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Every step back into the Temple was painful. Every breath reminded him about what had just happened. Every passing second made the same sentence repeat in his mind.
You failed.
Two simple words, which, depending on the context, could be taken lightly. But, to Anakin Skywalker, they felt like a lightsaber had just been plunged through his chest.
The past few days had all passed in a blur. From crashing his fighter on Cato Neimodia, to learning about the Temple bombing, to his Padawan being accused of crimes he knew she had never committed… Anakin felt like he had aged years. It was concerning how much things could change in just a few days. Before the bombing, the mission on Cato Neimodia had felt like just any other, among countless past and future ones he would have alongside his Padawan.
But it had been the last. Ahsoka was gone. And it was all his fault.
You failed.
It could be argued that Ahsoka leaving was Barriss's fault, or the Council's fault, or Tarkin's fault. But, truly, Anakin could only come to one conclusion. If Ahsoka had left, if she didn't have enough faith in herself to stay, then it was his fault. Nothing anyone could do or say would convince him otherwise. If a Padawan was expelled from the Order, the Master was to blame. It wasn't a rule— it didn't have to be,— but more of an assumption that was now common at the Temple.
Anakin was ready to take the blame. Ahsoka had suffered. She had been turned against, plotted against, and chased throughout half of Coruscant. And all he had done was chase with them, and scream mindlessly when she was wrongfully expelled. If he had been on that wretched Council himself, he would've— no. He wouldn't have. He couldn't have changed anything. A large majority of the Council had voted for her expulsion, too large for another vote to matter.
Just as a majority of the Council had voted to allow her back into the Order. And she had refused. She had closed his hand onto the Padawan beads that he still desperately clung onto, and she had walked out. And he had followed her, and she had left.
And now, he was walking aimlessly back to the place that, for all intents and purposes, was supposed to be his home. So, why did it feel so… distant? Why did the place he had dreamed of living in as a boy now feel like a prison? Deep down, he knew the answer: because that boy had been given a dream, an unbelievable improvement from the grease and dirt of Watto's junk shop, from the constant feeling of sand under his fingernails, and the haunting sound of his mother's cries at night. The Jedi Temple had sounded like heaven at the time. But now, that boy had grown up, and he had seen that, despite what he had been made to believe as a child, the Jedi were far from perfect. They were peacekeepers who were fighting a war, instructors who had children teach children, and adults who couldn't distinguish love from passion.
And, deep down, he realized something that he would never dare to admit. Putting aside her use of the Dark Side, and her deep betrayal of someone she called a friend... Barriss had, in a way, been correct.
The Jedi had become so corrupt, so clouded by the destruction and grief of the war, that they had forgotten their values, and had felt ready to sent one of their own to be executed. And they had all acted like it had never happened, like those past few days had just been one of Anakin's nightmares, one of those that he could never shake away or forget, no matter how much he tried.
They failed themselves. They failed the Order. You failed her.
The voice in Anakin's head continued echoing despite his attempts to shut it out. His mechanical hand was now clenched so tightly around the Padawan beads that he could almost feel them cracking from the pressure. He was inside now, walking past empty halls he had passed countless times before. Just a few days ago, he had walked past here with… with her. He could barely think her name.
Somehow, he made it to his quarters without screaming, or crying, or doing something that would owe him an even harsher and more stern stare from Master Windu, a concerned look from Obi-Wan, and that thoughtful expression that had always seemed to live on Master Plo Koon's face.
Anakin slumped onto his bunk, still holding the beads in one fist, and keeping the other balled in a desperate attempt to not grab his lightsaber and slice down every single piece of furniture in this room.
It was during these moments that Anakin found it difficult to resist that strange, eerie pull that was the dark side of the Force— one of those moments that made him want to kill something, an act that would perhaps make the ache more bearable, like killing the Tusken camp after his mother's death. It had felt satisfying at the time, though he had to deal with the grief when the thrill of revenge had passed. But, Force, how he wanted to storm into the prisons, find that traitor, that Sith spawn Barriss, and make her feel at least half of the pain he had sensed through Ahsoka, of the pain that he was feeling right now— it would maybe make the thought of losing his Padawan, his little sister, slightly less agonizing.
But revenge was not the Jedi way. And he was a Jedi, bound to the Jedi code. Bound to obedience, to submission to a Council that regarded the facts as black and white, as good and evil, and who was so blind to anything that they hadn't even noticed he had been hiding a marriage for nearly three years now.
So, he had to endure the pain. Endure the loss. According to the code, he had to completely overlook the feeling of grief because loss was a part of life— and it was key to a Jedi's ability to accept the will of the Force.
But Anakin didn't want to accept it. He wanted to scream, he wanted to cry, he wanted to lock himself up in his room and take apart some damned battle droids until his hands hurt and he felt so numb he couldn't move or think anymore. And, most of all, he wanted Ahsoka back. He wanted to spar with her, to meditate with her, to fight alongside her and call her Snips one more time, while she pretended like he was the most annoying being that had ever existed, and a terrible strategist.
His chest tightened. He closed his eyes. He could almost hear her voice, dragging out his name in exasperation when he purposefully said something to annoy her. The realization, though it had already hit him when he saw her walking away, was now sharper and much stronger than it had been before.
Ahsoka was gone. Really gone. She would never come back.
Anakin slightly loosened his grip on the Padawan beads, and looked down at them. It was sad how ordinary they looked. Nobody could ever imagined that simply looking at them made Anakin feel like his whole world was crumbling. He couldn't remember the last time he had felt this helpless. Had it been on Tatooine, when he would wake up bruised and exhausted, his hair soiled with grime and dirt? Or when he had finally found his mother, just to have her die in his arms? Or, maybe it had been when he had woken up after losing his arm, feeling like a part of his humanity had been ripped from him. It didn't matter now anyways. All of those times, he had something to fight against. A Sith Lord, the weight of slavery, or simply the guilt of a young boy who couldn't save his mother. Now there was nothing. Nothing to fight, nothing to destroy, nothing to kill.
There was simply an empty room and a set of beads that no longer belonged to anyone.
Anakin leaned against the wall and closed his eyes. He tried to meditate. It lasted for no more than ten seconds. Every time he tried to reach out through the Force, a memory would hit him. but he kept trying, again and again, until the last memory surfaced. Watching the girl he had basically adopted walk away from him, away from the only home she had known.
And now she was alone in the city, with nowhere to sleep, nothing to eat, and nobody to protect her.
And it was all his fault, because he had failed her.