Chapter 6

Padmé followed the Jedi's sudden departure into the ship with a neutral expression, her confusion and worry hidden behind a mask of polite observation. Subtly in a manner that nobody who wasn't a part of her court would be able to notice, she called for her Handmaidens' attention. She inclined her head towards the departing Jedi and spoke a wordless question. Her friends replied in kind with curled fingers, brushed against their sleeves. They weren't aware of the Jedi's intentions either.

Padmé loathed being kept out of the loop, as the Queen of her people it was her duty to be more aware of the galaxy at large than others, but she could not linger on the gaps in her knowledge or she'd risk becoming distracted. Trusting the people that had protected her so far, Padmé put them off her mind for a moment to focus on the Chancellor's arrival instead. It occurred to her that the Jedi had run the exact moment he had stepped upon the platform, but that ought to be a coincidence. Chancellor Palpatine had always spoken highly and kindly of the Jedi, trusting their words and actions.

He was a good ally to have, even if he underestimated Padmé's dedication to the Naboo.

"My Queen," Chancellor Palpatine addressed Sabé, wearing her disguise and playing her part of the loyal bodyguard. "I must ask you to remain here for your safety at least once more."

As instructed, Sabé denied him with Amidala's iron will. "I must help my people."

It was Queen Amidala's duty to reassure her people that everything was going to be alright and in case of failure, to fall with them. She would fight tooth and nail to prove that the Trade Federation was subjugating the Naboo and she'd do everything she could to protect them. If that meant that at the end of the week, the Naboo would need to select a new Queen because she had died a martyr, then so it would be.

"We have made our decision," Sabé spoke for the Queen.

The Chancellor smiled once more, sad and grandfatherly. His eyes darted to Padmé and for a split second, she was sure that he knew who was actually wearing the Queen's mantle right now. Palpatine had been her predecessor's Senator already and he had been eager to support her too. Padmé was glad to know that even if they failed, he'd still be there to protect the Naboo from the Chancellor's rank. He would ensure that the cruelty they were dealt with would not go unpunished.

And with that, they left the platform and headed towards the ship.

X

They were granted barely a few minutes' reprise before they had to talk to the Naboo again. Qui-Gon desperately wanted to abandon this mission, but he was not enough of a fool to discard Anakin's warnings, spoken in determined declarations about the proceedings of the mission. As the most stable out of all of them, Qui-Gon was the one who went to talk to the Queen and her entourage while Anakin drifted off to a hopefully dreamless sleep and Obi-Wan caught at least a few moments of rest.

"I apologize for the rash absence, we thought it best to get security checks underway as quickly as possible," Qui-Gon lied with a silver tongue.

He was good with words, always had been. Mind tricks were twice as effective if you chose befitting instructions. His Master had been very keen to impose that knowledge on him.

"You are forgiven, Master Jedi," the Queen said, her face impassive as ever. "Do not worry about it."

She was more in control of her expressions than most of the Padawans her age. The burden on her narrow frame, hidden behind layers of robes and make-up, was much too large for her to carry. It was a harsh reminder of how much their Order had diminished that the children of the galaxy could not act as mere representatives, trusting the Jedi to keep the peace of the worlds they governed.

"Where are Master Kenobi and Anakin?" one of the handmaidens inquired. As similarly as they all dressed and acted, this one Qui-Gon could pick out a little more clearly. It was Padmé for sure, the ringleader of the group. He wasn't entirely aware of the way the handmaidens were structured, but they all appeared to look to her for guidance when questions arose.

"Anakin was feeling a little under the weather," Qui-Gon excused. He had to handle this delicately, not imply weakness of any kind. "He must have overgorged himself on sweets back at the temple. Don't worry about it he'll be as cheerful as before in a short while. We can proceed with our mission as planned."

Or so he hoped at least.

He watched as all of them got settled in the small meeting room and listened to their plan to retake the city. It was rough to say the least, built more on hope than true knowledge. They had no idea how bad it had gotten in their absence, how much of the information they had gathered from the transmissions that had been sent out, was actually representative of the current circumstances. Qui-Gon could only hope that it took the Trade Federation much more effort to control all these droids than it had appeared to at first. If the Federation's invasion of the planet went just a little slower than what instinct told him, they'd have already gained a massive advantage.

Obi-Wan showed up halfway through the meeting, visibly dead on his feet for everybody but Qui-Gon. Nobody commented on his appearance or appeared to take notice of how haunted he looked. Qui-Gon counted it as a win as Obi-Wan let nothing of his exhaustion show as he offered brilliant insights to their plan. He had grown into the Jedi Knight Qui-Gon could only dream of and there were no words capable of describing how proud Qui-Gon was of his Padawan.

After many hours of discussion, dragging deep into the night cycle and the sleep they desperately needed, they finally ended their meeting and the two Jedi had a chance to discuss what had taken place just mere minutes before they had left Coruscant.

"How is Anakin fairing?" Qui-Gon asked quietly once they were out of earshot of the Naboo.

"Still asleep," Obi-Wan replied as they retreated to their quarters. It was fortunate that they had been able to switch to a slightly bigger and better-stocked ship capable of defending them against assault. The fact that the three of them now could also share an actual room instead of sleeping somewhere in the common areas was a relief as well. Qui-Gon had slept in the most horrid places in the galaxy and had also gone entirely without rest before important battles, but he'd rather not do that now with his grandpadawan so hurt.

"I'm still not convinced that staying with the Naboo was the wisest of moves. Anakin is in no condition to fight," Obi-Wan said darkly. "He could get hurt, he could die. He's just-"

"A child?" Qui-Gon interrupted his padawan softly. "Yes, Anakin is indeed a child with an immense power I can barely begin to understand, you know him far better than I could ever hope to. But one of the first things you must realize as a Master is that you have to trust your Padawan."

Obi-Wan only raised a questioning brow at him and Qui-Gon was more than well aware of all the ways his Padawan was accusing him of not following his own advice.

"I know, I know," Qui-Gon laughed. "Don't look at me like that, Padawan, I'm not without flaws. But trust Anakin when he says that he has to be here. As I did, you could feel in the Force that Anakin was right, so we ought to trust in him and in the Force."

Obi-Wan huffed with almost childish petulance, then he let the tension drain from his shoulders and leaned towards Qui-Gon, asking for comfort in a way he hadn't done in years.

"The Force, should we really trust them so?" Obi-Wan asked with a small voice. "You saw what they did to Anakin."

Qui-Gon had indeed and it had made him want to grief horribly.

"I saw what they did to themself," Qui-Gon corrected him lightly, before he could say more, a soft voice interrupted their conversation.

"Obi-Wan?"

The two of them turned their heads to look at the far left corner of the room where Anakin was sitting up in his bed, tiredly rubbing his eyes. "What happened?"

"What do you remember?" Obi-Wan asked, rushing to Anakin's side and pulling his Padawan close. "And how do you feel? Is everything alright? Do you have a headache? Does anything feel off?"

Anakin only shook his head. "There's just a little ache." He shot Obi-Wan an annoyed look, pouting like the young boy he was. "I'm fine, Master."

Obi-Wan wouldn't have it and continued fussing over Anakin, searching for any signs of illness.

"Anakin, what is the last thing you remember?"

"Darkness," Anakin muttered and wrapped his blanket closer around himself as if he were freezing. "Darkness and the void. Nothing. The absence of living, the absence of death. It was wrong. What happened after?"

Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon exchanged a look. They couldn't afford another breakdown now.

"Nothing you need to concern yourself with," Qui-Gon replied. It was him who had tempered with Anakin's mind, if anything had gone wrong and would hurt him later, Anakin should not blame Obi-Wan who loved him so dearly. "Not now at least, maybe after. But Anakin, the moment you feel something strange again, you have to tell us. It doesn't matter what it is. If you have a bad feeling, you report it."

"I will tell you everything, I know. I'm not doing this for the first time."

Anakin said it with much conviction that Qui-Gon wanted to weep. This was Anakin'S first mission outside of the temple and none of this should be familiar to him, except for all the ways it already was. He had been and still was a part of a greater whole, he hadn't been meant to be an individual created from nothing to do the unimaginable.

"Anakin, do you have any idea what this void could have been?" Qui-Gon asked carefully.

Anakin shook his head.

"No, I've- I think I've seen it before. But it all feels dull now as if covered by a heavy blanket, or snow."

Qui-Gon supposed that was to blame on him. He didn't know what had set Anakin off like this and Obi-Wan wasn't aware of any cause either, but it couldn't be anything good or remotely associated with the light side. If something so dark had crept to Coruscant, then Qui-Gon needed to inform the Council as soon as possible, preferably right now but he still had other duties.

"And you're sure we're all meant to be here?" he continued his inquiry.

"Yes," Anakin replied, then abruptly cut himself off as his eyes focused on Qui-Gon, not looking directly at him but through him, down to his deepest core. Qui-Gon felt seen and understood, watched. "I- I think so? I want it to be."

He sounded surer about the second part of his statement and so Qui-Gon resigned himself to these uneasy answers. The Force hadn't been clear in centuries, why would it suddenly become a crystal clear water?

X

It itched.

His entire body, his mind, it itched, like a thousand insects running over his skin. Anakin wanted to scratch open the curst of a healing wound, peel it away and expose the blood beneath. The vivid image burned itself into his mind so deeply that Anakin was tempted to ask Obi-Wan for bandages for a wound he couldn't find.

The disturbance within himself was scaring him. Anakin wasn't used to being caught unaware, he saw too much, knew too much, but he simply couldn't figure out what was disturbing him. He searched and tried to track the hurt, the pain, but he couldn't find it anywhere.

The time until they reached Naboo passed quickly, but Anakin could hardly pay any attention to it, too distracted by that horrible urge. It took his breath away and he wasn't sure how he was ever supposed to live again when all that he could feel was this horrible itch.

X

The Jedi were distracted when they landed on Naboo. Padmé could tell that they were doing their utmost to hide it, but their demeanor had changed too much from when they had first accompanied them. Besides the obvious exhaustion following the two older ones, little Anakin was not as chatty as he had been the first time around. He kept to himself and the confidence with which he had filled Padmé before was slowly losing its effect. It returned her to her early childhood, the moment she had learned that the lake spirit didn't actually steal her teeth to build little rafts for the frogs. It was as if a spell had been pulled from Padmé's eyes and she was suddenly aware of some greater horror she shouldn't be able to feel.

The whole crew noticed it, but every time she thought of asking, she saw something out of the corner of her eyes. She considered herself to be an attentive person, but something was clinging to Anakin that wasn't quite there. A shadow, a disease, draining the life from him and each time Padmé thought of it, it only seemed to grow worse.

The Jedi appeared to be aware of it as well, which was her only consolation. Padmé knew too well that she couldn't help him, and somewhere it made her grimace that she wanted to save the people who were supposed to be her people's aid.

Resigning herself to her limited capabilities, she put the Jedi's odd behavior from her mind and focused on the mission at hand instead. She risked her safety for her people without a second thought, stepping forward and kneeling where the Naboo did not kneel.

They were a proud people and they did not treat anyone as lesser.

They didn't bow.

But Padmé did.

Anakin didn't seem too surprised to learn that she was the Queen, and neither did the two older Jedi. It surprised Padmé only minimally that they were able to tell it, the stories said that the Jedi had all kinds of mysterious powers that could hardly be explained. If this one meant that they had known who the actual target of the Trade Federation was, so be it.

"I cannot thank you enough," Padmé told the Gungan leader as they prepared for war.

Her earlier promises, I will not condone a course of action that will lead us to war, taste like bitter poison on her tongue, but Padmé avoided speaking on it and none of her handmaidens reminded her of it.

Politically, this had the potential to turn into a nightmare, no matter if they won or lost. See had made promises to the Boss Nass that she actually had no power to uphold, but he hadn't known what her status of Queen truly meant, and nobody had seen it fit to inform him. It wasn't fair and it wasn't kind, and her youth was supposed to protect her from such decisions, but Padmé had not become Queen because she was naïve. She'd simply have to accept this new reality.

"Yousa no worry, Queen," Boss Nasa said. "Great fighters the Gungan are. We will win!"

The Boss's determined declaration certainly motivated his own people and they were certainly much more used to fighting than any soldiers of the Naboo. Padmé simply had to trust them.

Trust didn't come easy to Padmé. She had always been a greedy child who wanted to do everything now and on her own. Putting the fate of Naboo in the hands of people she had never interacted with was terrifying her, but she had no other choice.

Getting to Theed meant passing crying citizens, weeping children, and devastated parents, and Padmé was sure her mind was being overtaken by grief. This was all her fault, had she just reacted quicker, known better what to do in the face of such an adversary.

"Don't worry," Anakin muttered at her side. "All will be well."

But how could he say that when he looked like death himself? Padmé couldn't understand it. Sneaking into the hangers proved to be difficult and she wished she had an army of a hundred at her back instead of just a handful of people.

But Queen Amidala had to prevail.

X

The nausea was back.

It nearly made Obi-Wan stumble and fall when he felt it, the backlash of Anakin's perception hitting him at full power. Panic dug its talons into his throat. He thought that Qui-Gon had fixed it, at least long enough that they could finish this mission in peace and feal with its fallout in the temple. Obi-Wan had no idea what he ought to tell Ahsoka or Shmi if they returned Anakin in a state as fallen apart as he had been on the ship. He didn't want them to know how helpless he had been, how much he had still needed his Master to clean up his mess. Obi-Wan had been so sure that he had been meant to take Anakin as his Padawan already despite his age. He had been so sure and he ought to have been able to look after Anakin on his own.

The Council had trusted him with Anakin's wellbeing, it was the only reason he had been allowed to take Anakin as his Padawan.

His stomach turned as the hanger doors opened.

A shadow stood in the entrance, something like the monsters out of the crèche stories, oozing corruption and fear. The darkness clung to it and the coldness was settled deep within its bones, sucking all the warmth out of this place.

"It's here," Anakin breathed, his voice projecting more over their bond than audible in the world surrounding them.

Obi-Wan turned to his apprentice to see him staring at the figure with ashen horror, shaking from the same cold that was freezing Obi-Wan's hands.

Anakin was terrified, that much was obvious to Obi-Wan. He couldn't think back to a single time he had ever seen Anakin so shaken up before. He hadn't even looked like this when they had met in the temple's halls so many years and the world had started to make sense for the first time in his life. Now Obi-Wan had witnessed Anakin expressing such fear twice in such a short time. All the years by his side and Anakin had never been so scared, only ever slightly disturbed at most.

"Stay back," Obi-Wan told him as he saw Anakin reach for his lightsaber. "Don't engage."

Anakin's eyes, more than Obi-Wan cared to count at that moment, widened and he opened his mouth to speak in protest. "But I-"

"Obi-Wan is right," Qui-Gon said. And then he turned to their attacker. "Identify yourself."

The shadow's voice was surprisingly soft. Obi-Wan had expected screeching, a sound like nails on a blackboard, the desperate cries of a person slowly bleeding out, and yet his voice was more like a soft spring breeze, flowers shaking gently on a meadow.

It stood in total contrast to all that he embraced.

"I am Darth Maul and you are to die here, Jedi."

Obi-Wan turned the phrase in his head, imaging all the different meanings he could derive from it. You are to die, you are destined to die, I have been ordered to kill you.

But none of those implications were as shoking as the title the shadow had used.

Darth.

Sith.

The realization shook Obi-Wan to the core. It couldn't be true. They had killed the Sith over a thousand years ago. There were so many dark places in the galaxy, but this particular destruction they were supposed to have exterminated.

And yet, if one of them was standing in front of him now, that meant the Jedi had failed, that somewhere a dark lineage had fallen through the cracks and been allowed to sow torment across the galaxy.

If Obi-Wan's assumptions were true, he had least had an explanation for Anakin's reaction. The Sith were a parasite, corrupting the Force entirely.

It was hurting Anakin, his Padawan.

"Anakin, stay with the Queen," Obi-Wan ordered.

"But-"

"Go!"

He would not let his Padawan face this darkness. Obi-Wan ignited his lightsaber the same time his Master did and took on a defensive stance. Ob-Wan wasn't one to favor Soresu, preferring the Form his Master had instructed him in, but perhaps this once it would have merit to prefer defense over offense. He kept half an eye on Anakin and the Queen's group as they escaped, trusting Qui-Gon to alert him the moment the Sith would move.

This Sith, however, seemed entirely uninterested in joining in combat as long as the group was still there. Curious, strange. Obi-Wan's grip on his lightsaber hilt tightened as he felt Anakin guide the Queen's group outside.

Then the Sith began its brutal assault.

X

Darkness, so did Maul's Master claim, was the only place where you could truly be yourself. Everyone who walked in the light was weak, unable to stand the bruises of the dark side, its sharp teeth that only strengthened you even when you felt them tearing through your veins.

Maul had never doubted it.

He knew he was strong, not yet anywhere near his Master's level, but he was powerful. Maul followed the dark side of the Force and it was with him always, dragging him down into the depths.

He grinned as his blade pierced the body of the Jedi Master.

The old man was a fool and the pain and fury on his apprentice's face were delicious. It tasted like honey on his tongue, all the delicate sweets his Master had kept from him.

Maul hadn't doubted his victory then, not even when he had begun fighting the other Jedi, his strikes full of fury. Not even when he was standing on the edge of the pit, did he doubt the darkness.

Only when he felt the fear rush through his body, a shock he had never experienced before, and found himself falling, falling, falling deeper into the darkness did Maul wonder about the light.

And he decided that he hated it as the darkness that had birthed him swallowed him once more.

X

Padmé was grinning victoriously when Anakin's previously joyful expression, celebrating the defeat of the Trade Federation, changed into an expression of shock and twisted pain. The boy abandoned the group without any regard for them, rushed out of the throne room, and crashed through the windows they had entered the second floor from. For just a split second, Padmé thought she saw the glass splitter hung around Anakin's back like feathers, then the boy was gone, plummeting downwards.

"The Jedi-" Captain Panaka began to speak, "did he just-"

"I'm sure it's important," Padmé insisted.

They had done it. Her trust and faith in the Jedi hadn't been misplaced. If Anakin had somewhere else to be right now, it was important.

"Let's resume negotiations, Vice Roy," Padmé said and turned back to their captive. This was her arena again, she didn't need the Jedi's help for this. All around them the droid armies had already stopped at the behest of their leader, and miles above the pilots had managed to breach the blockade. Queen Amidala of the Naboo had won.

Long live her people.

X

The itch was gone.

It should feel like relief, but it didn't because all that Anakin could think of was the torture that had replaced it. Obi-Wan's terror, fear, anger, and hopelessness washed over Anakin like a tidal wave. It pressed him below the surface, stole him from the heavens like the boy with the wax wings, not careful enough in his flight, caught by a kind stranger who didn't understand.

Anakin didn't run through the palace so much as he tore to the very fabric of space, bypassing the inconsequential means of transportation. What use was space to him, if not to serve as an anchor for time and to keep him here. Anakin had always been able to see more to see beyond his own time, and he doubted that this ability would cease to exist any time soon, so why should he not also break through the fragile walls of space?

The Force was all that mattered and it was everywhere, except for the places Anakin couldn't see.

And Qui-Gon was going to a place Anakin couldn't see and Anakin wasn't going to let him.

He belonged to Anakin. Not in the way Obi-Wan or Ahsoka were his, not quite, but he was of Anakin and Anakin would not allow him to disappear into the darkness.

When Anakin came to, he found himself flickering to Obi-Wan's side.

Obi-Wan's wings of fire turned to ashes as he tried to keep his Master's heart with them. It wasn't enough, it would never be enough to save Qui-Gon's life. Was this what he had feared the entire time, what had taken away his peace of mind?

Anakin could see the strings creating Qui-Gon's fate, twisting and twining, a beautiful and colorful mess. They were meant to be snapped here in this place, to return to what was holding the Force together on the other side. His parent was going to use Qui-Gon to stitch up something he couldn't quite understand, not yet. It was one of the things that hurt, a sensation that reminded him of reaching through the fog to gain the knowledge he already should have after seeing the darkness and hearing its voice sing.

No, Anakin decreed. They weren't going to take Qui-Gon.

He was going to stay right here with Anakin and he would not leave.

Cease this, his parent ordered, grief brushing against his mind, but Anakin rebelled against it.

He loved Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan loved him and Anakin didn't want his parent to take Qui-Gon, even if it meant more torment. Qui-Gon just had to stay with them here in the world that was simple and not made out of all that was and would be.

There will be poison and worms tearing through your skin, carving their tunnels, his parent said. There will be corruption and pain and the infection will not heal without him.

I don't care, Anakin shouted back. Let there be poison, let there be Darkness.

Just creating the concept of darkness within his mind hurt Anakin, it took him back to the platform on Coruscant, made him want to throw up again, and claw at invisible chains. He shouldn't want darkness, but right here he did not mind because it was Qui-Gon.

Anakin stuck his hands into Qui-Gon's bloodied gut. He ripped feathers from his back, stuffed the bleeding wound with glass fragments, sharp and beautiful in all the ways that mattered. It was a mess. Anakin could always heal superficial flesh wounds not tied into destiny or fate, but repairing broken strings, the very manifestations of the way the world works, was so much more difficult and yet Anakin wouldn't stop.

He sewed the wound shut with all the desperation of the universe, the pain of a thousand stars exploding, crushing the planets surrounding them with relentless heat. It left the wound ugly, oozing puss and sickness, all the darkness that Anakin should not wield. Touching it made him cut his hands on the broken shards, tore the skin from his fingers and left awful lesions.

He was vaguely aware of Obi-Wan holding him close, his hands on Anakin's shoulders, his name on his mind, grounding him in the here and keeping him away from his parent's domain so that he would not get lost retrieving Qui-Gon's strings.

And then Anakin was finished.

Qui-Gon lay breathing on the floor, his wound fixed as fast as it could without time playing its role. He wouldn't die here and Anakin would not lose what tied him to his mother's flesh.

His hands were twitching, bloodied messes and he couldn't even feel Obi-Wan's touch on them, a useless attempt to heal them. Anakin already knew that they wouldn't. He had inflicted these wounds upon himself and they'd need time and care to heal on their own.

Anakin sunk into Obi-Wan's embrace, his wounds staining both their robes red, but at least there were two hearts still beating in these halls, while a third stuttered to the uneasy rhythm of a world changed.