The nightmares returned, but they were different this time.
This time Anakin felt as if he had been encased in stone, he could see with eyes that were not his and around him was a burning sensation he could not pinpoint. He breathed in a rasping, rattling way, yet he had no control over this. And he had felt trapped, enclosed in some sort of armour and shackled to a metal slab.
“…der, can you hear me?” asked a voice. That voice was familiar…sounded like…was it Palpatine?
“Yes, my master,” Anakin heard himself reply. That voice! It wasn't his but he heard it come out of his own mouth, could feel it boom around his face. Why did he have a voice like that?
Yet there was something else, something elusive. A memory that he had tried to deny to himself as it couldn’t possibly be true. Padmé, why wasn’t she here? For some reason she should be.
“Where is Padmé?” he asked, still not recognising the voice that spoke for him. “Is she safe, is she… all right?”
His vision started to focus and suddenly he was looking at who was speaking to him. It was Palpatine, or was it? It sounded like his voice yet his face was all wrinkled and gnarled and his eyes sunken and yellow. It was a face like that of someone dead.
Yet Palpatine—or whoever he was—smiled at him.
“I'm afraid she died.” He paused, his smile widening. “It seems in your anger, you killed her.”
Emotions flooded through Anakin like a rippling torrent. “I couldn't have! She was alive!” he shouted. “I felt her! She was alive! It's impossible! NO!!!”
Around him he could hear explosions, the room started to rumble and shards of metal and glass were flying everywhere. Then suddenly he realised what was happening, it was him who was causing all this destruction. The blasts, the debris they were all caused by…him.
“No! No!” Anakin shouted, clawing his way back to consciousness.
Once again he found himself entangled in his bed and covered with cold sweat. He stared at the ceiling, exhaling rapidly. Was this one worse than the last one? Last time he had seen Padmé dead, felt the raw anger within him as he choked her to death.
Yet this time it was different, this time there was the cold reality of knowing that he had killed her.
Had he?
He had contemplated the same question the other night and he still did not have an answer. Yet something, the Force or his own subconscious was telling him to find one. Well he would delay it no more, he would go and find Obi-Wan, right now if he had to.
As he stopped to pull on his boots he froze. How could he have forgotten? Obi-Wan had left for Naboo that very afternoon.
Anakin made a low moan but slipped on his boots and robe all the same. He needed a walk to clear his head.
He walked for he didn’t know how long in the darkened Temple, mind whirling, thoughts all askew. Can there be any meaning behind these dreams? he wondered, pausing for a moment in his stride. I need answers, he said to himself, and even if I don’t have any I’ve been told to find them.
Anakin screwed up his eyes as he recollected the images, Padmé collapsed on the floor, gasping for air…Palpatine’s raw visage and voice that revealed what had really happened.
“No!” Anakin dismissed them, surprised that he had spoken out loud. “How can I find meaning in something that never happened?”
“Meaning?” questioned a familiar voice, Anakin turned to see Yoda watching him keenly.
“Master Yoda,” Anakin said, bowing his head slightly, “I…I didn’t realise you were there.”
Yoda paid no attention to Anakin’s surprise. He took a step towards the Jedi, his large eyes seeing everything and missing nothing. “Something troubling you, Anakin?”
“No Master.” The response was quick and automatic.
“Hmph!” Yoda hit Anakin’s shin sharply with his gimer stick. Anakin winced, when was he going to be too old for Yoda to treat him like a disobedient Padawan?
“Either troubled your thoughts are or very interesting that wall has become,” Yoda stated, his eyes peering into Anakin keenly.
Anakin avoided his gaze, this action brought another rap on the shin.
“Watching you for ten minutes I was,” Yoda continued, behind him he beckoned to a room with several low couches. He was still staring at Anakin, yet to his relief Anakin noticed that though his gaze was somewhat penetrating, it was not unkind.
Reluctantly, Anakin followed the little Jedi Master, sitting opposite him as directed. For a moment he didn’t say anything, he merely stared at the floor beneath where Yoda was sitting. It took another blow of Yoda’s gimer stick for Anakin to start talking.
“I’ve been having…dreams,” he said, not knowing quite how to explain them.
“Like before, are they?” Yoda asked, referring to the time that Anakin had come to him convinced he had seen Padmé’s death. “Remembered, you have, what I said of visions?”
“They’re not visions, Master Yoda,” Anakin argued, holding back his anger. “At least, not of the future. They never happened…and couldn’t happen.”
“Then why being shown them are you?” Yoda inquired, his left ear rising slowly. “Reason for this, there must be, yes?”
Anakin contemplated this; he had long considered this question and as yet had not come up with any answers. “I’m not sure,” he confessed slowly, “they may have something to do with the past…” His voice trailed off for a moment. “But I still don’t understand why I am being shown things that never happened. I think—”
At this Yoda cut him off. “Interested in what you think, I am not,” the Jedi Master asserted. “Clear your mind must be when discovering the reason behind what you see.” Yoda’s gaze softened for a moment. “Underestimate the Force we must never do, Anakin,” he explained, “if revealed to us something is by the Force, a right to question it we may not have.”
Anakin found that he could not argue, but what did this leave him with.
“But what can I do, Master Yoda?” he asked, all of his anger and hurt worn down into a feeling of utter helplessness.
“Answer will be given to you,” Yoda told him. “Need only find it, you do.”