The Hour of Souls

There was an hour, late in the day, when the billion, billion lights of Coruscant began to blaze while the fading daylight still shone over the infinite labyrinth that was the capital planet of the Galactic Republic. This combination of natural and artificial light gave the atmosphere a glow as though the air had turned to fire. Everything seemed illuminated from within. Even the purple shadows that managed to withstand the powerful ambient light seemed clear, and deep and somehow transparent. This daily event was called the "Hour of Souls" on Coruscant, because it was said that in this light nothing could be hidden. Criminals stayed indoors. Living beings from every system known in the Galaxy slowed their pace, looked and wondered. One had the impression that the city quieted, just a bit, until the light faded. Then night fell and the powerful throb of its night-life took over.

In the Jedi Temple the Hour of Souls was always used as a time for meditation. From the smallest Padawans to the most ancient Masters, the fire glow outside meant the calming within. This daily rhythm was so central to the lives of the Jedi that everywhere in the galaxy, wherever their tasks took them, Jedi Knights tended to stop at sunset to meditate on the transition from light into darkness.

At the very beginning of the Hour of Souls, Anakin Skywalker stood at the wide window of his chamber in the Healing Center of the Jedi Temple and watched the vast city-world outside slowly become light. It was the fifth day after the Battle of Geonosis and he was confined to the center until he could be fitted with an artificial arm to replace the one Count Dooku had severed. Anakin was not meditating. He was brooding.

The Healing Center was located deep in the heart of the Jedi Temple. Most of its chambers lay at the interior of the towering building where the work could take place without distraction. Obi-Wan lay in an interior room not far from Anakin's, where he had spent most of the last five days in meditation in support of the healing process. His severed thigh bone had yet to knit and the damage to his internal organs from Count Dooku's light saber had been considerable. Anakin had been given an outer chamber with a wide sweep of windows overlooking the city. He was not often alone. In fact, he had a steady stream of visitors.

The healers came and went, working on him and checking his progress. Every member of the Jedi Council had visited, paying respects to the Padawan who had fought gallantly in the first battle of the Clone Wars and who had most likely saved his Master's life. Sometimes they came in groups, and Anakin had found himself in the new position of being part of a discussion rather than on the receiving end of orders or lessons. They asked his opinion. They were very interested in his experience of Dooku's power - the power that was beyond anything experienced in the Jedi training.

Master Yoda himself had sat by Anakin's pallet for a long time on the second day, speaking kindly and watching him closely during the long silences when Anakin had struggled with pain and a profound sense of loss and failure. Anakin had felt better for Yoda's presence there. For the last three days Anakin had been allowed to visit Obi-Wan once a day, and he found that their conversations were warm and based on mutual respect. There had been no lectures at all.

Now the stump of his arm hardly hurt at all any more and Anakin was caught up in another mighty battle - an internal battle against indifference. Not long ago he would have felt that all of his deepest wishes were coming true. His recent major breaches of discipline were not being discussed - yet. He should be happy at his subtle shift in status in the Jedi Order. He should throw himself into the work at hand - the mourning rituals for the Jedi Knights who had been lost in the battle, the support of those who like himself were healing, the war-talk and the planning discussions. Yet he felt himself going through the motions without a deep feeling for them. The Jedi life was losing its attraction for him.

Anakin had not seen Padmé or heard from her since the day of the battle. She had traveled with him and Obi-Wan on the transport back to Coruscant, and then the healers took away both of the wounded Jedi. They had to pry Anakin out of her arms. And then she was gone, and he felt her absence much more deeply and bitterly than the absence of his arm. He yearned to see her but could only stand here by this window. He hated feeling powerless. For five days he had thought back to the fight in the hangar on Geonosis and wondered at how easily he and Obi-Wan had been defeated.

The light outside was changing from the pale yellow of afternoon to the palest orange of early evening when a healer-assistant came silently to the door of his chamber, bowed, and announced with a small flutter of excitement that Anakin had visitors. He looked up to see two elegantly robed figures sweeping down the hallway towards him - one tall, one small. Two Jedi Knights followed behind at a respectful distance. The Chancellor of the Senate himself was coming to see him, and with him was the Senator from Naboo. I should have meditated was Anakin's first conscious thought when his feelings slammed so suddenly from apathy to anticipation that he had trouble keeping both his inner and outer balance.

To be on the safe side, Anakin did not look at Padmé right away. He was afraid that if he did, he would be unable to look away and greet the Chancellor with all due courtesy.

"Well, my young Jedi," Palpatine said genially, "once again I hear great things about you." He paused. "I am sorry about your injury."

"Thank you, but it is nothing," Anakin responded formally. "I am assured that it can be replaced in such a way that I will still be able to carry out my duties. "

"Oh, I'm sure of that," Chancellor Palpatine said, with great charm. "But I think that it is for your willingness to go beyond the call of your duty that we owe you the greatest debt of gratitude." Before Anakin could work out why he suddenly felt uncomfortable, the Chancellor continued, indicating Padmé with a graceful gesture of his hand. "The Jedi are not generally happy to receive visitors inside the sacred Temple. But your Masters have graciously allowed us to come pay our respects to all of the Jedi who fought so bravely in the battle and who were wounded in those efforts. Senator Amidala was as anxious as I to come and express her appreciation in person." He chuckled. "Since she fought side by side with all of you at the center of the battle, I think they could not find reason enough to prevent her visit to her colleagues."

Anakin bowed to the Chancellor and to Padmé, although he still did not look at her. "I am grateful for your visit."

"If you don't mind," Palpatine said smoothly, "I would like to have a small private discussion with Master Kenobi. Perhaps the Senator can remain here and keep you company before we continue our visit to the others." Anakin bowed to the Chancellor again, and finally, as the leader of the Republic left the room, he could allow himself to look at Padmé.

She came to stand next to him in front of the window, which was ablaze with the clear light of the Hour of Souls. Feeling awkward and intensely aware of her position, she stopped just out of arm's reach. Anakin surged with impatience. Before Padmé could say a word, he burst out, "Five days! I haven't heard a word from you in five days! I have seen every Jedi Master and Padawan in Coruscant, but all I wanted was to see you. Where have you been?" Then, quickly, "Are you all right? I couldn't even get word ."

"I'm fine." Padmé interrupted. "My wound is almost healed. " Then, incredulously, "Don't you realize where you are? You're in the heart of the Jedi Temple."

"Yes?" Anakin didn't understand her question. He spent most of his time in Coruscant in the Jedi Temple. It was home.

"You might as well be inside the most impregnable fortress in the galaxy. There are precious few places in this building where outsiders are allowed, and this is certainly not one of them!" She frowned thoughtfully. " I still don't know how Palpatine pulled off this visit." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Our guides are two fully-fledged Jedi Knights." Outside in the corridor, Anakin could see one of them, standing in the familiar pose of quiet attentiveness. The other must have accompanied Palpatine. "Perhaps the war is putting everything on a different footing."

Anakin suddenly realized that it was true. While he took his access to the temple for granted, he had rarely seen outsiders in the building above the first few levels. He had a sudden mental image of the Temple as a prison disguised as a Sanctuary. But at this moment Anakin could not spare a thought for political reflections. He searched Padmé's face as the clear light from outside began to bathe the room in a deeper flame color. Five days ago they had been fighting side by side and almost inseparable. Now they were making polite conversation and she was keeping her distance. He couldn't stand it.

"I want you," he said.

Oh, no, Padmé thought. He's not going to make this easy. His directness was as unsettling as always.

"You have me," she said. Her eyes left his face and she looked out the window as though she were seeing another time and another place. "My feelings have not changed."

"But something else has?"

"Everything has changed in the course of a few days."

With a quick movement, Anakin closed the space between them and captured her hand in his. Her eyes moved up to the place she had not dared look before, the empty sleeve of his robe that was fastened just under his right shoulder. With her free hand she touched the empty fabric, very gently. She thought about loss, and sacrifice and the battle that had been fought and the many that were yet to come. No words came to her.

Anakin said, "Nothing else seems important without you."

"Oh, but it is," Padmé said sadly as the sky, the city and their own faces began to glow crimson as the sun slowly sank further toward night. "Everything else is important now. More important than we might wish. You and I are standing at the center of the Galaxy, and it's spinning out of control." She looked into his face through a haze of oddly reddish light. "Listen to me, Anakin. We could run away somewhere to the outer rim or beyond and we could live out our lives as we pleased. But I believe that it would not bring either one of us happiness, not in the long run. I believe that we are here now because we have to be - because we have work to do and a role to play. Especially now."

"I have always respected your unshakable sense of duty," Anakin said humbly.

"It's not just a sense of duty. It is a sense of .. . of destiny."

Anakin allowed himself a smile - his first. "You sound like a Jedi."

"And you are a Jedi! That is where your duty should lie!"

"I see." Anakin's smile disappeared. "You came here to tell me that my duty is here and that your duty lies elsewhere." He stepped forward, pulling her closer to him by the hand. "I think we had this conversation before."

"The problem is," Padmé braced herself against an outburst from Anakin, "the problem is that now others are having this conversation. About us." He looked sharply at her and waited for her to go on. "Some members of the Jedi council came to see me two days ago. They are concerned ..."She couldn't resist smiling, "they are concerned that I am leading you astray." She smiled even more broadly at the memory. "Apparently my charms are considerable and you are still young and impressionable. As the older and wiser, it is my duty to discourage you so that you remain on your chosen path."

No outburst came. Instead, the room suddenly became very quiet, as though all the air had been sucked out of it. "I see," Anakin said quietly. " And what did you tell my Masters?" He deliberately brought her fingers to his lips. She did not pull away.

"I apologized, of course. I said that any influence on my part had been unintentional and that it was surely a passing fancy on your part."

"I see," he said again, turning her hand over and kissing her palm. The stillness pulsed in the room. "And will you do your duty and give me up?"

"By all rights I should give you up," she muttered darkly. The silence in the room became even deeper as Padmé struggled with her feelings. "But I can't." The light outside was slowly beginning to pool into violet. Darkness would soon be here. The glowlamps in Anakin's chamber began to light up, just a little at first, like candlelight, then becoming slowly brighter as darkness fell. Padmé whispered, "I don't know what to do with you."

"I love you," said Anakin. "Do anything you want with me."

Padmé felt her pulse beating in her throat as she asked the question she had been struggling with day and night. "Does that mean that you place me above your commitment to the Jedi Order?"

Anakin paused. His face was becoming harder to see in the growing gloom. "I am member of the Jedi Order, yes. But I can no sooner change my feelings about you than I can change the stars in the sky."

Padmé fell silent. She was acutely aware of her hand resting in his. She whispered, "So you are saying that you have no choice."

"I have no choice," said Anakin.

Padmé suddenly remembered her position and pulled back from him. He allowed it, but refused to relinquish her hand. "Is the guard still there?" Anakin's eyes flicked to the hallway outside and then back to her face.

"Yes, but no one else. Not yet."

"Palpatine is taking a long time." Then, in a low voice she said, "I don't want to hide like this. I never have."

"I know."

She swallowed, and continued. "Of course I want to be with you. But I am already lying to people. I hate it. I just want the right to love you openly."

Anakin glanced at the door again and took one more step toward her so that his hand could slide up her arm and touch her cheek. "No one will ever give you that right. If we are to remain here you will have to choose to love me this way - or not at all." Heedless of the sentry outside in the corridor, Anakin leaned close to her face and declared, "I promise you that you are the most important thing in my life. I will not allow anything to stand between us. No matter what."

Padmé felt her self-control crumbling. This was what she had come to find out, and this was what she was afraid to hear. She was so tired of fighting her feelings. She wanted to weep. "Are you asking me to make the same promise?"

"No," he whispered, still stroking her cheek, "That is something you have to decide for yourself."

"And if I pledge myself to you, what then?"

"Then we love each other, whatever happens. We will do whatever it takes to be together."

"That sounds like a marriage."

Anakin laughed, surprised. "Well, Jedi don't marry, so I don't know much about it. But I always thought that marriage was a worldly arrangement about property and influence and children." He thought for a moment. "I never will have any property." Then he grinned at her, and went on. "You have officially been identified as a bad influence on me. And given the present circumstances, it is unlikely that either one of us will live long enough to have children." He reached down and took her hand again and used it to begin to pull her closer. "I want more than your hand. I want your soul."

This time Padmé laughed too. At the absurdity of it all. At the hopelessness. At the sheer enjoyment of standing there talking to him. "Appropriately enough," she pointed out, "the Hour of Souls is ending." She looked outside. The sky was almost fully dark and the lights of the city blazed a full spectrum of colors so bright that they hid the stars from view. "I also have no choice. About loving you, I mean. But I suppose you knew that."

"I had hoped it was true."

"So we are promised to one another. Secretly. Because we can't bear to be apart." Then her mood changed abruptly, and she said, dryly, "This is going to come as a real surprise to my future husband."

The glow lights had brightened enough for her to see the expression on Anakin's face, and it was priceless. "What future husband?" He looked ready to reach for a light saber, had there been one.

Padmé was so accustomed to relying on Anakin's strength and skill that his fundamental unworldliness always surprised her. "The other new problem. The Galaxy is at war. Imagine the strategic alliances that could be formed with the Senator and former Queen from Naboo. Especially since the newly powerful Chancellor is from the same planet. Negotiations are under way with a number of systems."

Anakin's expression went from enraged to deeply offended. "So this is what you refer to as your destiny? Submitting to political necessity like a game piece? After all you have accomplished?" He shook his head unbelievingly. "Why would you agree to this?"

Padmé shook her head, suddenly feeling the exhaustion of the last five days. "War always brings a return to barbarism," she said bitterly. "We have not yet sunk completely into the ways of the past, but you would not believe the discussions that are going on."

"I always thought of you as a leader and a warrior. I thought you decide your own destiny."

He thinks of me as a warrior. Much later in her life, when grief was a constant companion and she had too much time to think about the past, Padmé would remember those words and realize how powerfully Anakin's faith in her had affected her choices. But for the moment, she was angry. "Is this any different? With our hidden love and our pledge? Are we truly deciding our own destiny?"

"You already made that choice for us, My Lady. No running away, no shirking of duty. Those are the conditions, are they not? Given that love is not a choice, that leaves us with the games and the hiding that you hate."

Padmé's anger subsided. "I want you," she said.

"You have me."

"But if I marry -" she looked up and managed a wry smile, " - if I form a strategic alliance - I will have to give you up."

"You can't. I won't go away. " He looked far from defeated. In fact, he looked pleased with himself as he began to pull her arm around his waist, never letting go of her hand. "I have your soul, remember?"

Padmé found herself smiling in response to an irrepressible fantasy of Anakin, light saber in hand, saving her from her own wedding to some dignitary or other. "This could get very awkward." She forgot about keeping her distance and allowed him to draw her closer.

Looking at her shining face that was so soft and open in the lamplight, Anakin felt the last of his inner struggles about his chosen path fall away as though they had never existed. "Then you will have to find other ways to forge your political alliances. You are promised to me. On second thought, perhaps I had better have your soul and your hand."

Before she could answer, voices sounded in the corridor outside Anakin's door, and Padmé quickly stepped back two steps and snatched back her hand. The tall figure of the Chancellor strode back into the room. "I am so sorry to have kept you waiting this long, he said. "Masters Windu and Yoda were visiting with Master Kenobi when I arrived, and we had a most interesting chat."

"Don't worry, Chancellor," Padmé said in her best formal manner. "My young friend has been the perfect host." Anakin decided it was better to bow than to splutter and so he did.

"Well then," said the Chancellor, "we had better visit our other wounded warriors before we wear out our welcome." He nodded to Anakin. "Do come and see me when your recovery is complete." Anakin nodded, still unwilling to speak.

"You have my best wishes for your full recovery," Padmé said formally to Anakin. Her face was perfectly composed, but her eyes glittered. "I may well have need of your services."

"As you wish, my Lady," Anakin managed, bowing again with just the correct amount of deference. And so the games begin, he thought.

Despite her best efforts, on the way back down the corridor Padmé let slip a small smile. The Chancellor noticed it immediately, as though he had been waiting for a sign.

"You seem quite entertained after your sojourn with young Skywalker."

And so the games begin, Padmé thought. She didn't feel afraid any longer now that she had made up her mind. She wanted Anakin at any price. "Chancellor, you know how fond I am of our young friend. He seems to have a knack for saving my life."

"Well, then," said the Chancellor lightly, "We will have to ensure that he remains at your disposal."

Standing by the darkened window in his chamber Anakin contemplated his own destiny, and found himself thinking about the world outside the Jedi Temple and about his pledge to the Senator from Naboo. It seemed that there were more paths available to him than the one he had originally chosen. His earlier feeling of indifference had vanished like the golden light of the Hour of Souls.