an arm around his shoulder. "Just because you slipped under Darth Vapaad's guard, you think you're a cut above the rest of us."

"Shut up, Ferus!" Darra hissed angrily.

Vader would have told her not to bother. He didn't mind Ferus's stupid talk. It only served to highlight the other boy's resentment; and the Sith thrived on the envy and fear of others. Ferus had never forgiven him, Vader, for taking the initiative and challenging the old Sith apprentice. It amused Vader to think that Ferus actually believed that he would have had a chance against Darth Vapaad.

Vader strolled up to the other boy, looked him up and down - Darra watching apprehensively all the while - and slapped him with his open palm.

Both Hands, once Vader's own peers, gasped. The slap was a rebuke, a master correcting an underling. A blow would have been more dignified.

Hatred and humiliation seemed to drench Ferus Olin. Vader savoured it.

"You were saying?" Vader whispered.

Ferus opened his mouth. Then closed it.

"Get out," Vader hissed.

Neither Hand said a word as they left. Ferus was too bitterly shamed and Darra was too wise.

Vader turned to the prisoner, the old Guardian. The woman's face was a mass of bruises from her desperate struggle with the Imperial officers that had arrested her. Tiny streaks of blood stained her arms where Ferus had cut her.

He picked up the knife from where it had fallen and walked to the woman. Her eyes never left his face.

"Did you fear him while he tortured you?" he asked conversationally. He threw the knife in the air, caught it, threw it again. "You should. He's very good with torture." Threw the knife, caught it again. "You can say he's even developed a talent for it." Threw the knife, caught it again. "And he's afraid of me." Stopped. Looked the woman straight in the eye. "Go figure."

She didn't say a word. All the while he had played with the knife, her eyes had never left his face.

Vader said softly, "If you talk very quickly and very honestly, I will make your passing comfortable. I take no pleasure in killing your kind: least of all, old women like yourself.

"If you don't." Vader brought the knife to her ear and nicked off the edge of it. She cried out loud. "I look like a child. I'm not."

He went hunting for a place to seat while she contained her sobs. He finally found a rectangular object that seemed to be some sort of torture tool. He improvised, drawing it close to her, and straddling it. He sat a little below her, and waited until she had stopped snivelling completely.

The image they made was a grotesque distortion of an old woman being comforted by her small grandson.

Eventually, her sobs quieted.

"Are you ready to talk?" he asked, his voice almost kind.

She nodded. Her ear was bleeding very freely and it sprayed a little on her already stained robes.

"Well?" Vader drawled after a long moment of silence had passed.

She looked at him and in her brown eyes, he saw acceptance, resolution and sadness.

"I failed you," she said so softly he almost didn't hear her.

"What?"

Her voice wasn't any louder but she held him with her eyes. He almost heard the words in her mind. "I failed you, all of you, but especially you. So I forgive you because I'm responsible for what you are."

Vader sighed. "Delusions give you strength, woman? I am disappointed. You Jedi-Guardians are creatures of renown." And he picked up the knife again.

"We are only creatures," she said quietly. "No more. No less. We don't have your powers, the powers to move mind and matter. Yet somehow we still manage to do your kind a great deal of service."

Something cold and alien seemed to fill the Sith with her words.

"You're preaching to the wrong kind," he snarled.

"And when we fail," she continued as if he had not spoke, "we do your kind a great deal of harm. Like you. Forgive me."

"Like me? I have just been made the Sith apprentice," Vader retorted, feeling a strange and ridiculous urge to justify himself against this woman. The knife trembled in his hand. He had more effective means of extracting information than Ferus knew. Why was he hesitating? "The only harm that concerns me is the harm I dispel on others, like yourself."

At his words, she did close her eyes. The emotions coming from her was so tangible that even though he had never felt it directed at him before, he recognized it at once.

Pity.

Pity!

"I don't need your pity, woman!" he shouted, jumping to his feet. The knife still trembled in his hand. Why didn't he use it?

"I'm sorry," she said. She was not apologizing for pitying him. And, probably because of what she had already witnessed between him and Ferus, she only said his name in her mind. He heard her.

That cold, alien thing that had been rising in Vader as the woman spoke suddenly exploded out of him. He had never felt rage or hatred this powerful.

"You fool! You mistake me for some Jedi child you failed to save," Vader spat. He didn't know why he was so desperate to correct her. He didn't know why he hesitated to use the knife. "I am not. I was born royalty, in the Imperial Palace itself and I was raised a Sith from the moment I took my first breath. You don't know me! You know nothing about me! I am Darth Vader, Lord of the Sith!

"Do. Not. Dare. Pity. Me." And in one swift motion, he finally used the knife.

The blood pooled at his feet. He now looked down at her eyes, close to his boots on the floor. Even lifeless as they were now, they seemed to see too much into his soul.

She had said his old name.

Vader bent over the fallen head, and closed her eyes.

"The malicious lies of a crazy old woman," the Emperor said calmly after Vader had re-told the whole incident.

The young Sith was silent.

"You doubt me, boy." His voice was threatening.

Vader didn't bother denying it. "She knew my old name."

"What of it? You think the identities of the Sith's Hands are secret? Less than a year ago, that is what you were. Most of our subjects have wisely chosen not to understand us. A few - like the Guardians - do. There is no particular intelligence in seeing what is in front of you."

"So she was-"

"I grow impatient with your doubts, Vader," the Emperor roared.

"You were the one who taught me always to look for deceit in all things," Vader retorted, his own adolescent timbre rising.

"Then search your heart," his Master snapped. "And discover the truth there."

The Sith Master was so irritated at his young apprentice's indecisiveness that he had not probed too closely into his account for the encounter with the Guardian.

Which was just as well. Because Vader had kept one secret from his Master.

Perhaps it was out of a sense of vindictiveness to the old woman who had said and seen too much. The image meant something to her - he could feel the strong memories and emotions that she had imprinted on it - and Vader doubted that she, wherever she was, would be happy that he had kept it.

Perhaps it was they mystery of the thing - an unclear image could be as lovely or as repulsive as your mind chose it to be. Romantic, yes. But despite all his protestations to the contrary, the Lord Vader was still a very young boy.

Perhaps it was the urging of a distant memory, so far back that it might not actually have been his own, that told him that the image meant something to him.

Would mean.

Whatever the case, he took it, kept it secret from his own Master, and pined and pined over the image until he had worn it out to shreds.

It never occurred to him that the face on that image really existed in real life. It never occurred to him that such imagined beauty could be real.

Until years later, on the day a Jedi named Obi-Wan Kenobi tried to infiltrate the Imperial Palace and nearly succeeded.

Just before chapter 1

A holo-image this time, clear, sharp. A woman, not a girl. A superficial resemblance to the other face in the old image. But Vader had recognized her at once.

"Not in this lifetime," the Jedi told the Sith.

Time will tell.

Chapter 19. Guardian, the End

The detonation is a heavy hand that plucks the children from mid-sprint and flings them far and hard into the concrete floor. His supernatural gift is the only saving grace that stops their bones from shattering on the impact. The small boy twists mid-air, and miraculously slows his own descent. It is a difficult feat and he achieves it poorly but it saves his life and the life of the little one he carries. Barely seconds after the impact, his breath still lodged in his chest, he turns round, this time placing her beneath him and the rain of shrapnel broke over him.

He welcomes the showering. The child is his purpose, the only shield against the tiny bombs of panic that threaten to explode in his brain.

The Grand Master... His own Master... The Guardian... Their charge... The little girl...

"Sola!" cries the child beneath him and her tiny body wriggles to do the instinctive but suicidal race back to the demolished building. He tightens his grip on her but she remains rebellious. "Sola!"

"Shush," he whispers - a poor attempt at comfort that is rewarded by a look of such hatred as only a child can wield. There is no restraint in the small hands that strike his face. In her mind, he is accountable for this destruction.

"Sola!"

He is besieged on all fronts. His mind within him. Her violent beating beneath him. And from above, the rain of shrapnel...

...had long since ended. The bounty hunter's ship was a fading glow on the platform. The Jedi moved stealthily by the light of their blades.

"We have to leave soon," Xanatos murmured as Padmé climbed slowly to her feet from her perch by the Sith. "Any moment now, the scan-droids will be rising to this level."

The Sith lay sprawled on the ground, the fearsome creature subdued - for the moment. The vial filed with clear liquid that had so effectively subdued him rested carelessly in Padmé's hand. She herself stood above him, looking down with an inscrutable expression on her face.

"Definitely," Obi-Wan said, moving forward to place his arm on the Guardian's waist in the nick of time. She had swayed where she stood. "You and Asajj, carry - him to our vessel."

Asajj shot him a very dirty look but she complied. Holding her sabre aloft in one hand to illuminate their path, she and Xanatos lifted the Sith between them. As they carried him, Kenobi noted with some amusement that Asajj left most of the burden on Xanatos's side, clearly determined to touch as little of the Force-forsaken creature as she could.

Padmé's eyes followed them as well. "You did the right thing," she said softly.

Obi-Wan smiled. She was no Jedi but her intuition sometimes surpassed even the Grand Master himself. "It doesn't really matter. There will be plenty to correct my mistake where we're taking him."

"The Grand Master?" she asked rhetorically.

"Who else?" Obi-Wan retorted.

She chuckled softly and winced, suddenly feeling the ache in her jaw where Fett had struck her. The ache in all her bones...

"Hey," Obi-Wan said, his grip tightening. His other arm went round her and his large weathered hand...

... guides the small, soft palm over the distorted terrain. Motion pauses and then - then - a small quake, beneath her fingers. Two pairs of brown eyes lock with mutual delight.

"I think he likes you!" The woman says with a tremor of excitement that rings strangely in her world-weary voice. But there is no denying the simple joy in her smile as she bestows it on the little angel by her side.

"Certainly, he should," this little angel retorts primly but her characteristically stern expression falters a little at the delightful feel of the small life kicking against her palm. Despite her determination not to be charmed, the little girl's face glows.

The woman laughs, reaches over to touch...

... her soft brown curls, gently smoothing them behind her ears.

"Are you OK?" Obi-Wan whispered softly, for the first time really looking at the cut on her lip, her bruised jaw, her general dishevelled and badly-used appearance. "What did they do to you?"

She sighed, tucking herself into his shoulder. "A lot less than what I did to him. I killed him, Obi-Wan."

"It was self-defence," he said at once, protecting her even from herself.

Was it? she asked herself. In her mind, she knew the answer. I was never in any danger from the bounty hunter.

Still she leaned against her old friend and let herself draw support from his concern and from his strength - both literally and figuratively. Now that she was finally safe, her body was allowing itself to feel the trauma of her skirmish with Jango Fett - who she killed! Killed! - and the trauma of the hours in captivity. Her legs were so weak, she could barely stand; she was resting completely on Obi-Wan who was injured himself.

"Are you OK?" she asked him now.

Obi-Wan snorted. Until a few days ago, he had been in a torture chamber that exceeded even his worst imaginations. And barely minutes ago, he had been in the battle of his life, fighting against a creature that was more of an animal than a man. He smiled at her. "Right as rain."

She laughed.

Their eyes followed Xanatos as he came to the top of the gangway. "Time to go!" he shouted.

Obi-Wan made to turn to the vehicle when Padmé remembered something.

"Better have this back," she said with a rueful smile. "Before another bounty hunter dispossesses me of my supply." She lifted the vial.

He nodded seriously and, after carefully folding his free hand in a swathe of his robes, allowed her to drop the vial in it. He placed it in his belt, still taking care not to touch the bottle with his skin.

When he looked up, her eyes were twinkling. "It's a wonder you carry the thing around. The bottle isn't poisonous, Obi-Wan."

"Well, I won't have to carry it at all if a certain Guardian didn't leave hers lying around in a bounty hunter's burning ship," he retorted but there was a slight blush in his cheeks.

"Well," she bantered back, "it's a good thing the Jedi got there...

...in the nick of time. We don't know why the Emperor want you and your baby so badly but you know, don't you, that it can't be for any good?" The old Guardian's voice is as soothing as her words are frightening.

The mother places her hands protectively on her womb, trying to shelter the child that lies there, innocent for now, for a short while and no longer. Her voice begins, then breaks, then begins and breaks. After three trials at this dance, it finally says desperately, "Will you help me?"

The Guardian's eyes are old, wise and sad. "That's what I try to do."

She places a hand of benediction on the mother's head and hopes she has passed on the comfort and courage she finds harder and harder to conjure. Her other hands lifts the tiny vial. The clear liquid seems to shimmer in the hypodermic syringe.

"Will it hurt my baby?" The mother's universal plea. Lines of courage form on her face as the needle hovers above her sunburnt skin.

"No," the Guardian says softly. "It will save you."

The needle slips into the skin, the liquid into veins.

"How does it work?" the mother breathes. The absence of pain fascinates her.

The Guardian smiles. The role of arbitrator of poison is far easier than that of harbinger of hope. "It will make it a little difficult for them to...

... find me, anyway? Not that I mind, of course." Padmé asked as she and Obi-Wan walked towards the waiting vessel.

"We lost contact with you when you were on Naboo. And we knew there was a bounty. So we paid Sabé a visit." There was no disguising the sarcasm in Obi-Wan's voice.

She shot his a stern look. "Don't be too hard on her, Obi-Wan. She didn't have any choice."

"She didn't want to think she had any choice."

"You've never liked Sabé," Padmé said sadly. "Right from the beginning."

They got to the ship. Xanatos helped Padmé in and Obi-Wan got in behind her. He turned to take one last look at the landing platform that had served so nicely as a battlefield. The bounty hunter's ship, now a pile of embers, was the only companion left for Darth Vader's extra-modified craft. But not for long. If the local underbelly worked fast enough, they might be able to salvage some valuable parts before the spy droids alerted the Imperial Police.

With a satisfied smile, Obi-Wan closed the hatch.

Asajj was in the pilot's seat, Xanatos her navigator. The Sith lay in the co-pilot's seat, a thoroughly (some might say too thoroughly) knotted mass of electric binders and limbs.

Padmé had found a seat beside him, and was extricating something from his vest. Before Obi-Wan could even try to understand what she was doing, she was confronting him with her prize.

Her own image, impressed on the holo that Vader had stolen.

Obi-Wan looked from the brown eyes in the holo to the brown eyes that stared at him expectantly.

"It's a long story," he said at last.

"I have plenty of time," Padmé said quietly. "You'd better start...

...talking to the wrong people.

Clearly someone did. With all the certainty of his gifts, the boy knows this traitor must be the other little girl - the one with the dark plaits and sulky eyes, who looks like the sisters but cannot even be their friend. Or the friend of anything good or decent.

And after the boy picks enough shards from the broken pieces of that nightmare to form a reflection, he offers the Guardian this theory.

Her eyes are gentle and un-condemning, a vivid rebuke of the thirst of vengeance in his own soul. "She is only a child."

All the more reason for malice in one so young to be abhorred - to be eliminated! In his rage, he flings the shards, letting them fall as they will, piercing his soul and drawing blood.

The old Guardian enfolds the shattered pieces of his body and heart into her arms and the well of grief inside him bursts. Tears flow even more freely from his young body as he feels the answering call of pain in her.

He is not the only one that suffers.

After a long moment, the tide recedes and they break apart. She kneels before him and holds him by his shoulders. She does this so that she can both look him in the eye and support him as he sways on his feet.

Her eyes are shadows.

"Well, I've lost one grand-daughter to the fire, and the other to her foster parents, and some day, her own hatred of me."

"She could never hate you!" cries the boy with passionate outrage.

Lines of bitterness sink into the old woman's face as she laughs. "I would."

Her words shock the boy to silence.

"Apart from that, I've also managed to lose my ward and her child to a fate worse than death. And your Master, who died defending all of us."

There is no need for more tears. It is enough that her grief is seeping like liquid lead from her hands into his small shoulders.

"You are the Jedi," she says. Light-heartedness disguises the earnest plea in her voice. "Look into the future and tell me this: does it ever end?"

He bows his head. He is too young, and has grown up too quickly to know the answers.

Duplicating her gesture, his small hands come to rest on her shoulders. The old souls stare at each other and try to find in aged faces a future that will make everything worthwhile.

Chapter 20. The Beginning

The Grand Master smiled as he switched off the COM. They were bringing him here. They had caught him.

All he had hoped was... but it had gone even better than he could have hoped. It hadn't been so long that Kenobi had infiltrated the Imperial Palace, but it seemed like if his plan had taken years of execution.

Then again, in a sense it had.

All around him, he could feel the Force singing. For the first time in centuries, it was possible, just possible... That beyond the edge of the horizon, there waited a future that would make everything that had gone before worthwhile.

The End.

author's note:

Thank you for reading this story to the end. I really hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it. Please take a few minutes to tell me what you thought. I welcome feedback in any shape or form.

May the Force be with you always.

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