Coruscant, Senatorial/Delegate Landing Complex (22 Hours Later)
"It seems like we're about to part ways. Agent Narcassan is expecting to debrief me, and go over the evidence we collected in a couple of hours. He'll probably be contacting you sometime in the next few days for the same reason.
I want to thank you again for everything you did, Anakin, and especially for choosing to come in the first place. Could you please convey my thanks to Master Dark Woman, for risking her life facilitating our escape?"
Padme smiled dazzlingly at me as she'd finished with a question I'd simply nodded my agreement with. That smile faded a moment later.
Replaced with a look of concern, as I sensed genuine worry rising in her just before she asked "The two of you won't get in too much trouble for disobeying the High Council, I hope?"
My smile was confident and reassuring as I gave her a slight shrug, then calmly replied "It shouldn't be too bad.
Like I said, if Master Yoda had wanted us stopped, we would have been. There's also the fact we weren't actually forbidden to take part in this mission. The Council will almost certainly take that into account."
Padme didn't seem very convinced by this, so I elaborated in the hopes that more information would stop her from imagining something worse. "The members of the Council will undoubtedly ask me some very pointed questions.
Depending on what they think of my answers, they'll either let the matter go after some haranguing about being more obedient and less impulsive, or censure me. In which case, I'll be set some sort of penance. I doubt they'll do more than question Master Dark Woman though, because they've long since given up on getting her to change her ways.
She answers to the will of the Force first, and the High Council a distant second. Please, don't give the matter another thought."
I wasn't actually quite so sanguine concerning the Council's reaction to my actions, but there was no sense in her worrying about something neither of us could do anything about.
Still not seeming all that reassured, the slim, dark-haired woman paused and studied me quite intently for several seconds. Several times during the many hours we'd talked while in hyperspace, I'd sensed her curiosity surge, as if she were on the verge of asking a particular question.
Along with a desire to say something else. Only to feel both impulses slowly recede, when the strong-willed woman who'd just been sitting a short distance from me had thought better of it.
Now, I could feel the wave of curiosity finally cresting, as she obviously decided it was now or never. When she looked up at me, her expression was one of resolved determination.
"There was a reason you were so intent on accompanying me, a reason you were "displeased" the Council removed Obi-Wan from the mission, and a reason not only for your choosing to avoid me, but to subsequently reverse that decision.
I suspect all those reasons are actually the same, but that's just guesswork and intuition. After everything you did, you certainly don't owe me an explanation, Anakin, but your providing one would mean a great deal to me."
The slender dark-haired beauty's voice was a soft appeal. Matched by the one made by those deep brown eyes I kept struggling not to get drawn in by.
I bit the inside of my right cheek to clear my head. Padme had slowly risen and taken a step in my direction as she spoke, but my head was too full of both our rising emotions to know how aware she was that she'd done so. I tried to formulate a response, but her proximity made that proposition more difficult than usual.
Opening my mouth to say something, I was unsure of what exactly I intended to say. What with her close enough the subtle just-after-rain and wildflower scent which was uniquely her continued clouding my head despite the pain, I froze as a Shatterpoint blossomed into being with Padme at it's heart.
Like a great crystalline fractal-flower made up of countless shifting planes, angles, and facets, it was by far the most intense manifestation of the Force-phenomena I'd ever witnessed. The sight of it cleared my head and snapped me back to reality as quickly and completely as if someone had just turned a sprayer set to ice-cold on me.
"Give me a moment, please. I need to think about how to explain this, Padme." My response was more distant than I might have intended, but I was no longer simply a young man in over his head with a devastatingly attractive woman alone in a shuttle cabin with him.
I was a Jedi Knight, who'd just been forcibly made aware of the fact that his next decision was likely to have far-reaching repercussions.
Closing my eyes, I found the center which had eluded me for the last few minutes. Doing my best to remain as dispassionate as Master Windu had trained me to be under these circumstances, I analyzed what I knew.
The Shatterpoint had obviously been created by the interaction between Padme's question, and all my possible responses. It's size and complexity completely ruling out the possibility of it influencing a simple, short-term, or relatively inconsequential decision.
This was at least an order of magnitude more complex than any example of the phenomena I'd ever seen. When the wave-form of countless potential futures collapsed into a resolved sequence of ongoing events, the impact of these events was going to reverberate and continue to propagate for decades, if not centuries. This much, I was absolute certain about.
There was only one chain of cause-and-effect with the two of us at it's center that fit the situational context. My stomach twisted strangely as I suddenly caught a momentary glimpse of a face in one of the already vanishing facets of the Shatterpoint. The image's appearance coinciding perfectly with the same instant I came to the correct conclusion.
It had been a sixteen or seventeen year old Leia. Just old enough for me to be absolutely sure it was her. The image had vanished so quickly it should have been easy to tell myself I'd imagined it, but I knew better than that.
Captured just as she'd begun a turn to the left, there was a fiercely determined expression on a face nearly as lovely as her mother's. I was so surprised by what I'd seen, it took me several moments to realize what had seemed off about her image.
I finally recognized that, instead of inheriting her mother's dark brown eyes, my own dark blue orbs had been perfectly recreated in her face by some tiny shift in genetic possibility. The realization caused me to experience the oddest jolt of connection to a young woman who'd reminded me so much of her mother.
Unsettled, I was forced to sternly remind myself of the danger inherent to dwelling upon a shadow which might never possess substance. There was something sad about the necessity of that thought, but I had no time for the future right now.
Not when the expectant expression on Padme's face called to mind my Master's admonishments about remaining mindful of the present, rather than focusing on all too ephemeral possibilities.
Despite my training, I didn't know the answer to the riddle posed by the Shatterpoint, so I chose to believe a more personal aspect of the truth constituted one possible right answer. Which might or might not have had something to do with the fact I was self-aware enough to realize I was running on fumes with regards to resisting the appeal of the lovely creature looking at me so intently.
"It's really as simple as my wanting to protect you. I thought staying away from you would be the best way to ensure your safety, but recent events made me understand you lead a dangerous life at the best of times."
My confession consisted of all the believable truth I had on hand, but I was keenly aware of how strange this must sound coming from a veritable stranger.
Behind the opacity of her mental shielding, I could sense a razor-sharp mind extracting every drop of meaning my words contained, but as to what conclusions she might be drawing, I didn't have the faintest idea.
"Yesterday, you mentioned a distrust of Vice-Chair Ashgad, and a lack of support for the prospect of Senator Mothma becoming a candidate for the Chancellorship. Is that what this is about, politics?" Padme's manner didn't give anything away as she asked this, and the welter of emotions flitting by didn't tell me much either.
I considered playing into what appeared on the surface to be a misapprehension on her part, but only for a moment. It was difficult to believe such a generally soft-spoken and gracious woman was pressing me this hard concerning my motives, until I remembered the way she'd gone after Finis Valorum during the infamous no-confidence vote Palpatine had orchestrated. The expression.
"Still waters, run deep" had never seemed more apt, and I lived with people who held up self-control as one of the greatest of all virtues.
The insistent triple-beep of my communicator preempted whatever response I'd been about to make. Prompting me to give Padme an apologetic look, as I stated the obvious "I'm sorry, but I need to take this."
Her expression inscrutable, Padme gave a small nod as I removed the comm unit from a pouch on my belt, then flipped it open to reveal a tiny hologram of Qui Gon Jinn.
His blue-white features conveying his usual calm self-possession, but there was also fatigue, and an indefinable tension. Something which immediately gave me the impression he was actively working to maintain a sense of equanimity attained through decades of nonstop striving.
"I have been asked to inform you the High Council requires your presence ninety minutes from now. It seems you made a number of waves while on your self-appointed mission to Cato Neimoidia, Anakin" Qui Gon remarked without any preamble. His tone giving little clue as to what he actually thought of my "wave making."
Politely requesting he give me a minute to finish apprising the Senator of her present peril, I muted the comm the instant the Jedi Master nodded with a frown, then turned to Padme and said with all the seriousness I could inject into my voice.
"I have three very good reasons to believe your life is in imminent danger, from at least two different parties. One of which is the unidentified Dark Side adept responsible for compelling Jheramahd Greyshade to leap to his death from the roof of 500 Republica, so as to kill the Financial Reform Act which might have helped resolve the Secessionist Crisis.
You and Senator Robb now occupy the same position as impediments to the war between the Core and Rim the late Senator Greyshade did, because of your resistance to the revival of the Minister of Defense position, and public opposition to the Military Creation Act.
The other threat being the woman who just tried to kill you on Cato Neimoidia. I intend to explain the reasoning concerning her motives when I don't have Master Jinn muted on an open comm, but I'm asking you to trust me, and formally request Jedi protection."
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