Chapter 1: Prologue
Chapter Text
Anakin Skywalker was never truly alone.
Not in the slave quarters where dust clung to every surface and fear clung to every breath.
Not in the junkyards with their rusted metal and the stinging of scraped palms.
Not even in the dead of night when the heat still pressed like a weight against his chest, and his sitll-developing mind worked to process the horrors of the day - the twi'lek slave beaten for being too slow, the woman killed for stealing a loaf of bread to feed her children, the togruta teenager pulled from the streets of Mos Espa and sold to the highest bidder.
How could he possibly be alone? She was always there.
She had always been there, of course. Not beside him - not physically - but in a way that he couldn't explain. In his dreams. She shimmered at the edges of his awareness like starlight, soft and constant. He could feel her laughter like warmth on his skin, different from the cruel burn of Tatooine's suns. Her joy would radiate in his chest like sunlight through stained glass, leaving him covered in the colors of the mosaics, showing him colors he never could have dreamed. He didn't know her name, not truly, not until a year or so after he'd been freed, but he knew her happiness. And just as easily, he knew her pain - sudden, icy, and slicing through him anytime something was wrong. He couldn’t explain why, but he just knew what those strange sensations meant, even if they were planets apart. Warmth meant she was happy. And cold? Cold was wrong.
He had told his mother about his dreams... about the girl radiating sunlight. About how her laughter was infectious, and how her smile was brighter than the twin suns. He'd told her about her seemingly never-ending optimism, even when she was sad. And his mother had just smiled and told him that she was glad that his friend was helping him. But her eyes told him that she didn't believe him - that the girl wasn't real. Anakin could see it; he could hear it in her voice.
So he never told his mother about the physical feelings he had - about how a candle was lit between his ribs anytime she was ecstatic, or how he felt as if his chest became ground zero for a blizzard anytime she was upset. He never told his mother how he could tell how she was feeling based on whatever temperature flew through his chest at any given moment. Some things were his. Sacred. Unspoken.
Over time, the girl in his dreams became more than just a comfort. She became a reason - his reason - to keep going. When his knees bled from the work yard, when he cut himself on scrap metal in Watto's shop, when his master raised his hand... anytime he felt small and powerless in a galaxy that was too big to care, the mystery girl was there. She waited behind his eyelids at the end of each day - a breath of peace on a barren wasteland of a planet that offered none. And just that fact managed to fill him with enough courage to continue on with his day, no matter how terrible it was.
And comparing her warmth to the twin suns of Tatooine? It wasn't enough. Because she wasn't just a warm presence. She was radient. Like light itself. Her hair was as red as firelight, her green eyes always dancing with childlike wonder. She was like an angel, he'd realized.
Always smiling. Always laughing. Her world was so bright, and she was so... so free. He watched nightly as she colored on walls rather than in books, or twirled in skirts like a princess among a mound of plush toys while declaring her power with the confidence of a queen.
"I can do anything!" She'd cry to her kingdom of stuffed animals, a plastic crown on her brow. "I'm the princess!"
He believed her.
He saw her go stargazing in open fields beneath skies so clear he could hardly imagine them. The stars dotted the skies above her almost as if a painter had simply flung small drops of paint all over a canvas - they were everywhere, so much so that he could see what he assumed to be the arm of the galaxy. A rare sight, except for in the most remote regions of planets in the outer rim.
Part of him longed to know if that was where he could find her. The outer rim.
Her joy in that moment was infectious, immediately lighting a small fire behind his ribs and warming itself into his very soul. He woke that next morning with tears on his cheeks and the echoes of her laughter in his ears, though he couldn't pinpoint why.
"I want to go see the lights!" she'd squeeled, pointing up at the stars. "The stars are so pretty! Can we go there, Daddy?"
"No, sweetheart," her father had answered with a chuckle, a glint of amusement in his eyes. "Only astronauts can explore space because they have their big, poofy suits. It's a dangerous place."
She was quiet for a moment as if contemplating his words. But then she beamed up at her father, her grin wider than ever before as she proudly announced to her family, "Then I'll be an ash-tro-not one day, so I can see space for real!"
Anakin had marveled at her wonder. He had seen ships come and go every day from Mos Espa's ports, but it almost seemed as if space was magical to her. Untouched. Full of adventure and possibilities, where anything was possible. He didn't quite see what the big deal was, though. Space travel was common. Even to outer rim planets. Surely, she'd at least seen a ship before.
But still, he found himself wanting to be the one to show it to her. Not the broken, greedy parts of the galaxy, per se. Not places like Tatooine, which only knew how to take and take from others. He wanted to show her the wonders of the galaxy, starting with the stars that shimmered just for her.
He wanted to find her. To meet her. He wanted to prove to his mother that she was real, and that she wasn't some imaginary friend that his mind had pieced together in some desperate attempt to make him feel normal, as if he hadn't been born in chains. To help him stay sane on a planet that couldn't care less how he felt, so long as he could walk, lift, or speak. But he didn't just need to prove it to his mother...
He needed to prove it to himself.
Shortly after that realization, he had started experimenting with different materials he was able to smuggle from Watto's shop. Wires, screws, cracked screens, circuit boards. He wanted to build a scanner. So he tried. Time and time again, he dug into circuits with trembling fingers, trying to find a way to free the explosive chip from his body - from his mother's body - so that they could escape. So that he could find her, and show her the stars that she desperately wanted to see.
And then... the Jedi came. Qui-gon Jinn arrived practically at his dorstep, and set Anakin free. All it took was one bet. One pod-race. And Anakin was free to leave his home.
Anakin did not hesitate. He did not look back, though leaving his mother left a gaping wound in his heart - one that would one day fester and ooze and bleed into his very soul, whether he realized it or not. He went with the jedi.
Why?
Because he knew three things for certain:
He would become a jedi.
He would return to Tatooine and free his mother.
And then he would find the mystery girl, the girl who longed for the stars, and who unknowingly kept him alive during his time on Tatooine. The one who made him believe he could be more than a slave.
The girl who made him feel love before he even knew what love was.
He would find her, he swore to himself. And she wouldn't just be a dream... not anymore.
Chapter 2: Signs of the Storm
Summary:
Anakin and Ahsoka meditate in the temple gardens. Anakin has a vision.
Notes:
Hello! I just wanted to note that I do have this story cross-published onto Wattpad under CamelotRose. This version is the one that I am updating as I edit the chapters that are already published on Wattpad, so the stories are slightly different but follow the same generaly storyline. This one is more refined, though, admittedly. Also, side note: I wrote Havena as chronically ill because I needed some representation in media when going through some health issues of my own. Havena's health journey is strongly influenced by my own, and her conditions and symptoms also strongly reflect my own. I have written everything as accurately as I can to try to stay as realistic as possible, but let me know if there's anything that may seem a bit unrealistic. Thank you! <3
Chapter Text
Anakin Skywalker had endured more than most jedi ever would within his 20 years of living.
He had survived the chains of slavery and sandstorms, podraces and politics, the wounds of war, and the even sharper, even deeper, loss of his mother. He’d fought Sith lords, witnessed the soldiers in his command marching toward their own deaths. He’d lost a hand to a Sith’s lightsaber, and, somehow, had been handed the title of general before he’d even turned twenty.
But even throughout it all, even when the misery and pain seemed to pile up to an almost crushing weight on his shoulders, he still had her . Even through the screams and secrets and rage burned through his mind in times of silence, she was there. His light in the darkness that flickered just out of reach. His calm in the storm. The dream that never left him.
His dreams had never truly been his own - not since the first time he saw her behind his eyelids, her small five year old frame chasing the family pet around the yard. In quiet moments, he could still hear her laughter echoing in his dark mind. When he bled, memories of her absentminded singing would replace it, wrapping around his very essence like a bandage and soothing him.
And her? When she cried, his chest ached like a never-ending frost had settled into his ribs. A harsh, bitter cold enveloped him every time, and he felt as if someone had taken his ribs and tied them into knots. He felt it in his soul, slowly tearing through him with unbridled despair.
He still didn’t even know her name. Only her presence. Her essence. The soothing balm of her voice. The ringing of her laughter. Her sheepish smile as she tucked her hair behind her ear and turned a page in her book. Her emerald eyes, shining bright enough to pierce through the darkness in his heart.
As he and the girl grew older, his dreams of her began to change. Or maybe she had changed. Something was different, but Anakin couldn’t seem to be able to piece the puzzle together to figure it out. In fact, it had taken him much too long to even notice that something was wrong.
But eventually, he did notice.
It started with her eyes. Once consistently bright and happy, shining a beautiful emerald color that almost reminded him of the never-ending greenery of Naboo’s lush forests, they slowly began to dull. But he didn’t notice. Not until that light had nearly completely dimmed and she was left with eyes that were almost hollow with fatigue and exhaustion.
And then he’d noticed her almost retreating into isolation. Many times when he’d closed his eyes to sleep and dream of her, she herself was also sleeping - curled up in her bed with her blanket tucked under her chin and her brow furrowed, as if her sleep wasn’t entirely restful. Yet he knew she was sleeping more than she had before.
It didn’t make sense.
Anakin wanted to know why.
Having just returned from their mission to return Jabba the Hutt’s rather stinky mini hutt, Obi-Wan had somehow convinced Anakin that one of his first formal training sessions with Ahsoka should include meditation. Of course it wasn’t Anakin’s favorite thing to do. He couldn’t stand it half the time. It was important, which he understood, but it was… boring . Obi-wan had, predictably, heard quite the protest from both of them.
But in the end, Anakin knew that Obi-wan was right. Meditation was the foundation to, well, everything. Especially when it came to staying calm in stressful situations which, much to Anakin’s dismay, would definitely occur regularly on a battlefield. So there they sat, master and padawan, in the temple gardens. They both sat in lotus positions, eyes closed, trying to clear their minds of any thoughts to connect with the force around them.
“Ugh, Master,” Ahsoka’s voice rang out suddenly, frustration evident in her tone. “Can’t we do anything else?”
Anakin peaked one eye open, his expression clearly unimpressed. Ahsoka groaned again from beside him, clearly trying to make her annoyance known without fully breaking her position.
“Lightsaber drills? Tactical simulations, even,” she suggested. “I already know how to meditate. Bariss and I became padawans at the same time, and she -”
It was Anakin’s turn to groan that time. “If you bring up Baris Offee one more time…” he muttered, just loud enough for his padawan to hear. “
It wasn’t that he didn’t want to cave in and work on something else. He would have much rather been teaching her dueling techniques, or running her through tactical simulations. Teaching meditation wasn’t the most entertaining thing he could’ve been doing with his afternoon. But Ahsoka would be joining him out in the field in the middle of a civil war, and if she had one slip up-
He stopped his thought process where it was, almost shaking his head to clear the thought from his mind. Then he continued. “If you cannot connect to the force like it’s second nature, like breathing, it’ll get you killed. Now close your eyes and get to it.”
Ahsoka huffed beside him, annoyance radiating off of her in waves. But after a moment of quiet, she returned to her meditative stance and fell quiet. Anakin glanced at her out of the corner of his eyes and, pleased with her response, closed his eyes once more.
The gardens were peaceful that morning, just as always. Obi-wan had suggested the location, claiming that meditation in nature fostered deeper focus. Anakin had told him that the only thing natural about the gardens was the flowers. Obi-wan shook his head and walked off, saying something about flora still being part of nature . Anakin sighed. Personally, he thought that his former master just liked plants.
Anakin worked toward quieting his mind, quietly dismissing his thoughts as they came. All was normal for a few moments. That was… until he felt it - that cold. The sudden, aching chill that dropped into his chest like a stone. Like a block of ice had replaced his heart. The chill that meant something was wrong . Not with him.
With her.
With the girl from his dreams.
He flinched at the sensation, his eyes flying open as his posture immediately stiffened. His jaw clenched. His eyes narrowed.
He needed to see her. He needed to-
“Master? You okay?”
Anakin’s attention quickly drifted back to his padawan, who was glancing at him with a curious, raised brow. He just shook his head.
“Weren’t you supposed to be doing something?” He asked her, his voice holding a sharper tone than he’d intended for it to. He gave her a knowing look, raising his own brow almost scoldingly at the togruta girl.
Ahsoka sighed in defeat. “Fine, fine,” she said, returning to the lotus position, “I’m meditating.”
“Doesn’t sound like it,” Anakin responded, a knowing smirk replacing his troubled expression for only a moment as he tried to mask the tension in his voice. “Alright, Snips. Back to it. I’m going to do some meditation of my own.”
Right. Meditation. Definitely not Force-stalking the girl in his dreams. Definitely not honing in on the girl’s presence to try and see her. He wasn’t that weird… right?
No, he was.
He absolutely was.
With his legs crossed and his hands resting gently on his knees, Anakin closed his eyes and drew in a deep, purposeful breath. As he exhaled and settled in to the Force, he reached out. It was quiet. Deliberate. And at first… he couldn’t find her. He pushed himself then, reaching farther and farther, his brow furrowing in concern.
But then he found it: her signature. Soft, equally as quiet, and… still. Yet it was still unmistakable. His own presence surrounded it, latching onto it as tightly as he could, almost like it was a lifeline. Though he truly didn’t struggle to hold on to it. Her signature was… off. A quiet signature was one thing, but her’s was… wrong. Too quiet. Too still. Almost dimmed in a way.
And it was certainly still emitting the cold that Anakin had felt flowing through his veins only moments before.
Finally the darkness curled and parted, twisting into a blurry image that slowly - very slowly, in a way that reminded Anakin of trying to run underwater - began to clear. It was the same as always - he couldn’t touch. Couldn’t shape. He wasn’t there , it was like it was watching it from behind a screen. Like some holoshow. He was just an observer. A spectator.
The first thing Anakin noticed was the atmosphere - thick with tension, humming with unspoken fear. The air of it all was… uncertain. He wasn’t even in the room and yet the tension was so thick that he could almost feel it pressing into his own skin.
The vision narrowed in on her - on his girl, his light, the spark that had kept him alive through years of whips, war, and loss. She was curled up on the couch, her feet tucked beneath her, with a thin, plush blanket over her legs. One hand clutched the edge of the blanket tighter around her knees, while the other cradled her head in exhaustion.
Her cheeks were flushed - too flushed. And he made quick note of the unhealthy red that had started creeping in months ago. Her skin had always been relatively normal beforehand. Clear, a healthy pink tinge to it. But now the skin on her cheeks looked irritated, almost fevered. It was as if a constant rash had settled beneath the surface of her skin and refused to leave.
He swallowed hard.
He could almost feel her pain, and if he’d had to guess… he would say that it was coming from her knees, where her hand hovered to pull the blanket over . A subtle way for her to place pressure on her knees without alerting anyone to it. Smart. But incredibly frustrating to Anakin. She should have just admitted to being in pain. Why did she try to hide it? What was she so afraid of?
On the opposite end of the couch sat an older woman who Anakin recognized as being the girl’s mother. Her hands trembled slightly around a steaming mug as she stared at the screen - a TV, he remembered after a moment - with her brow furrowing further in worry. She glanced back at the girl occasionally, and each time she did, the concern etched into the lines on her face only seemed to mount.
They were in their living room, he quickly noted. Many of his dreams of the girl had taken place there, especially recently - it was a setting he was heavily familiar with. The low, constant gibbering on the TV, the brown suede couch, the low ovular coffee table sitting just in front of it. The setting was almost as comforting to him as he was sure it was to the girl.
The sound on the TV increased dramatically, shocking Anakin from his own thoughts. The girl’s mother held her hand out, her thumb hovering over the volume on the TV. The words from the TV, though louder, sounded almost garbled - as if it were underwater. But he could hear the two women speaking clearly.
“Look at that,” the older woman uttered almost grimly. “They found a case in New Haven.” She paused, her voice tightening as she glanced back at the girl on the other end of the couch. “That’s only a few miles from here. Though, it shouldn’t be too surprising… I’m willing to bet that that cough you had a few months ago wasn’t just a normal respiratory virus like they said it was.”
“It wouldn’t shock me,” answered the girl, her voice coming out softer than usual. A tired murmur.
Anakin’s heart clenched at the tone. It was so meek compared to what he was used to. So resigned, with almost no power behind it. He didn’t like it. Not one bit. It was wrong .
“I told your father not to take you to that conference with him. I just knew something was going to go wrong. But no , he didn’t see any danger in it. I told him that just because they aren’t doing mass testing, it doesn’t mean that the virus isn’t going around.” The older woman almost huffed, taking a careful sip of the hot beverage in her hands. “At least it only hit you like a cold, though. So many of these poor people, even the young ones, are ending up hospitalized because of it.”
The girl didn’t speak. Her expression was unreadable. It was blank, dazed, and she was only half paying attention to the woman’s words. But the force told Anakin what he needed to know. Fear and concern rippled off of her in dense waves, hitting his chest as if it were a blast of cold water. She stared at the screen almost as if she didn’t believe what she was seeing.
“You have to be more careful,” her mother chided, her voice growing more firm. “Did you see what they’re saying about New York? The hospitals are overflowing. Morgues, too. And now this? A mass burial ? I mean, wasn’t that something that they did during the black plague? And now we’re doing it again in modern times? I don’t understand how anyone could say this is fake. People are dying.”
Her mother shook her head, an almost horrified look in her expression - one that Anakin could almost guarantee his own expression held as he worked to piece together the situation based on the conversation. But once more, he was knocked from his thoughts.
A male voice interrupted the conversation, drawing Anakin’s attention back to the situation at hand. The voice was gruff and distant, almost sounding detached. It was a voice Anakin had grown familiar with over the years. The girl’s father.
“I’m leaving.”
The girl glanced lazily over her shoulder. Her mother, on the other hand, stood sharply, nearly spilling her drink.
“Leaving? Where could you possibly be going? They’re calling for a lockdown,” she told the man, bending over to sit her mug down on the coffee table.
“I know,” he answered with a nod, looking between the two women, though his eyes almost hardened as they settled on the girl curled up on the couch. “I’m going to the store to get us some things. Enough to last us a while. Then I’m going to stay elsewhere for a few weeks to try to limit the exposure.”
Her mother turned to fully face the man, alarm and worry building in her voice as she spoke. “What do you mean? Surely you can’t mean-”
The man’s jaw tightened as he returned his eyes to the girl’s mother. “I work at the hospital. That girl who tested positive? She tested positive at Greensboro. Technically, I’ve been exposed. And that exposure is only going to get worse every day that I go to work. I’m not going to bring it home when no one knows anything about it save for how it spreads. I’m going to stay in a rental for a while. Just until it blows over.”
His words were firm, leaving no room for argument. No room for debate or dissent. The man had made his decision, and he was sticking to it.
The girl’s eyes trailed lower toward the ground and her mouth tightened. Anakin could feel it almost from her expression - her frustration, dread, and the sting of being left behind. But there was something else there that she couldn’t quite pinpoint. Was that… was it relief ?
“Robert, be serious,” her mother snipped, her voice tightening as she crossed her arms in obvious frustration. “We could be careful. We could set up a decontamination station outside. You could shower as soon as you get home. Anything. You can’t honestly think that leaving us is safer.”
The girl’s father was silent for a moment. Her mother used that as an opportunity to step closer to the man. “Havena’s been having these health problems. What if you’re not here and she has an episode?”
“She’s just tired. Maybe a little depressed, Emily. She will be just fine,” he answered the woman, changing his gaze toward the girl on the couch. “Isn’t that right, Havena?”
“It’s not my mental health, dad,” she furrowed her brow, tugging the blanket closer to her small frame. “It’s more than that, and you know it. Something’s wrong.”
The man’s expression hardened at her words, and he shook his head in response. “You’re not sick, Havena,” he argued. “Even the doctor agreed. If this isn’t just some cry for attention, then you’re just anxious.”
“You’re a nurse,” she countered, a bit more power behind her voice than what she had earlier. “You work with sick people all day, every day. How can you not see that something isn’t right?”
“I’m not arguing with you on this right now. I’ll see you both-”
“Robert,” her mother interrupted him, “You’re not getting a rental-”
The two began to argue, but Anakin drowned them out. His eyes were stuck on the girl - Havena, he finally knew - as she almost flinched at her father’s words, her lips parting and trembling as she spoke again, her words having grown quiet once more.
“It’s more than that,” she said, her words barely audible at that point, “Why won’t you believe me?”
Neither of the two in the room heard her. They were already too lost in their background argument.
Anakin kept his gaze locked on her. Her shoulders were stiff, her jaw clenched. Her eyes were glued to the floor as Charlie, the family pet (a dog, he believed it was called), sauntered over to the girl on the couch. She reached down to pet him with misty eyes.
And he felt it. Anakin could feel the anger pulsing through her first, just before the hurt shot through it. Sharp. Raw. A painful resignation settled in as well as her eyes softened on the dog. The cold sensation in Anakin’s chest surged once more, piercing just a bit sharper than before.
He ached to reach through the vision, to touch her hand, to say something. Anything to make the hurt go away. He wanted to tell her that she was safe. That she wasn’t alone. That he believed her. But the vision, as usual, remained one sided.
When Anakin snapped back to reality, he released a long, deep breath as he felt the ice cold in his chest slowly fade into a hollow ache. His padawan sat across from him in complete silence, her eyes closed, still sitting in the same position she’d been in just before his vision. She was seemingly unaware of the vision he’d just experienced, and he was glad to keep it that way.
Anakin shifted his position, aiming to settle back into his meditation and tap into the Force once more. But he couldn’t. The images from the vision lingered in the recesses of his mind, whispering to him almost tauntingly, pulling at the darkness he knew wrapped around his heart, reminding him of what he’d heard.
The fear. The virus. The girl’s pain.
And more specifically… he couldn’t shake the implications of what he’d heard.
A viral outbreak - a pandemic. Hospitals overrun with the sick. Morgues unable to take any more bodies. Mass burials .
And Havena - his girl, his peace in the night - was sick. And he could do nothing about it but watch.
Chapter 3: Gray Mornings
Summary:
Havena recounts her more recent dreams of the strange yet familiar man who haunts her dreams.
Chapter Text
It was 10 am when Havena finally opened her eyes.
Sunlight shined through the slats in her bedroom blinds, beaming inside and landing on her wall in long, golden stripes. The familiar thump-thump-thump of a wagging tail beat against the hardwood floor of her bedroom like a drum. Finally, a bark startled her full awake. The sound of claws pattering against the floor sounded throughout the room as Charlie, her overly-excited Boxer-lab mix, ran toward her bed and jumped on top of the soft sheets. He landed beside her and panted excitedly before racing toward her bedroom door as if he had some important business to attend to.
And maybe he did. Outside. Fair enough, Havena supposed.
She let out a quiet sigh as she turned over to face the hyper beast, watching as he leapt around almost playfully, jumping at the door and lightly scratching it with his dull nails.
“Havena,” she heard her mothers questioning voice from the other side of the door. The door cracked open, and she could see her mother’s head peak into the quiet, dimly lit room. Charlie flew out between her mother’s legs in a blur, nearly taking the poor woman’s legs out from under her. “What are you still doing in bed? I thought you were going to help me fix breakfast?”
Havena cringed a bit, glancing at the alarm clock off to the side of the room. “Oh… right…” she trailed off for a moment before steeling herself and putting on a small smile for her mother, pushing her pounding headache to the back of her mind if only for a second.
Just like putting on a show, she thought to herself. Just smile through it. No sense in worrying her.
“Sorry, mom,” she answered, forcing a small smile. “I must have stayed up too late last night. I’ll be down in a bit!”
Her mother raised an eyebrow, taking a step farther inside Havena’s bedroom, almost as if challenging the girl’s words. As if she were searching for the truth in them through the piles of books, discarded sweaters, and scattered notebooks throughout the room. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
Havena nearly paused at the sudden question, her eyes trailing down to the floor only momentarily before flickering back up toward her mother. Her head was killing her, so the true answer was no , but her mother didn’t need to know that. Her mother had always been a worrier, and this - whatever it was - would only add more fuel to that fire.
She really didn’t want to deal with her coddling her today.
“I’m fine, really. Let me get dressed and I’ll take Charlie out.”
Havena’s mother, Emily, lingered for a second longer. She glanced around Havena’s room almost suspiciously, as if having some idea that her daughter was not telling her the truth, before shrugging a quiet okay and making her way back out into the hallway. The door closed with a gentle click behind her.
Havena sighed in relief.
To be fair… Havena didn’t always lie to her mother like that. She told her plenty. And her mother, ever the smart woman that she was, was able to pick up on much of what Havena hadn’t told her. She just didn’t want to worry her mother any more than what she already was. No added fuel meant a smaller, more manageable fire.
And besides… a headache wasn’t much to worry about.
Now… the excessive fatigue? The headaches? The high heart rates detected by her watch throughout the day?
Those may have been reason for concern, admittedly. But again Havena didn’t want to worry her mother any further. Besides, as much as she hated to admit it, her father could have been correct. Those symptoms were all easily explained by other issues - common issues.And none of them were technically unmanageable. The fatigue? Depression. The heart rate and headaches? Anxiety, which she had been diagnosed with for almost four years now. The pain in her joints? She probably slept in an odd position. The rash on her cheeks? Well, she did have family members with rosacea.
See? Easily explainable. Simple, rational explanations for each of her symptoms. Even though she herself didn’t fully believe it.
Three weeks earlier, just after her father had announced his temporary move to a rental apartment, Havena had tested positive for the Covid-19 virus. As soon as they’d realized that her “cold” hadn’t actually been a cold, she locked herself in her room and refused to let anyone near her… not even Charlie. Luckily she’d only had a mild case and was able to recover relatively easily. For the most part.
But in the days since, her body hadn’t felt the same. She slept for hours and still woke up exhausted. She had trouble focusing. Her limbs trembled with weakness. Her head pounded unpredictably and more frequently. Her breath caught in her chest after climbing stairs. Everything was just… harder.
Her mother had told her that it was likely just leftover from the virus, and that it would back away eventually.
Havena hoped that she was right.
To make matters worse, her father had officially, “temporarily” moved out yesterday.
He hadn’t exactly been a fountain of joy during the lockdown to begin with - especially when quarantine delayed his plans to stay in a rental. Being stuck at home for two weeks had put him in a fairly foul mood, and from what Havena had overheard, her mother had spent more than a few nights “easing him down” before his temper could boil over. He’d never been a particularly rude or hateful person, but the past two weeks…
Well, there was a first time for everything, right?
And now the house felt quiet. Empty. Like something had been carved out of its bones and taken with him. Yet somehow it almost felt more peaceful, like Havena could breathe again. Not physically, of course. But now she didn’t feel the need to be on high alert to hide her symptoms and avoid talking about them in front of him for fear of being shot down. And that? That was a weight off the shoulders regardless of how much she missed her father’s presence.
Slowly, she lowered her blankets down and turned to the side, dangling her legs off the side of the bed. She closed her eyes for a moment as a rush of light-headedness struck her, but she clenched her jaw and caught her bearings before she slowly stood up to ready herself for the day.
As she made her way toward the dresser on the opposite side of the room, Havena’s mind drifted back to the odd dream she’d had last night. That same man again.
The man she’d seen every night in her dreams since she was a child. The one who seemed to almost grow up alongside her, aging in his dreams just as Havena aged throughout her life. And those dreams… waking up from them always left her with the strange sense that she’d been somewhere else entirely. That she’d been with the man, and not just watching some made up fantasy in her mind.
Tall. Almost imposing, yet Havena somehow felt comfort in his large stature. His blue eyes seemed to burn at times with a raging flame that she’d never seen in another person before. His jaw almost always clenched at this point. He’d never been like that as a child when they were growing up. When he was a little boy shackled by the chains of slavery while growing up in a small hut on their unbearably hot, desert planet.
He was… familiar. And not just because she saw his face on a TV screen more times than she could count when she was growing up. Every time Havena saw his familiar figure dancing behind her eyelids, she’d almost wanted to reach out to touch him. To wrap her arms around him, even, like he was an old friend. And in many ways, she supposed that he was.
But they’d never met.
Why?
Because he wasn’t real. Anakin Skywalker didn’t exist, no matter how much Havena’s nightly dreams made her want to believe that he was. She’d believed that he was real once. When she was a child. But as she grew up, she had to face the facts - especially once she’d seen him on TV.
At first, she’d tried to rationalize it. Maybe her father had watched the movies when she was very small, and her subconscious had stored Anakin’s face somewhere deep inside her mind. Maybe she’d created an imaginary friend using a character she’d seen once and then forgotten.
But that didn’t explain why the dreams never stopped, or why the version of Anakin she dreamed of rarely matched the movies she’d been so used to seeing. Anakin - her Anakin, the one in her head, seemed… different. He wasn’t a villain - not at all. Not a jedi falling to darkness. Not a future killer or mass murderer. He was just… him. Like a normal person living his day-to-day life in some strange version of reality. He was just a boy. Or, rather, he was just a man.
Only a couple of months ago, Havena had dreamed of a place with tall grass, a multitude of weeds and flowers she’d never seen before, and lakes that shimmered an almost unnaturally beautiful clear, blue hue, the likes of which she’d only ever seen on TV or in aesthetic images online. Lakes so unlike the brown, muddied lake beside her house.
In that dream, Anakin had stood near a waterfall beside an impossibly beautiful woman with dark, curly hair and wisps that framed her near perfect smile. A woman she recognized immediately as Padmé Amidala. The pair had spoken with quiet fondness, laughing and joking with each other, and yet there had been no spark. No romantic undertones. No awkward flirting as there had been in the movies. As if they were simply two friends reunited after years apart.
It was strange. Just one more way that Havena’s dreams of the fictional man seemed to deviate from the prequel movies.
When Havena finally pulled herself together and clothes herself in a pair of soft sweatpants and an oversized, worn hoodie, she made her way downstairs. Her mother was already at the stove, sliding scrambled eggs onto a plate sitting beside her on the counter.
“Morning, sleepyhead,” her mother greeted gently. “Here. I made some extra bacon. You need to eat more, you know? You look like you’ve lost some weight.”
Havena gave her mother a slight sideways glance at the comment, raising an eyebrow almost questioningly before blinking the thoughts of it away. She hadn’t lost much weight, if any. Havena just… hadn’t been as hungry. She hadn’t been eating as many snacks of late, or touched the junk food in the cabinets as often. She was still eating. Just not as much as she had before.
There her mother was - worrying over nothing yet again.
She forced a ghost of a smile to the woman, mumbling a quiet thanks as she sat Havena’s plate down in front of her usual chair at the table.
“I was thinking,” her mother continued as she made her way back to the stove to make her own plate, “maybe we could stay in and watch some movies today? Have a little mother-daughter bonding time?”
Havena nodded and took a few steps toward her seat at the table. “Yeah, that sounds nice.”
Just as she made it to her destination, Havena stopped. Paused. Hovered her hand over the table for a moment before reaching and grabbing its edge as yet another dizzy spell made her vision shimmer around the edges.
Her mother didn’t notice.
And Havena, as usual, said nothing.
Chapter 4: The Breaking Point
Summary:
Anakin's dreams grow to become more haunting than comforting. Distressing. Vivid. More like nightmares. He wakes from one particularly harrowing dream in a panic that was far too similar to the way he woke from dreams of his own mother's death. Rattled. Unable to breathe. Drenched in sweat. Disoriented.
But this time? He's in pain, like an icy knife had been driven through his chest. And he knows it's her... Havena. She's suffering - she needs him. And he couldn't take it anymore.
Anakin practically drags Obi-wan to a council meeting where he, shockingly enough, gives in and tells the council everything. The dreams. The pain. The sickness. The worry. And he demands leave to go find her.
Chapter Text
A distraction.
A mirage.
That’s what she was.
“It’s just a dream, Anakin,” Obi-wan had said. “The result of an overactive imagination. A manifestation of stress… of longing. You must let it all go.”
Obi-wan’s words echoed in Anakin’s mind, dashing around violently behind his eyes and lingering like a near festering wound.
He knew, deep down, that Obi-wan was wrong. Anakin Skywalker knew better. He’d known better for his entire life. This wasn’t imagination. It wasn’t longing. It was real . Havena was real .
Anakin had seen her since childhood - always in his dreams, always just out of his reach. And he could feel her. The way the Force seemed to ripple with her emotions, sending shockwaves through Anakin of ice and fire. A radiant warmth with each bright, beaming smile. A breath-stealing chill with her fear and pain. He had felt the tug of her presence long before he had a name for it, and long before the Jedi taught him to ignore what couldn’t be explained.
But this… this connection - he couldn’t ignore it any longer. He couldn’t ignore her any longer. Not when his dreams had become so… strange. So off. She was always there, as normal. And yet she was almost a shell of the girl he’d grown to know. Her words sounded hollow. Bags under her eyes. Fatigue in every breath, though she tried desperately to hide it.
All that Anakin knew for sure was that something was wrong with Havena, and that Obi-wan, the man who had become his brother, did not believe him. Did not believe that she existed, let alone that she was growing ill. His former master had thought the exact same way when Anakin had visions of his mothers death. They’re only dreams, he’d said.
Now his mother was dead.
Anakin Skywalker would not allow Havena Jinn to meet that same fate.
It had been a year since the vision he’d had of the news of a virus running rampant on her planet - whatever planet that was. And over the past year, Havena’s condition had only seemed to worsen. Constant red cheeks. Red, angry knees, and wrists, and even knuckles.
And then he’d dreamed of her tears, trailing down cheeks that were as red as the fiery curls atop her head… all while she sat hunched over on her bed, her hands desperately massaging the muscles right above her knees, her face scrunched up in pain. Only a few months later, he’d seen her using a cane. Leaning on it as a lifeline while she limped her way through a store, her face scrunched up in that same expression of pain.
Anakin hated those dreams.
And when he’d confided in Padme? Well… his friend knew exactly how to encourage him, that was for sure. Telling him that perhaps help would find the girl , all the while giving him that same mischievous smirk he’d grown to expect from the senator. A smirk that told him, in no uncertain words, to go find her .
After his most recent dream… he certainly would.
Steam poured out from the bathroom as the white door was slowly opened. A slim figure slowly exited the room and turned toward her bedroom door down the hallway. Her fiery hair was soaking wet, falling around her neck and drenching the back of her tank top. Her clothes clung to her damp skin more and more with each step she took.
Her face was pale, he quickly noticed. Not a trace of color in her cheeks. Instead, it was her hands and feet that seemed to glow with red. She lightly held onto the wall, her chest heaving as if she had run 5 miles and back. Her hands shook, and her steps grew heavier while her gait became smaller. Finally, the girl rested her back to the wall and slid downward, placing her hand on her stomach as she tried to draw in slow, deep breaths.
She picked up the small device she always carried with her - a communicator, or “phone” as Anakin had learned over the years - and began to hurriedly type a message to someone. If Anakin could have read the message, he would have realized what was happening quicker.
Upstairs. Help. Gonna pass out, I think
Please
I dont feeel right
Her hands began to shake more violently as the girl broke out in a sweat. She hunched over, trying to type with one hand while the other covered her mouth as she tried desperately to, as Anakin assumed, hold in the vomit. Seconds later, the girl’s phone fell from her hands as she no longer had the strength to hold it up.
“Vena?!” A voice sounded just before a loud thudding began making its way up the stairs. “Havena?! What’s going on?”
The woman rounded the corner in a flurry of panic.
She quickly landed on her knees in front of her daughter and stroked her hair as she looked for any sign of injury. There was nothing. The girl continued breathing slowly, her eyes staring blankly ahead of her. Glassy. Unfocused.
Havena’s mother took her cheeks in her hands as she examined the girl’s eyes for any sign that she was in there.
“What’s happening?” Emily asked, and the girl shrugged slowly, almost reluctantly. “Can you speak? Vena, I need you to tell me what’s wrong.”
The girl, Havena, stayed silent. She didn’t dare to open her mouth.
The older woman turned toward the stairs and started screaming.
“Robert!” She yelled frantically. “Robert! Help!”
Only moments later, the tall bearded man was kneeling down toward his daughter as well.
“Havena!” He called, and the girl’s eyes flickered to him in silence.
“She won’t speak. I don’t know what’s wrong. She texted me and said she thought she was going to pass out - she was on the floor when I got up here!” Emily cried, tears in her eyes as she gently moved the girl’s hair away from her face.
“Jesus, Havena,” Robert whispered as he felt the girl’s skin. “She’s hot, probably took too hot of a shower. Go grab a wet rag and a trash can.”
“A trash can?” Emily asked, hesitantly standing up from the girl’s side.
“Havena, are you nauseous?” Robert asked, slowly turning her head to look at him. Tears stung at her eyes as she very slowly nodded once. Robert turned back to his wife and gestured for her to go. She quickly ran downstairs to get what they needed.
The man then picked the girl’s hair up and began to fan the back of her neck.
“Keep your head down as low as you can. It’ll help get blood flow back to your head.” The girl leaned farther forward and closed her eyes. “‘Atta girl. Just keep it down. It’ll be over soon.”
It wasn’t long before Emily returned. She handed the cold rag to her husband, who then placed it on the back of the girl’s neck. After a couple minutes, the girl slowly sat back up as her breathing slowed down. The tears she’d been holding back slowly began to trickle down her cheeks.
“I’m sorry,” the girl whispered. “I’m sorry. I was just getting dressed… felt weird. My chest hurt. I don’t know what happened,” she cried.
“Anxiety?” Robert offered, but Emily quickly shot him down with a glare.
“What kind of anxiety causes that ? This is something else. You’re the nurse - do we take her to the ER?”
Rob thought for a minute, and placed his fingers on the girl’s wrist. He was silent, his brow furrowed, and then he nodded his head.
“Her heart rate is quick. Could be anxiety, but she’d better go just in case.”
The last image Anakin Skywalker saw was the girl’s eyes - those emerald pools seeming to be staring right back at him, wide open and swirling with an icy fear that seemed to flow from her, directly to him. It hit him square in the chest, stabbing through him like a frost-covered knife.
Anakin sat on the edge of his bed in his small, near bare-boned quarters in the Jedi Temple, head in his hands, breath shallow. The icy residue of another vision, another dream, coiled around his chest like a snake squeezing the life out of its prey. His heart thundered in the aftermath, hammering against his ribs almost painfully so. The pain was still fresh - sharp, like being stabbed - and it hadn’t faded even as the dream ended.
Something had changed.
She was in danger.
Again.
Obi-wan’s voice cut through the murky haze of his thoughts, drawing him back to reality. “Anakin?”
Anakin’s head jerked up, his eyes blinking wildly as he fought off the disorientation that clouded his mind. After a couple of moments, reality clicked back into focus for him. His eyes quickly spotted Obi-wan standing in the doorway, his brow drawn in concern.
“We’re due to meet the council in twenty minutes. You’re still in bed?” his former master asked incredulously.
The younger man didn’t answer. Instead, he worked to regain control of his panicked breathing while trying to ignore the icy tendrils of fear fighting their way through his aching chest. He didn’t answer. He couldn’t. Not yet.
He was already moving from his bed, tugging on his tunic and belt, buckling his lightsaber to his hip with trembling hands.
“Anakin,” Obi-wan spoke again, his voice growing more cautious as he stepped into the room. “What’s going on?”
Obi-wan Kenobi wasn’t stupid. Far from it, in fact, so he wasn’t sure what made him even ask that question. He knew exactly what was happening. Another dream. Another nightmare induced panic. The girl. The distraction .
“There’s no time,” Anakin murmured in response as he roughly pushed past the older man, immediately heading for the door. “We have to go now .”
“Why? What happened?” Obi-wan asked, his eyebrow raising.
Anakin’s jaw clenched as his hand hovered over the control panel for his door. “She’s sick, Obi-wan. Something’s wrong. I felt it.”
His former master’s eyes narrowed slightly, his blue eyes looking Anakin up and down as he took note of his heavy breathing, tense muscles, and especially the frantic look in his eyes.
“You mean the girl, don’t you? The one from your dreams,” Obi-wan voiced, his tone cautious once more.
“Havena, Master,” Anakin said sharply, throwing a glance over his shoulder with narrowed eyes. “Her name is Havena.”
Obi-wan hesitated, his concern only deepening at Anakin’s tone. “Alright, fine. Havena . But Anakin, I-”
“She’s real,” Anakin cut in. “I know she’s real. And something’s happening to her. She’s in pain. She lost consciousness. I saw it.”
His former master said nothing in response, simply falling into step beside him as they made their way through the temple corridors. Anakin’s stride was furious, purposeful. Obi-wan nearly struggled to keep up.
“It’s been a year of this, and it’s only getting worse. Someone has to do something. And if no one else will, then I will,” Anakin almost huffed as they continued on their way.
“Anakin, the council-”
“-will allow me to go find her, or I’ll leave.” Anakin declared, his gaze hardening on the floor in front of them.
Obi-wan grew silent at that, his brow furrowing tightly. “Anakin, you can’t be serious. That’s-”
“I know that I’m supposed to find her. I feel it. Why else would I be having these dreams? Why else would I feel her pain and her fear?”
“Anakin, your wanting to help the girl might be coming from the right place… but I fear you’ve grown an attachment to a woman you’ve never even met. An obsession, even.” Obi-wan pointed out with a sigh. “I’m not sure that the council will-”
“I think it's a bond,” Anakin finally stated firmly, swallowing thickly after he spoke. “I’ve been… researching.”
“You mean a force bond?” Obi-wan asked, his voice growing almost tight. “There hasn’t been a known bond since Master Yoda was a youngling.”
“It’s the only thing that makes sense.”
They arrived in front of the council chamber doors. The doors hissed open with a wave of Anakin’s hand and the pair strolled inside, Obi-wan’s expression nearly unreadable.
Once inside, the council sat in their seats with their hard stares aimed at the young Skywalker. He crossed his arms and stood in the center of the room, his own eyes mimicking the rest. Obi-Wan reluctantly made his way to his seat alongside the council.
Master Yoda was the first to speak and break the deafening silence within the room. “Something to request of us, you have. Sense your distress, we have, young Skywalker. Speak, you may.”
Anakin inhaled deeply - a poor attempt to ground himself before he spoke. “I believe I have a force bond.”
Silence fell over the room. The masters glanced around at each other, some seeming cautious, some unreadable, while others were clearly in disbelief.
“A force bond?” Mace Windu arched an eyebrow as he leaned forward in his seat. “With whom?”
“A woman,” Anakin answered simply, his gaze hardening and never leaving Windu. “Around my age. Her name is Havena. I’ve… seen her in my dreams since I was a child.”
“Outrageous,” Ki-Adi-Mundi murmured. “Force bonds are extraordinarily rare. Even among the most powerful Force sensitives. And they cannot be formed without proximity. There hasn’t been a known force bond in nearly 800 years.”
“I used to think the same,” Anakin defended, his jaw clenching. “But I’ve felt her emotions for as long as I can remember. I’ve seen her. Watched her life in my dreams. When she’s in pain, I feel it. When she’s afraid, I feel it. When she’s happy… it’s like the force is singing.”
Kit Fisto leaned forward in his seat as he listened to Anakin speak. “Have you ever met her?”
“No,” Anakin answered, shaking his head. “But the dreams have only gotten stronger. More vivid. More painful. She’s been sick for over a year now. And last night…”
His voice faltered for a moment, subconsciously reaching to place his hand on his chest as he recalled the sharp ache he’d awoken to. “Last night, she collapsed. Lost consciousness. And I felt it. I can’t… I can’t ignore this anymore.”
Murmurs began around the room, whispers of disbelief between the masters. They were all interrupted by the tapping of Yoda’s cane on the ground. “Visions,” he began, his eyes trailing downward for a moment. “Troubling they are. Tell us… what saw you in this dream?”
Anakin closed his eyes. His breath hitched.
And then… he spoke.
“She was leaving the refresher. She’d taken a shower, I think. She could barely stand. Barely breathe. Her hands were shaking. She was pale, but her hands and feet were red. She sat on the floor with her back to the way and tried to send a message for help.”
His voice cracked slightly as he continued, and he swore for a moment that he could almost feel the aching return to his chest. “She couldn’t even hold her communicator. Her family found her, but they didn’t know what was wrong, either. Her pulse was racing. She couldn’t speak. She was- she was terrified .”
Shaak Ti’s expression softened at the description. “And you felt it?” she asked, her voice quiet and gentle.
“Like an icy blade through my chest,” Anakin answered solemnly. “Every time something like this happens.”
The room grew silent once more. The council members’ expressions were almost unreadable. Even Obi-wan couldn’t read the masters’ feelings on the matter.
“Why now, Skywalker?” Windu spoke up, his voice holding its usual harsh tone. “Why bring this to us today, when you claim to have had these dreams for so many years?”
Anakin’s breath hitched at that question. And for a moment, he wasn’t sure of the answer. He’d known she was sick for over a year… so why wait for so long to demand to find her, when he was so dead set on the belief that she was , in fact, not a figment of his imagination.
He breathed.
“Because I’ve reached my limit,” he answered after a beat of silence, his voice calm but resolute. “These dreams are… affecting me. I can’t focus. I can’t… breathe . I’m in pain. And I know in my heart that the Force is calling me to find her.”
Kit Fisto crossed his arms, his expression unreadable as he leaned back in his seat. “This sounds dangerously close to attachment, Skywalker,” he warned, his voice low.
Another beat.
“I’m already attached,” Anakin answered, his voice almost frighteningly calm. “I always have been.”
Obi-wan glanced around the room before turning back toward Anakin with a small sigh. “Anakin, this kind of attachment is dangerous. You don’t know this girl. Not really. And to threaten to leave the order-”
“He threatened to leave the order?” Plo Koon questioned from his seat, his eyes narrowing suspiciously at the Jedi standing in front of them.
Yoda hummed. His ears twitched, flattening against his head for a moment as his eyes trailed down. “Strong, this bond is,” he said quietly before changing his gaze toward Anakin. “And physically painful, too. Leave the order, you will, if not granted permission to find her?”
Anakin’s gaze sharpened. His muscles tensed. The movement was minor, only Obi-wan truly noticed it, but his jaw clenched once. Twice. Three times.
“I will,” Anakin answered firmly. “I’ll find her with or without your blessing. But I’m asking for it now.”
Murmurs erupted once more. Obi-wan stiffened in his seat, but didn’t respond. Not yet. The masters in the room exchanged unreadable glances. Plo Kook looked the most troubled. Mace Windu as unreadable as always. Shaak Ti was quiet, her brow furrowed slightly yet her expression was almost… understanding.
“A bond such as this… “ Yoda hummed lowly, tapping his cane once more to silence the room. “... unusual, it is. And dangerous, it could be. But if the will of the Force this is…”
“This girl,” Shaak Ti spoke up for the first time in a while, her voice not unkind at all. “What is her name?”
“Havena.” Anakin’s voice echoed throughout the room, and many within the council grew still.
Anakin eyed the council members almost suspiciously at their response. Shaak Ti’s eyes widened, but only a fraction. As quickly as the surprise hit her, it disappeared from her expression and was replaced with a vague indifference. Yoda’s ears perked up at his answer, the old master straightened in his seat before throwing a glance toward Windu.
Windu rose from his seat and threw a glance around the room, his expression dark. “We will deliberate,” he announced. His gaze flicked to Obi-wan. “Kenobi, Skywalker. Leave us for now. We will summon the both of you shortly.”
Obi-wan and Anakin shared a confused look, neither knowing what to think when they sent Obi-wan from the room as well. Obi-wan’s expression was wary, but he stood from his seat and bowed his head to the council before following Anakin from the room.
The doors hissed closed behind them and locked with a soft click.
Anakin’s eyes remained on the floor, his head low. He could only hope that the council would consider his words and listen to him… before it was too late.
Chapter 5: A Name They Never Spoke
Summary:
Anakin's nightmare leads him to the Jedi Council, where a startling revelation changes everything—she’s real, and their connection is deeper than he ever imagined.
Chapter Text
Anakin was restless. Again. Obi-Wan swore that it was Anakin’s natural state at this point. Not fearful, not peaceful, not brave. Not even centered, as a jedi should be. Just restless. The younger jedi’s leg shook rapidly up and down, the force of it gently shaking the floor. That was… until he began pacing. Then the muttering. And then, inevitably, more pacing.
“Anakin,” Obi-Wan said with a sigh, folding his arms neatly across his chest. “Calm yourself. The Council will summon us shortly.”
“They removed you from the room.” Anakin stopped pacing, his foot hovering in the air mid-step. “Why would they do that? I’ve never seen them do that before.”
Obi-wan leaned his head back against the cool wall behind them. “Perhaps they wanted to ensure you didn’t bolt halfway through their discussion. You were rather… spirited, earlier.”
“Or they don’t want you knowing something. Come on - you know it wasn’t about me.” Anakin started pacing again, his brow furrowed. “It was they way they looked at each other - Yoda, Windu, Plo Koon. Like they knew something. Like they’re keeping something from us.”
The master knew exactly what look Anakin was talking about. He’d seen it, too. But he wasn’t about to say something off and feed into Anakin’s suspicions. Not while he was already teetering on the edge as he’d been all morning.
“You’re imagining things,” Obi-Wan said calmly.
Anakin crossed his arms, standing at the window overlooking the Senate District. “No. They know something. About her.” His voice dropped lower, his grip on his arms tightening slightly as he clenched his jaw. “What if she’s here , Obi-Wan? What if she’s been on Coruscant this whole time, and they’ve just been keeping her hidden?”
He knew it was a cheap shot, of course. He’d seen the girl’s home - inside and out. Nothing had looked even relatively close to any part of Coruscant he’d ever seen.
“That’s unlikely,” Obi-Wan replied. “From what you’ve described, her surroundings don’t resemble any world in this system. Wooden structures, primitive architecture, no droids or hovercrafts… she is somewhere far from galactic civilization, Anakin.”
Anakin turned back toward his old master, his jaw tight as his brow furrowed further. “They know something. And if she’s sick…” he paused, swallowing thickly at the next words he was about to say. “-if she’s dying , then we’re running out of time.”
“All the more reason to let the Council speak when they’re ready. You’re jumping leagues ahead in assumptions, Anakin. She may not be as ill as you believe.”
Anakin didn’t answer. The air around them grew heavier with each passing minute. Thicker. The tension surrounded them both, but Anakin was its primary victim. Obi-Wan closed his eyes and began to meditate after gently encouraging Anakin to do the same. But there was no way that the younger man would be able to focus on meditation. Not then.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity - though it was only around an hour or so - the massive doors to the Council Chamber slid open with a familiar, low hiss. A temple guard gestured them inside, and Obi-Wan returned to his usual Council seat, while Anakin remained standing in the center of the room, surrounded by the Jedi masters.
Tension filled the air inside the chambers worse than it had just outside the room. If Anakin thought it was difficult to breathe before… it was almost suffocating now. The tension felt like a storm waiting to break. The masters around the room stared into him, almost as if burning a hole right through him.
Finally, Master Yoda stood from his seat, both hands on his gimer stick. His expression was unusually somber - his eyes low, his ears flat to his head, his shoulders fallen forward. The Force was thick with something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Something powerful. And much of it radiated from three particular Jedi in the room.
Remorse, Anakin realized. Guilt.
He could even sense it rolling off of Master Yoda himself.
Anakin swallowed thickly, clenching his fist at his side almost expectantly, his expression hardening in concern.
Finally… Yoda spoke.
“Real, your visions are,” the Grand Master said. “Ill… the girl is. Find her, you must, young Skywalker. As the Force wills it.”
Anakin paused. Blinked. Unclenched his fist. He barely processed the master’s words before he was speaking. “What? I… I don’t understand.”
Mace Windu’s gaze narrowed slightly, his eyes trailing from Yoda back to Anakin. “Her name is Havena. You already knew that. But what you don’t know is… who she really is.”
A beat of silence. The tension thickened, and Anakin’s chest almost heaved with each breath as he tried to force the air into his lungs. His heartbeat was loud enough to hear in his own ears. “Who is she?”
Yoda hesitated, his grip on his gimmer stick tightening. “Her name… her true name… is Havena Jinn.”
A silence fell over the chamber. Expectedly so from the masters who had deliberated on the matter. But the added silence only made the air thicker. More weighted. Harder to breathe. Not even a lightsaber could cut through the tension at that point.
Obi-wan’s breath caught in his throat. Anakin stilled. No one spoke for a while as the two jedi processed the master’s words. All eyes in the room flickered between the two, observing their reactions closely. Almost as if expecting some sort of outburst.
It was Obi-Wan who broke the silence. “I’m sorry- what?”
“Havena Jinn,” Mace Windu echoed, his voice low and absolute. “She is Qui-Gon Jinn’s daughter.”
“No,” Obi-Wan said immediately, leaning forward in his seat. His eyes had widened, his jaw slack. Obvious disbelief was etched into every wrinkle on his face. “That’s not possible. Qui-Gon never… he wouldn’t have-” Obi-Wans words caught in his throat. “ He would have told me. ”
Plo Koon nodded, his voice coming out as gentle and understanding as he could manage it to. “He informed the council nineteen years ago. He brought the babe to us himself.”
Anakin’s expression hardened even further, his chest still for a moment as he’d forgotten to breathe. “You knew she existed,” he realized. “You knew she was real .”
The room was silent, serving as Anakin’s answer.
“Where is she now?” Anakin practically demanded as his eyes scanned the Jedi masters’ faces, focusing especially on Yoda, Windu, and Plo. “ Where ?” He echoed fiercely, ignoring the sharp look from Obi-Wan.
“Somewhere safe,” Plo answered, his gaze low. “She was hidden away for her safety.”
“Nineteen years ago, Master Jinn requested an unscheduled meeting with the Council,” Yoda began. “Worried, he was. Troubled by visions, he said. Spent time off-world, searching. Researching.”
“Prophecies,” Obi-Wan said quietly. “He was always chasing them.”
Windu nodded. “One in particular—about the Chosen One. But he uncovered a second part to that prophecy. One we had never seen recorded before.”
Plo Koon spoke once more, reciting the verse from memory, his voice resonant. “Born to the Jedi grey, a princess of her own right - The Child of Light. Born with gifts beyond her control, beneath the roof of stars. This child will stand beside the Chosen One. Her light shall balance his darkness, cover him as a cloak, and anchor him to the light. Their bond will protect him as he brings balance to the force.”
Anakin stiffened once more upon mention of her balancing out his darkness . His darkness. It was a fact he’d been realizing as time went on - he did have dark tendencies. Dark thoughts. Angry. Frustrated. He wanted more, and he knew he shouldn’t have. The girl was supposed to balance that? He shook the thought from his mind. He could worry about that later.
Instead, Anakin focused on the last phrase spoken. “Bond… it is a force bond,” he confirmed. “The Child of Light, huh…”
“Grey Jedi… that’s what Qui-Gon often referred to himself as. A grey jedi, listening to and focusing on the living Force. And ‘roof of stars’... that sounds like a poetic reference to royalty.” Obi-Wan noted, his brow furrowed.
Plo nodded. “The prophecy was fairly… literal, in that sense. The mother was Queen Tressana Celestine of Florencia. It was a secret union among rising political tension. Florencia was on the verge of a civil war that they are still fighting to this day. Tressana feared for the girl’s life simply due to that fact. She trusted Qui-Gon Jinn with keeping her safe.”
“Qui-Gon believed that Havena was this Child of Light ,” Mace continued. “And that if the prophecy was true, the Sith had already returned. He worried they would seek her out. That they would sense her connection to the force. Her midichlorian count was astoundingly high. Not as high as yours, Skywalker… but closer than any youngling we had ever seen.”
“He was right,” Obi-Wan muttered, his eyes darkening as he thought back to the blockade of Naboo - to the day that Darth Maul had stabbed Qui-Gon through the back without a care in the world. “He was always right.”
Yoda nodded grimly, his ears flattening slightly. “To protect her,” he added, “ancient knowledge he found. A Ritual lost to time on Arkinnea. To produce a rift in the Force… to another realm. A reality parallel to ours.”
“A parallel reality?” Anakin questioned, clenching his fists at his side once more. “You- He sent her to a different reality ?”
“Yes,” Plo confirmed. “Together, Masters Yoda, Windu, and I helped to open it. Qui-Gon took the girl through and placed her where she would be safe, far from the Sith.”
“And left her to grow up in a galaxy without Jedi protection,” Obi-Wan said, his voice bitter as he held back a scoff.
“Thought that safer she would be, there,” Yoda spoke, his tone even. “Wrong, we were.”
Anakin’s eyes narrowed as he glanced between the three Jedi Masters. His tone lowered. “What do you mean?”
Mace leaned forward, folding his hands as he rested his elbows on his knees. “The body isn’t meant to exist outside of its own reality… especially where the force flows differently. Not for very long, at least. Her biology is… rejecting it, based on what you have told us. Her cells are destabilizing. The longer she remains, the more damage will be done.”
The room grew quiet. Anakin’s gaze grew sharp, pointed between the Masters. His voice darkened. “ You did this to her?”
“Believed her infant body could adapt, we did,” Yoda said with a small, regretful sigh. “But more fragile, she was, than we had believed. A mistake it was, to send her so far from home. Regret this, we do.”
Anakin could feel the frustration bubbling under his skin, slowly rising to the surface in a way he couldn’t control. And then he snapped.
“ Havena ,” he interjected, not for the first time that day, his jaw clenching as he worked to control himself. “She’s a person with a name. Not just some abstract, unknown being. And Havana is suffering,” he paused, catching a look from Obi-Wan which clearly meant watch your tone . He ignored it. “- because you allowed this to happen.”
“What my old padawan means,” Obi-wan interrupted Anakin, aiming to give the man a chance to breathe and calm himself. “-is that Havana ,” he spoke evenly, catching Anakin’s pointed look, “-should have been raised here, at the temple. It would have posed far less risk to her health.”
“You did this,” Anakin said again, his anger rising at the three Masters as images from the night before flashed in his mind. The steam from the shower. Her pale skin. The redness in her feet. The tears in her eyes, which only served to heighten the expression of fear she wore on her face.
“We did,” Plo admitted, his gaze trailing downward. He made no move to defend the choice the Council had made back then. No moves to deny the accusations thrown at them. “We must bring her back here, to the temple, before…”
Plo Koon didn’t have to finish his sentence. Anakin’s expression fell completely. The anger rewrote itself into pain at the implication of the master’s trailed off sentence. Of the way it was supposed to end. ... before she dies.
“How long…” Anakin’s voice croaked out almost painfully. “How long does she have?”
Windu hesitated. “That… we do not know,” he admitted. “The visions you have described suggest a potential rapid decline. But she could have months - years, even. This is… unprecedented.”
“Can we fix it?” He asked, his voice growing hopeful. “If we bring her back? Could we reverse the damage?”
“We are hopeful,” Plo nodded. “Reversal may not be entirely possible. But survival… survival we are almost positive of.”
Obi-Wan nodded, humming lowly as he narrowed his gaze to the ground. “How long until we can reopen the rift?”
“One month,” Master Yoda answered without hesitation. “One month to prepare, we will need. Masters Windu, Plo Koon, and I… attuned, we still are, to the Arkinnea temple. Replicate the ritual, we will.”
Anakin nodded. “One month. And then I’ll go,” he all but demanded, his voice firm. It was obvious that he would not be talked out of it.
The room was silent for another beat before Obi-Wan spoke.
“You feel responsible.” It wasn’t a question. It was a statement. An observation. Obi-Wan knew his old padawan… sometimes better than he knew himself.
“I am responsible,” Anakin answered resolutely. “She’s my… anchor, or whatever it is that prophecy called her. That means that she is my responsibility.”
Obi-Wan couldn’t argue with that. He didn’t respond. Only gave Anakin a look of understanding. Oddly enough… it was more understanding than Anakin could have thought. Havena Jinn was his master’s daughter. If she had been raised in the temple, knowing him, Obi-Wan would have seen her as family.
In fact, though he’d never laid eyes on the girl, he still found himself considering her family, in a way.
Which meant that responsibility for her safety fell to him, as well.
It was the least he could do for Qui-Gon.
Windu regarded Anakin carefully. “Then prepare yourself,” he spoke, his gaze temporarily meeting Obi-Wan’s eyes as well. It was almost as if he knew exactly what Obi-Wan was thinking in that moment. “In one month’s time… the both of you will travel to Arkinnea.”
“And I’ll bring her home,” Anakin nodded.
Chapter 6: Whispers of a Ghost
Summary:
Havena has another disappointing doctor's visit.
And then, with one phone call, her life changed for good.
One car crash, and the one person she had to rely on was gone from her life forever. And in the midst of her pain, at the height of her sorrow, an unexpected face appears in her dreams promising her hope and comfort.
Chapter Text
“Your labs are perfectly normal.”
“There’s nothing else we can do.”
“Everything looks great on exam.”
Those phrases echoed through her mind like a curse.
She was tired. Soulfully, bone-deep, tired. Another doctor’s appointment had ended with false reassurances. Another visit where the pain that seemed to fluctuate in severity like a wind in a storm was dismissed with clinical platitudes and a thin smile. Another visit with normal labwork. A normal physical exam. She was fine , according to the doctor - and her father, apparently. She was just another anxiety-ridden 19 year old girl. That was the answer every time.
But, as her mother had so gracefully phrased it to her father on the day she’d had her first episode of pre-syncope (a fancy word for almost passing out, Havena had learned), how could anxiety explain all of her wild symptoms?
The pain that gripped her knees without warning. The fiery burn in her upper legs that made standing feel more like torture. The breathlessness. The palpitations. The lightheadedness that sometimes made the room tilt or swirl around her. And the fatigue.
Oh, god. The fatigue . It was so crushing, so heavy, so absolutely relentless and unforgiving. Consistently weighing her down so much so that lifting her foot to take a step was a chore in and of itself.
It wasn’t anxiety. It couldn’t be. This was something else entirely. And it was something that Havena, for the life of her, could not seem to find anyone willing to dig for. Willing to see it .
The moment her mother’s car rolled into their gravel driveway, Havena practically threw herself out of the passenger seat, yanking her cane from the backseat as she stomped - more like limped - toward the house.
“Vena! Please, slow down! Talk to me,” her mother called after her while she put the car into park, her worried eyes following her raging daughter into the house.
But Havena ignored her. She snatched a bottle of water from the fridge and climbed the stairs two at a time, her cane clicking with each step of her left foot.
It wasn’t long before she was slamming her bedroom door closed and leaping onto her bed. With her face buried deeply into her pillows and her thighs burning like fire, she finally allowed herself the luxury to cry. Her tears were as silent as her existence was at that point.
They had failed her. Again. They had given her false hope… a referral to a different doctor. And that doctor had taken one look at her, asked the most basic questions they could, and then tossed her aside. Had ripped that hope right out from under her feet.
But what hurt the most?
No one believed her.
Only her mother. And even then, her mother’s belief was beginning to waver.
She was alone . Trapped in this body. Hurting. Scared. Sick. And completely and utterly alone .
The room was quiet for a moment. Havena gripped her comforter and pulled it tighter to her. Somewhere in her moment of silent grief, her bedroom door opened and her mother’s head poked its way inside.
“Havena,” her mother spoke gently, almost as if walking on eggshells. “Honey, we’ll go somewhere else. We’ll travel, find someone who will listen. We’ll figure this out, I promise.”
But Havena didn’t respond. Or move. Or even acknowledge that her mother had entered the room. After a few passing seconds of deafening silence, the door finally closed. Her mother’s footsteps echoed through the hallway in retreat.
And Havena was left alone with her thoughts once more.
She laid in the darkness of her bedroom almost catatonic with her green eyes fixed on a random spot on her white wall.
She began to question everything.
What if her father - and all of those doctors she swore she would never see again - were right in the end? Maybe she was just imagining it all. Maybe her illness was psychosomatic, and she just experienced symptoms because she expected to have them? Or perhaps it was just health anxiety and she was just… making it all up without realizing it.
If she had… then what did that make her? Crazy? Attention seeking? A liar? A fraud?
A master manipulator, who had twisted her own experiences so tightly that even she didn’t know what was real anymore. Had she been gaslighting herself into thinking she was sick?
Or was she just gaslighting herself into thinking that she wasn’t?
Her life was just some sick karmic joke. It had to be.
Havena rolled onto her back and closed her eyes, trying to ignore the throbbing pain building behind her eyes. But just before she drifted to sleep, she was shaken awake by a vibration from her nightstand. She glanced at the text notification through slitted eyes.
Mom: Going to the store.
Mom: Do you need anything?
Mom: Vena?
Havena stared at the messages, heart aching, but didn’t reply. She just laid her phone back on the nightstand and rolled over to face the wall, pulling the blanket over her head without a second thought.
She didn’t know it yet, but that choice would haunt her forever. That moment of silence - born of exhaustion and frustration - was the last chance she would ever have to speak to her mother.
And she would never get it back.
It was dark when she awoke. Her phone read 7 P.M. on October 2nd, 2022, to be exact. A time and date that was burned into her mind forever. Etched into her soul like a scar that would never heal.
The night her mother died.
Her phone was vibrating violently.
Two missed calls from her mom.
One from an unknown number.
Fifteen from her dad.
Then came the texts. Rapid-fire. Urgent. Panicked, even. And when Havena read them… she felt like she could vomit. Her grip on the phone loosened. Her hand covered her mouth as the horror began to set in.
Dad: Havena, answer the phone.
Dad: It’s important.
Dad: Emergency.
Dad: I’m at the hospital.
Dad: Your mother.
Dad: Havena, answer the phone NOW.
Dad: I’m sending a coworker to pick you up.
Dad: It’s not good, Havena.
Dad: I don’t think she’s going to make it.
Dad: Please.
Her trembling fingers pressed the call button.
“Please pick up, please pick up,” she whispered to herself in a panic.
It rang once. Twice. Three times.
“Havena! Where in the hell have you been?” Her father’s voice burst through, cracking on the edges as if he were holding back tears. “Devon is coming to get you. Put your shoes on and wait outside.”
“Wait- what’s happening?” She asked, her voice quivering as she leapt from the bed and made a break for her shoes. “What happened?”
A beat of silence. A sharp intake of air.
“They’re doing everything they can.”
Havana swallowed thickly - a difficult task given that her mouth had suddenly run dry. “What do you mean? Dad, what happened?!”
“There was an accident,” he answered, his voice going low on the other line, his breathing becoming deeper. Heavier. “We don’t know if she’ll make it. Just… get here.”
Havana’s world slowed to a near stop as she worked to process his words.
Her mother was dying .
When fumbling fingers made it near impossible to tie her shoes, she shoved the strings under the tongue of the shoe. She grabbed her cane, and within seconds she was racing down the stairs and bolting out the front door just as a pickup truck screeched into the driveway.
Devon didn’t speak. He didn’t have to. It was an almost unspoken agreement between the two - he drove, Havena kept her panic internal. A win-win.
They flew through backroads. Ignored traffic laws as if they didn’t even exist. She didn’t know how many laws that Devon had broken that night, but she was grateful for every single one of them.
Within ten minutes, they pulled up to the hospital. Greensboro Medical Center. She leapt out of the truck before Devon even had a chance to stop it and immediately raced into the ER doors.
The ER was cold and sterile and far, far too bright.
She was given a visitors badge and directed to a private waiting room. Her father was inside, sitting in the far corner. Still wearing his scrubs. He was staring blankly at the wall, his expression unreadable.
Havena couldn’t take her eyes off of the red that splattered his scrubs.
She froze.
“I was here when they brought her in,” her father spoke, his voice trembling. “I tried to stay. To help. They wouldn’t let me.”
Havena sank into the chair beside him.
“They’re trying to stabilize her so they can airlift her to NHU. The chopper’s waiting.”
She parted her lips to speak, but all that came out at first was a small gasp of air. She sniffed. “What happened?”
“Car crash. Pikeville Hollow Road. They found her a half-mile from the car, deeper in the woods. They think she was looking for help, but was concussed and disoriented.” He swallowed hard and leaned forward in his seat, folding his hands tightly together. “There’s a strange wound. Deep. Not from the crash, I think... It… doesn’t make any sense.”
“A wound?” she questioned, barely registering his words.
He just nodded grimly. “It looked like she was… impaled . But there’s no bleeding. The skin was charred. I don’t know what it could be from.”
A shiver ran down Havena’s spine - quick. Sharp. Her hair stood on end.
Like her body was telling her something wasn’t right.
But of course something wasn’t right.
Her mother was dying.
Havena’s eyes trailed down to the phone in her hand. Her frown deepened at the image of her family on the lockscreen. Her mother’s smile. And then the heavy weight of guilt began to crash down on her, and she nearly felt as though she couldn’t breathe. Her mother had tried to call her. Twice. And she’d slept right through it.
“What time did they bring her in?” Her voice was hesitant. Her brow furrowed. She didn’t know that she actually wanted to know the answer. And she wished that she hadn’t asked at all.
Her father turned his head to look at her. It was the first time he’d done so since she’d arrived.
“Around 5:30,” he answered, narrowing his eyes almost cautiously. “Why?”
Havena checked her phone again. Then locked it quickly. Her face went pale.
She wanted to puke.
“She… she called me. Twice. 5:05 and 5:11,” she answered quietly.
His head snapped up. His gaze narrowed further. His lips turned into a scowl. “What do you mean she called you?”
His voice was cold. Harsh. Already grieving, though her mother was still breathing. For now.
“She- I didn’t see it,” she defended, her voice shrinking. Wavering, even. “I was asleep, I didn’t-”
“You left your phone on silent again,” he snapped. “She could have been calling you for help , Havena. And you ignored her.”
“I didn’t ignore her,” Havena shook her head as she spoke. “I- I was sleeping, I didn’t know-”
“She called you? For help? And you ignored her? She was dying , Havena! And you couldn’t even pick up the goddamn phone.”
She felt like she’d been stabbed in the chest as reality hit her. The guilt. The weight that began to press down on her shoulders, making her want to just curl up and scream. If she’d just stayed awake for two hours. If she’d just kept her phone off of silence. If she’d just-
Havena shrank under her father’s glare. Cold. Angry. Almost unfeeling. Like he was looking at a stranger, and not the woman he’d help raise for 19 years.
“Dad, I-”
“Don’t.” He cut her off, his voice final. Almost cruel. It held an edge like a knife, sharp and threatening - one she’d never expected to hear. Least of all from her father.
He stormed out of the room without another word. She watched his retreating form through misty eyes, swallowing hard as he disappeared from her view.
And then it happened quickly. First an announcement rang out overhead from the overhead speakers… and then she could hear a panicked yelling from down the hall - a loud, gruff voice that she could recognize anywhere. Her father.
Code Blue, Emergency Department, ground floor, trauma bay 02.
Code Blue, Emergency Department, ground floor, trauma bay 02.
Again.
Code Blue, Emergency Department, ground floor, trauma bay 02.
Ten minutes passed. Then twenty. Havena’s father had still not returned to the small, dark waiting room. Twenty turned to thirty, and then fourty. She was still alone, feet curled up in one of the two-person chairs, tears stinging in her eyes.
And then the alarm sounded again.
Code Blue, Emergency Department, ground floor, trauma bay 02.
Code Blue, Emergency Department, ground floor, trauma bay 02.
Code Blue, Emergency Department, ground floor, trauma bay 02.
This time, the chaos from down the hallway continued for what seemed like forever. Her father’s booming voice, yelling. Frantic. Belligerent. Nurses commanding him to calm himself or he would be escorted out by security. The longer it went on, the more sure Havena became - her mother wasn’t going to make it out of that hospital alive.
And it was her fault.
She had, unintentionally, caused this.
Around 30 minutes later, a figure in dark blue scrubs stood in the doorway to the waiting room with a sorrowful expression. Bile rose in her throat as he quietly, carefully asked her if she wanted to say goodbye to her mother. She nodded, the movement stiff as if she had to force herself to do so.
He walked only a couple of steps behind her, his hand on her upper back gently guiding her down the twisting hallways toward where her mother laid.
She tried to ignore the pitying stares of the ER nurses who had seen her grow up from afar through her father’s stories and seemingly endless photos of her. She tried to ignore the heavy feeling that grew in her head with each step, the invisible baggage slowly lowering itself to her shoulders to remain for what Havena could only believe to be forever.
When they reached the room, Havena stepped inside quietly. Her footsteps barely even made a sound. The room was deafeningly silent as she reached for the curtain that separated her from her mother’s body. And after a long moment of battling with herself, of trying to push the gut-wrenching guilt away, she pulled the curtain aside.
Her father sat in a chair beside her mother’s bed. Silent. Motionless. He didn’t even acknowledge her presence. His cheeks were tear-stained, and his eyes distant. Cold. Full of grief and anger and desperation that he couldn’t bring himself to voice.
And then her eyes traveled upward and landed on her mother - cold, pale, unmoving. Her skin looked almost like porcelain as the color faded from her cheeks. Scrapes lined her face. Her hair had been brushed back, cleaned up as best as the nursing staff could manage.
The room was eerily quiet. Clean. Sterile. And the lights were almost blinding. Too blindingly light for the situation. Her mother’s bedding had clearly been changed with new, clean sheets. Pristine. No sign of the blood that Havena knew had once been there. Her father’s scrubs still wore that same blood from the moment she was brought to the ER.
Havena took her mother’s hand. It was cold. Like ice. The shock of it nearly made her flinch back.
It was the first thing that truly made her realize it. That her mother was gone. She wasn’t sleeping. She wasn’t just resting. She was gone.
And she was never waking up again.
A quiet sob slipped past her lips before she could stop it.
Her father finally looked up from the hold he had on her mother’s hand. For a moment, his expression softened. His brow scrunched up. For a moment, Havena could have sworn that he was going to open his arms for her - to hold her as he had when she was a crying child.
But that softness disappeared as his eyes trailed down to her mother’s hand, which rested within her own.
His jaw hardened. His teeth clenched together.
“”Get. Out.” He snarled at her without warning.
Havena’s lips parted. Her expression fell more than it already had. Hurt set in. “Dad, please-”
But he shook his head, standing from the bed in a rage, his free hand pointing toward the door.
“ Go! ”
She swallowed the lump that was forming in her throat and blinked away the tears burning in her eyes. She stepped closer to her mother and pressed a soft, tearful kiss to her forehead.
Her father yelled again, and she whispered a quiet, broken goodbye . Then she turned and walked out, leaving her mother behind.
The tears practically exploded the moment the door closed. Her eyes burned.
She couldn’t breathe.
She needed to get away. She needed to go home. To go to sleep. To wake up and find her mother downstairs cooking breakfast, so that she could realize what a horrible nightmare this had all been. To make it all end.
But it wouldn’t.
And that urge to run wouldn’t leave her be .
So she did exactly that. She took off, her hand covering her mouth to muffle her cries. She ran down hallway after hallway after hallway, eventually making her way back to the dark, empty waiting room she’d been in before. She didn’t even place herself in a seat.
She made her way to the farthest, empty corner and sank down against the wall.
Footsteps followed. A couple of second after she sank down to the ground, a hand pressed circles into her back. A warm weight landed over her shoulders. Another hand took her own.
Two nurses - familiar, her father’s coworkers - kneeled beside her. One had draped a warm blanket around her shoulders. Both whispered reassurances. Promises that she wasn’t alone.
The older nurse pulled her in immediately, rubbing soothing circles on her back absentmindedly. Havena cried into her shoulder. The younger nurse held her hand. For nearly an hour, they stayed. No judgement. Just presence.
Havena felt as if someone was squeezing her heart tightly, wringing it out as if it were simply a wet rag. Her head pounded. Her throat stung. It hurt .
It hurt so bad . All she wanted was for it to stop. For someone, anyone , to make the pain stop.
And then something shifted.
The air changed.
A chill went down her spine.
She was being watched. Something cold, callus, unfeeling filled the air. A hatred that burned into her, like it was trying to kill her only with its eyes. A sharp gasp left her body. The nurses around her glanced at her questioningly.
But then, as quickly as the feeling came, it faded. It was replaced with something else. Something… familiar. Protective. Safe. It grew closer and closer to her. A weight landed on her cheeks, as if someone was cradling her face with the same amount of care they would use to hold a wounded bird.
And before she knew it, she fell unconscious in the nurses’ arms, and they were calling for help. But she didn’t hear anymore. Their surprised, worried cries faded away.
When she opened her eyes again, she was still sitting in the waiting room floor, just where she had been before. But it was empty. The nurses were gone. The dimly lit room was dead silent.
She was alone.
Her eyes filled with tears once more at that thought - that realization. The truth . Her mother was gone. She and her father had grown apart over the past couple of years. And after getting ill? She basically lost her friends, as well.
She was completely and utterly alone.
The weight was suffocating. The air was thick. Again, she couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think.
Her mother was gone.
Gone .
Gone , and it was her fault .
She wrapped her arms around herself tightly, nearly curling into a ball as she kneeled brokenly on the ground and clung to any fragment of warmth that she could. Her fiery hair trailed down her back, unkempt and messy. She hadn’t had a chance to brush it before leaving the house.
Her vision blurred, not only from tears but also from the pounding headache that had started. It wrapped around her head, squeezing and squeezing and squeezing until she thought she couldn’t take it anymore.
She just wanted it to stop. The physical pain. The emotional pain. The pain that seemed to engulf her entire being, dragging her down, down, down , under the water. She felt like she was drowning.
And then the familiar, safe presence returned. As suddenly as it appeared, a ripple made its way through the air around her - like a pebble dropped into a pond. Soft. Quiet. Gentle. A small warmth lit in her chest, like a candle between her ribs.
Safe, her mind promised.
Again, the slight pressure around her cheeks appeared. Like someone was holding them in their hands, brushing their thumbs oh-so-gently across her cheeks, wiping away the tears as they fell.
And again, the ripple in the atmosphere returned.
Relief. Wonder. Surprise. Hope . Different emotions flooded her, joining her despair and misery and agonizing grief in a way that would have sent her toppling over if not for the hands on her cheeks holding her up.
She opened her eyes slowly.
His face hovered only inches away. His deep, ocean blue eyes were flooded with concern, swirling with an almost panic she’d never seen. His expression was torn in a fearful way - a look you’d see on the face of someone who’d very nearly lost what they hold closest to their heart. Urgency and desperation seemed to almost radiate from him, hitting Havena like a brick.
There was a certain way that his bangs swooped across his forehead. A familiarity to the red and black robes that covered him. In the pauldrons that covered his shoulders and glimmered in the gentle lighting from the lamp across the room. The metal chestplate that adorned him.
And she knew instantly who it was. Him . Anakin Skywalker. Standing in front of her. Holding her face so intimately in his hands, wiping away the proof of her misery.
Her breath caught in her throat.
“Anakin?” She whispered through a trembling, wavering voice.
His eyes widened in surprise. His thumbs stopped their soothing motion on her cheek. His jaw slacked, and he took a shocked step back as he looked down at her.
“Havena?” He echoed, his brow scrunching up. “You can see me?”
“It’s you,” she whispered again. “You’re- you’re here. How…”
Her voice cracked. The tears threatened to fall again. She breathed deeply to hold them back.
Anakin felt the ache in his chest only grow as he gazed down at her. She could practically see the gears turning in his head. He didn’t truly know the answer, she realized. He was as surprised as she was.
The shock that was practically etched onto his face faded at the crack in her voice, and he swallowed hard. Instead, his expression softened, twisting into one of worry as he hesitantly reached up and wiped another tear away.
“What happened?” He asked, his eyes locking onto her own. “Why are you crying?”
A beat of silence. A slow, strangled intake of air. Parted lips that couldn’t bring themselves to produce sound.
After a moment, she was able to compose herself enough to speak, though her words were choked. Forced. Painful. She didn’t even know why she was telling him. He was a virtual stranger. And frankly, she thought he was a figure of her imagination.
Maybe that’s why she told him.
Imaginary friends can’t tell your secrets.
“My mother,” she answered. “She’s… she…”
“She passed away,” Anakin spoke for her, his expression softening even further as he felt the rush of pain burst forth from her side of their bond, hitting him square in the chest.
Havena’s lip quivered as he reached forward and wiped another stray tear, before trailing his hands down to rest comfortingly on her shoulders. As if hoping that the weight of them could help her stay grounded. As if it could help ease her pain.
“I’m so sorry,” he said to her quietly. His voice was sincere. Regretful. Almost echoing her pain as visions of his own mother’s end flashed behind his eyelids. He shook his head, focusing his eyes on her small form.
“And my father,” she choked. “He’s so… angry . Yelling. He said it was my fault. And- and I think he’s right.”
Anakin shook his head, his jaw clenching subtly as he pushed down his anger at her words. “No, Havena,” he said to her, his voice growing firm. “It’s not.”
“It is,” she gasped out behind tears that had broken loose from the dam. “She tried to call me. I had my phone on silent. I- I missed her call, and- and it was so close to the time of the accident… she was calling for help. I-”
“You don’t know that,” he told her, his voice gentle. He squeezed her shoulders lightly in his hands, realizing for the first time just how small she was compared to him. Smaller than he’d thought she would be. Smaller than she had been months ago. “Don’t do that to yourself. I’ve been there and that thought process… it doesn’t get you anywhere.”
They stood there in silence for a few moments - Havena lost in her agony, Anakin fighting the urge to pull her closer, to wrap himself around her as if it would take away her pain. And then Havena spoke again, and her words sent another wave of icy frost surging from the center of his chest. Like he’d been stabbed once more with that icy pitchfork.
“It hurts,” she all but whimpered. “I feel like I can’t breathe.”
“I know,” he answered. “I know it does. But it will ease, eventually. It doesn’t feel like it will, but I promise you that it will.”
A beat of silence passed between them once more before Anakin spoke again. “I feel it. Your pain. Like ice in my chest.”
She flitted her eyes up to his once more, her pained expression shifting to one of confusion. “You… felt it?”
He nodded slowly. “I’ve… had dreams. Seen you in them. When I felt your pain I knew that I had to do something, so I meditated. I’m not sure how that resulted in this , but… you wanted to know how I’m here.”
“I’m glad you are,” she murmured quietly, her arms tightening their hold around her waist. “I’ve… had dreams of you, too.”
Anakin’s eyes widened once more, his brow furrowing as he glanced down at the girl with curiosity swirling around his deep blue eyes. “You have?”
It was Havena’s turn to nod in response. “Since I was little. You were- you were always there. And you’re here , now.”
Slowly, as if she needed to prove to herself that he was real (although she could feel the weight of his hands on her shoulders, still), she reached up to his cheek. The sensation of his skin under her hand was strange. Ethereal, almost. But real. It was achingly real. When she touched his cheek, they both reacted - their eyes sparked, their hearts beat wildly, their mouths ran dry. Recognition.
They looked at each other. They didn’t need to speak - to share words. Their bond did that for them. It hummed between them, like building a bridge between them. Longing. Comfort. Connection.
And for the first time since she’d arrived at the hospital, the pain in Havena’s chest seemed to ease.
“You’re sick,” Anakin broke the silence. “I’ve seen it in my dreams. Your pain. Your fatigue. Your weakness.”
She swallowed hard, dropping her hand to her side. A shiver went down her spine at his words. “We- they…” she breathed out, trying to reel herself back to reality. “We don’t know what it is.”
“I have an idea,” he murmured, reaching down and taking her hand in his own, his thumb rubbing soft, soothing circles on the back of it almost reverently. “Why, that is. But I can’t tell you until I know for sure. I’m trying to find you, Havena.”
Those words made her chest swell with emotions she was too overwhelmed to name. She breathed in. It was the last thing she’d expected to hear fall from his lips. “You’re looking for me?”
“Of course I am,” he told her, a sad smile gracing his features with a hint of teasing offence to his voice. “Do you really think that I’m going to watch you wither away and do nothing about it?”
Her lips parted. She moved to speak, but couldn’t find the words to say.
He was looking for her . He wanted to help .
He continued speaking. “I’m coming, Havena. I don’t know how long it will take, but I will find you. You’re not alone.”
Havena’s lip quivered. Again, she opened her mouth to speak. She wanted to say that no, she was alone. Her father seemed to hate her, her mother was dead. She’d long since lost contact with her friends from school. She had no one.
But Anakin interrupted her once more.
“You’re not alone,” he echoed firmly. “Just… hold on for me, okay? You’re strong. I’ve seen it. But you have to keep looking forward. You’re not alone anymore, Havena. And once I find you… I’ll make damn sure that you never feel alone again.”
Her sobs returned as he spoke, the tears free flowing once more as her helplessness burst from her like a small explosion. His promise lingered in the front of her mind like a soothing balm that she couldn’t believe existed.
He stepped forward.
She almost instinctively pressed her forehead to the cool metal of his chestplate.
His arms were around her in an instant. Like he’d done it a thousand times before. Tightly. Grounding her to the present. One hand around her back, and the other hand in her hair, cradling her head to him tenderly. And they stayed like that - him holding her, her crying in his arms - until all that either one of them saw was black.
Light flickered at the edges of Havena’s perception. Faraway voices crept back into her awareness. The antiseptic smell of the emergency room returned. The smothering grief remained.
His words echoed at the far away edges of her memory.
Wait for me .
And the weight of his arms around her was gone.
When she opened her eyes, Havena was laying on the hard mattress of an emergency room cot. A warm blanket was laying over her body. A cool rag on her forehead. A weight to her left side, holding her hand.
Her father.
A nurse passing by noticed she was awake and raced into the room, immediately moving to check her vitals and hound her with questions. But she didn’t move. Only answered the questions as they were asked, almost as if she were in a daze. Her chest was tight. Her heart pounded violently as her emotions swelled around her. Hope. Fear. Dread. Grief. And something new that she couldn’t explain.
Anakin Skywalker told her that he was coming to find her.
And she didn’t know whether to believe that he was real, or that she was crazy.
Either way… every fiber of her being was screaming at her. Everything was about to change. She could feel it.
Chapter 7: Between Worlds
Summary:
Anakin felt a sudden sharp, icy cold pain in his chest. His head pounded. It was worse than he'd ever felt it, and he knew... it was Havena. Something was wrong. Something was completely and utterly wrong.
When Anakin tried to meditate, to reach for Havena through their bond to try and force a vision of her, something happened. He opened his eyes and was no longer standing on The Resolute, staring out of a viewport. He was standing in the middle of a strange, sterile building, on a strange world that he'd only seen before in his dreams.
And he saw Havena.
But he wasn't the only one who was there - something was watching her. Something dark. And he'd be damned if he let it anywhere near her.
Chapter Text
It had been two weeks since the council meeting where Havena’s rescue had been planned, and Anakin Skywalker hadn’t stopped moving since. He refused. Otherwise, he felt like he would be sitting around, twiddling his thumbs, just waiting for the council to call him to Arkinnea so they could open the rift. Restlessness clung to him like a second skin. He couldn’t afford to sit around and just wait - not with everything seeming to weigh down on him. Havena’s illness. Finding out who her father was (Qui-Gon Jinn). Realizing that they were bonded through the Force. Learning about the council’s involvement in hiding her away in a different reality .
The weight of it all was crushing.
The more that he kept himself busy, the less time he had to sit around and think about it all.
Anakin and Obi-Wan had just finished briefing the council on Anakin’s latest adventure - R2-D2’s capture and recovery. He’d gotten an earful from the council for not wiping R2’s memory banks as he’d been instructed to, but he didn’t let it bother him. R2 was more than a droid. He was Anakin’s friend. And he wasn’t about to wipe his memories away.
Now, Anakin was making his way back toward the Resolute’s bridge. He offered quick nods to the clone troopers he passed in the hallway before sending Ahsoka a quick com reminder about their training session later that day.
As he made his way past one of the large viewports, Anakin slowed to a stop and let his gaze drift out toward the endless sea of stars surrounding The Resolute. It wasn’t often that he stopped to truly admire it. Not in the way that he probably should have.
It wasn’t long before his thoughts drifted. First they landed on his padawan - the extent of her training thus far, how skilled she had become in such a short period of time, how well she was adjusting to being a Commander rather than a peacekeeper (which was more of a double edged sword - she was meant to be a keeper of the peace, not a soldier).
And then his thoughts turned to Obi-Wan. Over the past couple of weeks, Obi-Wan had been more distant than usual. Of course, the war was hard on everyone in some way or another. And Obi-Wan did have council duties to add on top of it all. Part of him wanted to pick Obi-Wan up and throw him onto Naboo, strand him at Padme’s lake house, and leave him there for a week. Maybe, just maybe , he’d be able to get Obi-Wan to loosen up for five seconds if he did.
As much as he hated to say it, Anakin could sense that it wasn’t the war dragging him down. It was something else. Something heavier.
Havena Jinn.
Obi-Wan had always held Qui-Gon Jinn in the highest regard. Idolized him, even. He was a model Jedi - other than his incessent disobeing of the council. He was Wise. Unshakable. Principled. Discerning. But Havena Jinn cracked that image. She was proof that Qui-Gon had broken the Jedi code that he’d sworn to follow.
Qui-Gon had lied to him. He’d fallen in love with Queen Tressana during their long-term mission on the planet. He’d formed an attachment. And from that attachment, a child was born. And then, without so much of a whisper to Obi-Wan about it, Qui-Gon had taken that child and stashed her away from not just the order, not just Obi-Wan, but from their entire universe .
And now she was sick.
And Obi-Wan Kenobi was expected to rescue and protect the living proof of his master’s disobedience.
Well. He wasn’t expected to, per se. But after everything that Qui-Gon had done for him - after giving him a chance as a padawan, and sacrificing years to train him, he owed it to Qui-Gon. The least he could do was save Havena.
But that didn’t mean that Qui-Gon’s betrayal didn’t sting.
Anakin winced, rubbing his temples as his headache worsened.
His chest followed the pain in his head.
That familiar, ice cold ache worked its way through his chest, making him feel as even the blood in his veins was freezing. Like his heart had been replaced with a block of ice. He grabbed his chest with a slight stumble and a scowl, his brow furrowing in concern.
Havena?
He froze and immediately closed his eyes to center himself. To focus in on the force. To reach for her through the force.
Something was wrong. He needed to know what.
A sharp ringing filled his ears. The world around him began to spin. He grabbed onto the edge of the viewport for stability. The ringing in his ears grew louder, crecendoing until his vision finally swam into blackness and the world around him was silent.
Until it wasn’t.
When Anakin opened his eyes again, he was no longer aboard the Resolute.
He stood in a building he didn’t recognize. Smooth, polished tile floors were unlike anything he’d seen in any Republic facility. The walls were off-white and decorated with framed paintings every few meters. Repetitive beeping filled the air around him, the tones never matching, their rhythms different.
It was busy. People bustled through the halls - all humans - dressed in uniforms Anakin had never seen before. Others wore casual clothing… the kind that Anakin had only ever glimpsed in his dreams. The dreams of her.
Was he on Havena’s planet?
He tried to make sense as it all as people rushed past him on all sides, brushing against him without so much as a glance. It irritated him, and he felt his anger begin to rise until he looked down at his own hand.
It was glowing blue. Translucent. Like he wasn’t fully there. Like he was a ghost .
Was he a ghost?
His confusion only grew.
This wasn’t how his visions and dreams of Havena usually worked. He’d always been a passive, third person observer. He watched her from afar like a silent audience member in a holodrama. But now… now he could move. He could explore. He could follow.
And then he saw her… so follow, he did.
A flash of red hair up ahead was what caught his eye first. And then he noticed her stiff posture and her trembling hands. It was undeniably Havena. She walked beside a man in a white coat - a doctor? - who seemed to be guiding her gently through the corridor. Anakin trailed after them as if by instinct. As if the Force was pushing him toward her. He didn’t even think about it - his feet just followed her.
His unease only grew as he got closer. The way she was holding herself, it was… so unlike her. She was exhausted, per usual. But now… now she wasn’t just tired. She looked worn down. Fragile. And the expression on her face? Complete and utter devastation thinly veiled by a cracking and failing mask.
The air was tense. The Force was tense. The people were tense.
Something was wrong. Absolutely, without a doubt, terribly wrong.
They rounded a corner. Anakin passed a group of women who were seated at a work station, their expressions all troubled. They whispered to each other in hushed tones, occasionally casting somber, pitying glances toward Havena after she’d passed them.
“That poor thing,” one of them murmured. “To lose her mother so young… and so horrifically at that…”
“And her father is so distraught. I’ve never heard Robert sound like that a day in my life. DId you hear him when she coded the second time?”
Another nurse cut in then. “You’d be distraught too if your wife was brought here in that state,” she scolded. “They don’t understand the full extent, either. Those wounds… they didn’t look like they only came from a car crash.”
A younger woman frowned. “You got her cleaned up though, right?”
“Of course we did,” she replied. “We hid as much as we could. We didn’t want Robert or their daughter to see.”
Another woman spoke up. “What could have caused some of those wounds? I mean, some of them were like burns? That one on her abdomen… it was like a hot knife went through her! The skin was charred . That one didn’t even bleed much. The wound was cauterized.”
Anakin froze. His heart stopped beating in his chest.
Charred skin echoed through his mind like a warning. His body tensed. Like a hot knife went through her .
That… that sounded like a lightsaber wound.
He swallowed hard. Havena’s mother had been attacked. She didn’t die in some crash. Not as a result of one, anyway. She was killed . It was purposeful. Intentional.
His expression hardened. He didn’t wait. Immediately, Anakin spun on his heel and followed the path Havena had taken. He’d only taken a few steps before he stopped dead in his tracks as a wave of emotion slammed into him all at once, more intense than anything he’d felt before.
Uncertainty. Devastation. Heartbreak. Anger. All in that order, one right after the other. And once more, the ache in his chest raged with the force of a winter blizzard. His knees nearly buckled.
Havena .
A beat later, Havena stumbled out of a room, her face scrunching up as she closed the door and raced down the hallway. Anakin’s feet were moving before his mind could even catch up - but he wasn’t the only one. Two of the women from the work station immediately followed behind her.
“Watch our patients!” They called out to their coworkeres.
Anakin moved to follow them before he once more stopped dead where he stood.
Again… the feeling of wrong came over him. The force shifted, pulling at him almost frantically. Tense. Unsettled. He wasn’t alone.
And then he felt it. The presence. It was dark, unfeeling. Emitting so much anger and rage that it nearly knocked him over. Such callusness that it made him sick. Anakin knew that the presence had to have something to do with the attack on Havena’s mother. In fact, if he were a betting man, he would bet money on it.
He didn’t hesitate. He moved on instinct, turning and rushing toward the presence immediately.
“Come out!” He barked, finding his voice once more. “I know you’re here!”
He sprinted through the corridors. Each turn of a corner saw his anger mounting. The dark presence seemed to stay one step ahead of him the entire time.
Anakin clenched his fist. “You coward!” He accused. “Where are you?”
“Me?” The reply sounded. The man’s voice was colder than anything Anakin had ever heard before. Low, seemingly ancient. Laced with venom. “I’m everywhere, and I am nowhere.”
Anakin stopped in his tracks, clenching his fist at his side. “Stop messing with me. Who are you?”
“That is not for you to know. Not yet.”
The jedi’s jaw clenched tightly, and his eyes narrowed. “Enough with the riddles,” he demanded. “Why don’t you show yourself and talk to me face to face? Or are you too much of a coward to do so?”
“Cowardice is a strong word. I prefer… strategic.” The voice responded, chucking to itself toward the end. “But you… how are you here?”
“Hey, I’m the one asking the questions here.” He snapped, beginning to walk forward. “You reek of the dark side.”
“You must be talented with the force to sense me here,” the voice mused. “Especially when you yourself are essentially a ghost here.” The ragged voice laughed. “Yes, you are strong. Perhaps that is why you are connected to the girl.”
Connected to… Force… how did he know about her? Anakin’s blood ran cold as his entire body tensed.
“What girl?” He asked incredulously .”I don’t know if you can tell, you know, being a disembodied voice and all, but there are a lot of girls in this building.”
“You know very well which girl, my boy. The girl. Poor child, losing her mother must be so hard on her.”
The jedi froze. His mind seemed to run a mile a minute, flooded by a sudden realization. This man - well, voice - knew about Havena Jinn. He just so happened to be there, in the hospital, as the woman died. And with the dark energy that seemed to eb and twist and pull in the air around him as if even the force did not want the presence there… as if the force itself was afraid of him.
“It was you,” Anakin muttered, finally piecing the puzzle together. “You murdered her mother.”
“Oh, please. Spare me the holier-than-thou speech.” The voice scoffed. “She refused to cooperate up until the very end. She certainly put up a better fight than I imagined an insignificant speck of dust would. But it wasn’t enough.”
A chill went down Anakin’s spine, but he brushed it off and crossed his arms. “She was more significant than you,” he fired. “And better than you could ever hope to be. What do you want with the girl?”
The voice let out a guttural laugh - one that ate into Anakin’s very soul. Its sound reverberated throughout the halls of the large building, but yet it seemed that only Anakin could hear it. He stepped forward, forcing down the rage building in his chest.
“She is in the way,” the voice said simply.
Anakin felt his hair raise, a tingle of warning shooting down his spine as the presence slowly drifted away from the area - away from the jedi. He glanced around him, eyes darkened yet hyperfocused as he planned his next move. Once the presence completely disappeared from the immediate area, Anakin realized that the familiar sting of cold was surging through his chest stronger than he had ever felt it.
How had he missed that? How had he been able to ignore it for so long?
It didn’t matter, he decided. He needed to go to her. She needed him, even if he could only be there as a transparent entity, even if he could not interact with her. He had to go.
And so the jedi retraced his steps. He walked quickly up and down the steps once more (he could not remember which floor he had started at, and tried each floor until something looked familiar). He moved through the winding hallways, trusting the force to guide him to the source of the icy pain in his chest.
And suddenly he felt it - the dark presence. It was back. And seemingly at the exact moment he noticed it, Anakin’s veins ran cold once more and the freezing ache in his chest worsened significantly. And then the jedi knew without a doubt where the presence was centered at: Havena. Without further thought, Anakin darted down the halls, reaching out with the force to latch on to the presence.
If it harmed her, he would kill it. He didn’t care who it was. He had to have a physical body somewhere, right?
Finally, Anakin turned left down another corridor. His body froze in shock and horror flooded through him as he saw a dark figure, hunched over and dressed in black robes, staring into the dimly-lit room where Anakin could only assume Havena was located. The figure’s hood covered his face and obscured any potential trace of identity from Anakin.
The figure turned, yet shadows from the hood continued to obscure the attacker’s face.
“Hey!” Anakin shouted, beginning to barrel toward him.
He quickly held his hand out in front of him and focused all of his energy on force shoving the figure down the hallway. But ever so calmly, almost tauntingly, the figure held up his own hand and was able to stop Anakin’s force push in its tracks. The jedi struggled, face red from both his anger and from the pure pressure of fighting back against the figure’s own force push.
With a low, echoing laughter, the figure lowered his hand. Anakin felt the harsh repelling pressure slowly dissipate, and then in the blink of an eye the darkness surrounding them was gone - just like it had never been there in the first place. The force around them calmed, no longer seeming unstable or restless.
His fist clenched tighter as he slowly lowered his hand and glared at the space where the figure once stood. He examined the hall around him and sighed, grateful that the figure was gone once more.
The cold in his chest dulled slightly, and it was then that Anakin realized Havena must have sensed the figure that had been watching her through the door. The pain had worsened because of her fear.
The council had said that she was strong in the force.
He approached the doorway slowly. Inside, Havena huddled in the corner of the room, clutched tightly by the older nurse while the others tried to comfort her. She looked so small. So broken. Each cry that slipped past her lips only served to worsen the stabbing, icy pain in his chest.
His heart shattered at the sight.
It was a pain like no other, Anakin knew. It was the same pain he had felt when he’d believed his own mother was dead or dying. He could still vividly remember the feeling of the world crashing down on top of him, the guilt, the shame.
He hated that she had to endure it.
Hesitantly, reluctantly, Anakin stepped toward the trio. He felt as the force began to flow around him as if it were shoving him toward the heartbroken girl. The closer to her that he was, the worse the icy chill in his chest became… and the more remorse he felt for not being able to help her. For not making a move sooner to bring her home before anything like that could happen.
He knelt before her cautiously as frustration began to build deep within him. He wanted to help. To comfort her. To hold her. To tell her that it would be alright. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t touch her. He couldn’t speak to her. But the force had brought him here. Why?
The urge only grew stronger, and before he could realize what he was doing, Anakin found his hands cupped around the girl’s flushed cheeks. To his surprise, they landed on what felt like a solid surface instead of phasing through her as he had with every other person that he’d passed by.
He could touch her?
He didn’t have time to question it. The room around him span. His vision went back. And when he reopened his eyes, he was standing in the center of the room. The nurses from before were gone, and Havena was there. Alone.
Sobbing in the corner of the room.
His heart clenched painfully in his chest at the sight. At the sound of her cries. He clenched his jaw again, bracing himself against the sharp chill in his chest. His body acted on it’s own. He crossed the room and, just as before, knelt in front of her. Within seconds he held her face gently in his hands, his thumbs carefully, as if she were made of glass, wiping the tears from her cheeks.
She looked up at him. Her voice wavered. Her body trembled. Her breath hitched.
And then she spoke - one word. His name.
And after years of waiting for that moment, it was the most beautiful sound he’d ever heard.
Chapter 8: Stranger in the Dark
Summary:
Anakin couldn't stop thinking about that vision of Havena. Her pain. Her eyes. The agony and trembling in her voice. The way she practically fell into him, and he'd wrapped his arms around her as if he'd done it over and over again, a million times before.
But worst of all, he couldn't stop thinking about the lightsaber wound that took her mother's life. The figure that stood in the doorway, stalking Havena... *his* Havena... threatening her life under his breath.
Anakin couldn't take it. The council believed it was a sith. That Havena was in danger.
Now they were all on board with one thing: They had to act sooner than planned. They had to extract Havena Jinn and bring her home.
Chapter Text
It had taken Anakin two hours to calm himself and regain some sense of control over himself after the most recent vision - if he could call it such - that he’d had of Havena. To shake off the fog from it all. He’d even nearly missed his training session with Ahsoka, which was something that the Togruta girl was not about to let slide.
Ahsoka had known that something was bothering Anakin. And much to her master’s dismay, she had spent almost the entire two hour training session grilling him for answers that he stubbornly refused to give her. He deflected each time.
Some things were too close, too personal, to share. Ahsoka didn’t need to know about Havena Jinn or the rescue mission currently being planned to bring her home. And she certainly didn’t need to know about the vision he’d had just before their session. He would tell her eventually, of course. But not now. Not while the bond was unpredictable. Not while Havena - and, by extension, Anakin himself - was so vulnerable.
Anakin didn’t hesitate to return directly to his chambers following their training session. He needed to be alone. He needed to think , though he wasn’t sure what good it would do.
He couldn’t keep the memory of the vision off of his mind. He couldn’t stop seeing her in that dark room, curled up in the floor in the far corner. He couldn’t stop hearing her cries. Or seeing her tears.
His fingertips still tingled with the memory of her touch.
The recognition in her eyes had taken Anakin by storm. First, Havena had actually seen him. She’d felt his hands cradling her. Felt him wiping her tears away. She had reacted to him, her eyes following his movements, her trembling had slowed. By the end of the vision, as he held her in his arms, he had even noticed her breathing begin to slow. To regulate.
The pain in his chest had eased, though only slightly.
She’d spoken to him. He had spoken to her . It was something he had been wishing for since he was a child seeing her in dreams. He’d just wanted to speak with her. And finally , as if the universe had decided that nearly 15 years was long enough to wait, it had happened.
And she said his name. His name. Anakin. Havena Jinn knew his name. She’d admitted to having dreams of him. She was plagued by the same dreams that he was. And even though she wasn’t a trained Jedi, their connection reached her as well.
Anakin sat with that information until the next morning. He had barely slept - just laid awake in his standard-issue GAR cot with eyes wide open and thoughts that just wouldn’t slow down .
He couldn’t keep her off his mind. How she looked. The way she sounded. The grief and despair that poured off of her in droves, as if months of frustration had all flooded her body at once. And then he thought about the dark presence that he’d found staring her down in her moment of vulnerability.
The figure who so casually admitted to killing Havena’s mother. Who’s unfeeling voice had absolutely no qualms with admitting that Havena was in his way . Anakin didn’t know quite what Havena was in the way of , what plan the dark presence was trying to put into play.
He wasn’t sure he wanted to know, frankly.
All that he knew, and all that he needed to know, was that Havena was in danger.
Because Anakin was fairly certain that the man who had been stalking her in that hospital was a sith. Meaning that the sith, who Qui-Gon had so desperately been trying to hide her from, already knew about her existence.
And whatever reality that Qui-Gon had hidden her in? It wasn’t safe. She was not safe there. Not anymore.
Which meant that Anakin needed to act as soon as possible. He needed to find her as soon as possible. Before it was too late.
Anakin paced in front of the com table with his arms crossed as he eyed the figures of Obi-Wan, Plo Koon, Mace Windu, and Master Yoda. His brow was set firm, his eyes narrowed as he worked to piece together how to phrase his concerns. The masters simply all stared him back, their calm demeanors sharply contrasting with Anakin’s racing heart until, finally, Obi-Wan spoke first.
“Well… are you going to speak, Anakin?” Obi-Wan’s tone was lightly teasing at first, but his demeanor tightened once he noticed the almost panicked undertones of Anakin’s expression. “What’s going on?”
“Master…” Anakin trailed off for a moment, his eyes trailing temporarily to Master Yoda before flickering back to Obi-Wan. “I had another vision. It wasn’t like the others.”
Master Yoda hummed. His ears piqued, and he raised an eyebrow at the young general. “Another vision, hmm?” He echoed, placing both hands on his gimer stick. “Different, this one was. Feel your concern from afar, we can.”
Anakin nodded, swallowing hard. “It wasn’t like the others,” he agreed. “I was actually there. Not just… watching from afar. I could even utilize the force. It was… strange.”
Again, Yoda hummed. “You did more than watch, I sense.”
“I…” Anakin’s words were caught in his throat for a few fleeting seconds. “I spoke to her. I was able to… touch her. She knew I was there.”
“You spoke to her?” Mace asked, crossing his arms. “Like a connection? You had a conversation?”
He glanced between the four masters and then nodded slowly.
It was Plo who spoke next. Obi-Wan just stood there, his brow furrowed, stroking his beard.
“And what did she tell you? What did you tell her ?”
“She was crying. Her mother had just… died. Her father blamed it on her. She was… inconsolable. I calmed her down enough to talk,” he told the council. “I… told her that I know she’s sick. That we’re trying to find her so that we can help.”
“Two-way communication?” Plo Koon responded, his expression showing surprise. “That is… nearly unprecedented.”
“Her mother died?” Obi-Wan spoke questioningly. “How did it happen?”
Anakin’s expression hardened at the question. “That’s why I wanted to speak with all of you,” he admitted. “I believe that Havena is in danger. More danger than we originally thought.”
The room grew quiet. Obi-Wan’s breath hitched. Mace’s brow furrowed, and his grip on his own arms tightened. Yoda’s ears flicked, and his expression grew troubled.
“From what I was able to gather in the vision, it was officially a crash. She was driving one of the ground vehicles common to her planet. But I overheard the med center staff talking. Her mother had wounds that couldn’t be explained by the crash,” Anakin recounted, his mind now more focused and his expression becoming unreadable. “Including wounds that resembled burns. An impalement wound with charred skin around it.”
Obi-Wan’s brow furrowed further. He shifted his weight and moved to cross his arms as his eyes scanned Anakin’s expression. “A lightsaber wound?”
“More, there is, young Skywalker. Tell us, please.” Yoda urged.
“I felt something while I was there. A presence. Dark. Cold. Angry. It was watching her. I chased it away, but it… confessed to killing her mother. Confessed to wanting Havena out of the way .”
Tension filled the air.
Windu was the first to break it.
“Did you get a name?” He asked, his voice growing cold.
Anakin just shook his head, his fist clenching tightly at his side. “I couldn’t get anything more out of him before he disappeared.”
“Troubling, this is,” Yoda spoke, his voice growing solemn. “A sith. Watching her, they are. Planning their move. If the Sith is closing in, quicker must we move.”
Windu cleared his throat. “We’ll have to move up the ritual. If the sith are aware that we know how to get to her…”
Yoda hummed again, his voice low and his eyes aimed at the ground. Then he looked up toward Anakin. “Rendezvous with Master Kenobi you should. We will send for you soon. For now, prepare for the ritual, we shall. Mind your thoughts, Young Skywalker. Focused you must be if to find her, you are.”
“Yes, Master,” Anakin responded, nodding his head stiffly.
And then the communication ended. One by one, Yoda, Windu, and Plo’s forms disappeared from the table. But Obi-Wan’s concerned eyes remained.
“She will be fine, Anakin,” Obi-Wan spoke calmly, as if working to reassure himself as well. “As Master Yoda said… you must mind your thoughts. Center yourself. I can sense your worry from here. I understand that patience is not your strong suit, but I believe that we have no other choice here.”
Anakin clenched his fists tighter at his side. “Yes, Master,” he answered, tightening his jaw for a moment.
Obi-Wan’s expression softened slightly.
“And Anakin… if you have any other visions… let me know. I, too, want to see her safely returned to Coruscant. I owe it to Qui-Gon. And to you.”
Anakin swallowed hard. He lowered his gaze. “...thank you, Master.”
There was a click as the communication ended, and Anakin was alone with his thoughts once more. His shoulders slumped forward while his eyes fixated on the closed comms. He didn’t move for a moment. He stood as still as a statue as his thoughts raced back and forth, one right after the other, seemingly too fast for him to process. And then suddenly he turned on his heels, straightened his posture, and marched toward the bridge.
He fiddled with the communicator on his wrist, and held himself back from smirking when his apprentice’s small, blue, translucent form appeared.
“Hey Skygu-” She tried to greet her master, but paused once she noticed his odd demeanor - the creases in his brow, his furrowed brows, and the fact that he seemed to be moving quickly. Very quickly. “Is everything okay?”
“Set course to rendezvous with Obi-Wan. I’m sending you the coordinates now.”
Ashoka nodded. “Yes, master. Are you sure that you’re okay?”
Anakin slowed his march to a slow walk, ignoring his padawan’s questions for the time being. Should he tell her? Should he risk telling her about the prophecy? Or about the visions? The connection? The possible bond between them?
Ashoka would never do anything to compromise a mission - not purposefully, anyway. And Anakin knew her well enough to know that she was trustworthy. But at the same time, the more who knew about Havena, the more risk there would be to her life… especially since the sith were beginning to get involved.
And an argument could be made that it would be better for more people to know (only the ones Anakin would trust with his life, of course) in order to keep her safe. Jedi especially. But Ashoka wasn’t a jedi knight yet - she was just a padawan. And what if knowing would put her in danger as well?
She’s already involved in this war, Anakin told himself. If she’s trustworthy on a battlefield, then I can trust her with this.
But even still, Anakin was uneasy.
“Meet me in conference room E005. We need to talk.”
Chapter 9: The Shadow in the Woods
Summary:
Havena didn't want to face her father when she returned from her uncle's house. Instead, she took her mother's favorite book and spent her day reading in the woods by her house to relax and reflect on the strange dream she'd had.
And she realized that Anakin was right:
She wasn't alone.He just didn't realize how twistingly literal his comforting words were.
Chapter Text
There were many moments in Havena’s life when she felt deeply grateful that her family lived in the countryside. As a child, she’d been terrified of the forest, but with time, that fear gave way to freedom. She could play in the trees for hours, unbothered and unafraid—especially when her parents were nearby. Her father had even built her a treehouse about a quarter mile from the house. It sat beside an old air-conditioned shed that her mother had renovated into a library and home office—a place Havena now found herself aching to retreat to.
Maybe a little too often.
She knew she’d have to face her father eventually. But lately, she’d been doing everything she could to avoid him. His angry, cruel words still rang in her mind on repeat. She knew he was grieving. He wasn’t good at handling strong emotions, and sometimes those emotions erupted like a storm—this wasn’t the first time. But it was, without question, the most painful.
Maybe it hurt so much because… he was right?
If she had just stayed awake that day… if she hadn’t dozed off in frustration… maybe her mother would still be here. Maybe she could’ve answered the phone in time. But she hadn’t. She’d slept—and her mother died.
It was her fault. She was sure of it. And he had every right to be furious. But that didn’t make the ache go away.
A little over a week had passed since the funeral. They’d held a small ceremony by the lake next to their home. At the end, her father scattered Emily’s ashes to the wind.
The entire event was a blur. She vaguely recalled seeing aunts, uncles, extended family, friends she hadn’t spoken to in months—some in years. But their faces were hazy, like unfinished sketches.
One moment did stick.
After dinner, while most guests lingered outside, Havena slipped indoors. It was all too much - too loud, too crowded, too bright. Her head throbbed. Her body ached. The lights stung her eyes as she stepped into the quieter house. For the first time in days, she settled on the living room sofa without fearing her father’s unexpected entrance.
Each step toward the cabinet deepened the burning in her legs. She grabbed some ibuprofen, downed the pills, and limped to the couch. She leaned her cane against the armrest and sank into the cushions, gaze drifting to the fireplace mantle.
Havena drew in her surroundings again, her eyes painfully stuck on the family picture sitting on the mantle. It was from Havena’s 16th birthday. They’d taken a small trip camping that year - something Havena absolutely loved. But it wasn’t until they arrived at the campsite that she’d realized why they were there… her parents had bought her a telescope.
It was nice - large, sleek white exterior. It sat on a black adjustable tripod at the top of the hill directly behind their campsite, already surrounded by three camping chairs. They were on a hike in the picture. Havena’s mother, Emily, had stopped a nearby hiker and asked him to take a picture of them.
It was Havena’s favorite picture from that trip; just her, her mother, and her father, all of them wearing genuine, beaming smiles on their faces. Her father stood to her left, one arm around her in a half-hug while he held his hiking pole in the other hand. Her mother stood to her right, her hands on Havena’s shoulder while she crouched down and forward, her bright smile just inches from her daughter’s.
That was the last time they’d gone camping. She wished desperately that they had taken just one more trip.
Just one last time. Just one last trip as a whole family, with everyone happy and healthy and able-bodied and alive. She would even settle for just being alive.
While she was stuck in her own thoughts, Havena hadn’t heard the patio door behind her slide open and closed again. Nor did she notice the subtle pairs of footsteps that seemed to move so quietly, so almost-hesitantly. And when their owners’ spoke, it shook the girl out of her fantasy.
“Vena?”
The girl twirled around so quickly that she nearly pulled a muscle. But when she saw the familiar faces of her Aunt Charlotte and Uncle Noah. Noah was her father’s brother, and Charlotte was his wife - the embodiment of sweetness, as her mother used to call her. Used to.
“Hi, Vena,” Charlotte gave Havena a small wave and a soft smile, but it didn’t reach her sad eyes. “We were wondering where you’ve been hiding. I don’t think we’ve seen you since the ceremony.”
Havena pursed her lips and then returned Charlotte's soft smile. “Yeah… sorry. I just…”
Noah nodded and hesitantly walked over to the girl, sitting himself on the couch cushion beside her. “Needed some time?” He watched as she nodded. “I don’t blame you there. I’d hide from Rebecca’s green bean casserole too.”
Havena cracked a small smile in agreement. “It is really dry, isn’t it?”
He threw his head back and laughed, squeezing Havena’s shoulder lightly. “There’s that smile!” He gestured subtly for Charlotte to take a seat, and she made her way to the love seat on the other side of the coffee table. “In all seriousness… how are you? With everything?”
She nodded slowly and looked to the ground. “I’m fine,” she said softly in response. “Just… tired I guess.”
“You guess?” Charlotte tilted her head. “You don’t have to lie to us sweetheart, you can tell us.”
“Come on, kiddo. I practically helped raise you. What’s going on in that head of yours?”
“Nothing,” she assured. “I’m okay.”
But her eyes betrayed her. She blinked the tear away before they could notice, but it wasn’t quick enough.
“You know…” Noah started, “I might just have to invite Rebecca in and tell her just how much you love her casserole and how much you just can’t wait to eat more. She did make two pans.” He grinned, but it quickly turned to a frown when he noticed his niece staring absently at the picture on the mantle. He hesitantly stood up and made his way to the picture before picking it up and returning to his seat.
Her uncle turned it around to face Charlotte. “You remember this?” He asked. “That was a day.”
Charlotte smiled. “Ohhh that day was so much fun, just admit it.”
Havena tilted her head. “What do you mean? You guys weren’t there.”
“Who do you think set everything up?” Noah grinned. “Your parents rented the campsite for an extra day so that Char and I could sneak over there and spend the day setting the camp up. Couldn’t set up the decorations until the morning of, but we got all of the equipment set up and ready to go - including that telescope of yours.”
“Oh, that was awful. I couldn’t understand those instructions at all,” Charlotte sighed. “I don’t know how we got it put together well enough that it actually worked. I was starting to worry.”
“Oh, yeah. That thing was a bitch.” Noah agreed, turning his attention back to Havena. “But your mother was so excited. It was all her idea, you know. She spent weeks researching telescopes, I really started to think she was trying to find you an entire observatory.”
“Your reaction made it worth it though,” Charlotte mused, brushing her brunette hair behind her ear.
Noah nodded. “Sure did, Venus. I thought your mom was going to burst at the seams when she saw you run to it like you did. She was so relieved.”
Havena swallowed the lump forming in her throat, and blinked again to get the tears away before anyone else noticed them. Her mother really was an angel. Figuratively but… she supposed that it was more true now than it had ever been. She drew in a breath and shakily exhaled as softly as she could.
“It's my fault,” she whispered quietly, her voice so low that her aunt and uncle couldn’t even hear her.
“What’d you say?” Her uncle leaned in a bit, his brows furrowed. “I didn’t hear you.”
“It’s my fault.”
Charlotte and Noah glanced at each other, their reminiscent expressions slowly fading to a frown. They stayed silent for a moment as they processed the young woman’s words, and it was Noah who broke from his trance first.
“No it’s not,” he said quickly, his brow scrunched up in confusion. “It was an accident, Venus. Why would you think-”
“She called me,” the girl responded as the tears became harder and harder to hold back. “When the accident happened, she called me. And I- I slept through the call.”
Charlotte straightened herself and stood up before walking toward the girl and sitting on her other side. “That isn’t your fault, Havena.” She frowned and placed her hand on the girl’s knee.
Noah, on the other hand, became oddly silent.
“It is.” She asserted as a tear slowly made its way down her cheek. “If I’d answered, we could have gotten her help sooner and maybe she wouldn’t have…”
“That’s a lot of maybes,” her aunt offered. “Honey, chances are that it may not have made a difference. You can’t place that burden on yourself.”
“If she’d gotten to the hospital sooner, if they’d had more time to stop the bleeding-”
“That’s still a lot of ifs,” she frowned, wrapping her arm around the girl’s shoulders. “The damage was too extensive… I don’t think that anything would have stopped it. You can’t blame yourself for this. Your father said that it was a miracle she even made it to the hospital.”
Havena choked down a sob, her body tensing subtly at the mention of her father. “I could have-”
Noah squeezed his niece’s shoulder tightly before breaking his silence. “Look at me,” He demanded, and Havena reluctantly obliged. Noah shook his head. “There was nothing you could have done. Nothing. Do you understand me?”
She nodded slowly, aiming her eyes at the ground.
“Now,” he sighed. “Who put that ridiculous idea in your head?”
“Me,” she answered plainly.
But the man beside her shook his head. “No. I don’t believe that. Who told you it was your fault?”
She didn’t answer, yet the silence told Noah everything he needed to know. There was only one other person who she would have been around regularly. He knew she’d been sick, and that she hadn’t been going out as often as she used to. Emily had even mentioned to him a couple of months ago that she was worried about the girl because she barely left the house.
It had to have been Robert.
“It was Robert, wasn’t it?” Noah finally asked the girl. “He said it. Why in the hell would he say something as stupid as that?”
Again, Havena did not respond. Before she knew it, she was in Charlotte's arms as the woman squeezed her tightly. And that was it. That hug managed to break through the gate, and Havena finally allowed herself to cry.
“He was angry,” she cried, “Told me to- made me leave the room. I didn’t get to tell her a full goodbye.”
And Noah saw red. He pursed his lips, grateful that the girl was looking at the ground rather than him.
“It’s okay, Venus. It’s okay. This wasn’t your fault, okay?”
The girl let out a sob in response. Finally Charlotte and Noah locked eyes, and Charlotte tightened her hold on the 19 year old while Noah stormed off outside. Charlotte pet the girl’s hair comfortingly as she watched her husband leave the room, vaguely aware of what he was going to do.
Havena didn’t need to be near that.
“Hey, Vena,” she pulled away only slightly as the girl’s cries began to slow down. “How about we go pack your things, and you can come stay with us for a while. I think you need to get out of here for a bit, what do you think?”
The girl didn’t even think before nodding in agreement. Charlotte gently guided her upstairs and away from the chaos that she knew was about to unfold downstairs. Thankfully most of the guests had left by that point, but it wouldn’t matter anyway. She was sure they would hear about it.
The next time Havena saw her father, he had a black eye.
She wouldn’t have condoned it if she’d known. She might’ve tried to stop Noah. But somewhere, deep down, there was a small flicker of satisfaction.
She had just returned from four quiet days with her aunt and uncle—playing games, helping with their daughter Claire, pretending—just for a while—that things were normal. That her mom was just upstairs reading. That the world hadn’t fallen apart.
But once they dropped her off at home, it all came rushing back.
So she returned to the woods—her sanctuary. The air was cool enough not to aggravate her condition. She sat beneath the old treehouse, clutching her mother’s favorite book: Peter Pan.
She’d reached the chapter where Peter enters the children’s window. The author had described that scene as if it were… normal. As if it was *expected* to happen. As if sharing a dream with someone, just as the children all dreamed of Neverland simultaneously, was normal. Not only that, but each child had *their own* area of Neverland to dream about. Like it was meant to be. That had always fascinated her—the idea that dreams could serve a purpose. That dreams were meant to tell you something. To warn. To inform. To teach. To encourage.
Just like the dream she’d had.
She’d seen Anakin Skywalker many times—training Ahsoka, arguing with Obi-Wan, clashing with the council. But lately, he’d seemed different. Heavier. Distant. Stiff. His sharp wit dulled, his arguments sparse. Something in him had shifted.
She had chalked it up to her imagination. Her stress. Her illness. Her grief bleeding into the fantasy world she often escaped to. She had gotten to the point where she truly thought that her dreams were just some strange, reverse version of maladaptive daydreaming.
But then—that night—he came to her.
A vision. A ghost. A hallucination.
A guardian angel.
He crouched in front of her and gently cradled her cheeks as if he were holding glass. She still remembered the jolt of calm that passed through her like a wave. The way it enveloped her, grounded her, comforted her. The way that he held her… it was so real. Too unbelievably real.
And then he’d spoken to her. Soothed her. Whispered words of comfort that were so soft - so sincere - that they cut through the thick fog of pain that had been suffocating her all evening.
She hadn’t forgotten why she was upset, but for a moment, she’d felt peace. For even just a few minutes, she’d had an ounce of solace in her agony, anchoring her to reality and refusing to let go.
And it terrified her.
Because it felt real. Tangible. Like he’d truly been there, anchoring her to something bigger than the pain. And giving her a reminder that she couldn’t lose herself to it. But he wasn’t real. He was a character from a movie. A product of fiction. A figment of her imagination that she most definitely had not had an actual conversation with.
Which meant… she was losing it. Actually, undeniably, without a doubt, losing it.
But was it the fact that she’d had the dream that made her crazy? Or was it the fact that, even for just a few moments, she had let herself believe that maybe, just maybe, there was someone in her corner. Someone familiar. Someone who truly cared.
Still, she clung to that moment, both comforted and haunted by it. A part of her knew she’d never forget it. That it would be painfully carved into her memory, even if it made no sense at all.
She flipped a page in Peter Pan. She could almost hear her mother’s voice reading it beside her, the way she used to. The voices she’d used for the different characters, especially Captain Hook. It had always been her mother’s favorite book… and now it was hers.
Slowly but surely, the sky faded to twilight. Havana let out a quiet sigh as she closed the book and stood from her place before beginning to pack her things. She really didn’t want to get stuck in the woods at night. It was better for her to face the music and go home than to be caught in the woods with whatever bear or coyote lurked inside.
A chill went down her spine as she was stuffing Peter Pan back into her bag. She paused in place for a moment, just listening to the woods around her.
But there was nothing. No sticks cracking, no wind, no… anything.
Actually, that was odd. She didn’t hear anything. Not even the usual cicadas in the trees.
The air around her was completely and utterly still. Havana swallowed hard and hurriedly shoved her belongings inside her bag, her treetop colored eyes carefully, subtly darting around, scanning her surroundings.
She wasn’t sure where her sudden burst of anxiety came from, or why her hair was standing on end. She didn’t know why there was an almost painful pressure building in her chest, as if every fiber of her being was screaming at her.
Run.
Run.
Run.
Something had changed. By the time she finished packing, Havena could practically feel her heart beating in her ears. It grew faster and faster. Harder and harder. The feeling of being watched was overwhelming.
Tension filled her body as she picked up her bag and began walking toward her house in silence. She felt almost like there was someone standing to her left, just out of sight, staring a hole right through her.
She felt like she was suffocating. The air was thick. She couldn’t breathe.
When she turned to her left, she didn’t see anything. But she did feel a change. It was like the heavy, thick, overbearing presence had moved and was congregating behind her. She continued walking to the house, trying to keep her pace the same. Even. Whatever it was, she didn’t want them to know that she knew they were there.
But the feeling didn’t go away.
Her nausea returned.
Finally, the house came into view. She instinctively picked up her pace, moving to a fast walk.
The sensation of being watched continued.
She heard a branch snap behind her.
Her heart clenched at the sound and without second thought, Havena lifted her cane and broke into a full-fledged run toward her back door. The feeling followed. Finally, she reached her back porch and breathed a sigh of relief as Charlie lifted his head and trotted toward her. Havena didn’t greet him.
She slid the patio door open, dove inside with Charlie on her heels, and closed it once again. The lock clicked. She snuck to the window and peaked through just in time to catch a shadow disappearing into the woods.
The pressure lifted. The atmosphere lightened. Her breath steadied.
But one realization brought her panic right back:
Someone had been watching her.
Chapter 10: The Echoes of Sorrow
Summary:
Anakin finally briefed Ahsoka about their upcoming rescue mission, but she didn't exactly react the way he'd expected to hearing about his strange Force bond that stretched across the edges of the universe.
Soon afterward, Anakin met Obi-Wan as he landed on The Resolute, and Obi-Wan discovered that Anakin has not been sleeping well - that he was haunted by the images that flashed behind his eyes, and the aching pain that trailed down the bond from Havena and flooded his chest relentlessly.
Chapter Text
Anakin Skywalker was used to the strange, skeptical looks whenever he spoke of her - the girl from his dreams. The girl he saw behind closed eyelids nearly every night. The one who had started haunting him since the moment he heard her whisper his name so brokenly from worlds - realities - apart.
Over the years, he’d learned to expect disbelief, confusion, and even concern from the very few people he’d confided in about her. And though the council now understood more than they once had - understood that this bond was not something he had just imagined - their silent glances still carried unease. They tried to mask it, but Anakin could feel it in the force around them. Doubt. Caution. And the one that worried Anakin the most? Disapproval, carefully veiled behind stoic expressions.
Even Obi-Wan was still struggling to comprehend it, though he did seem to be warming up to the idea of her. His contemplative silences whenever the subject of Havena Jinn arose spoke louder to him than words ever could.
But Ahsoka? His young padawan?
She just smiled.
“So, does this mean we’re getting another girl on our rag-tag team? Because I’m outnumbered here. I need another girl to talk to! When are we going to get her?”
And Anakin was left blinking once. Twice. A third time, as he processed her words. Just as usual, his padawan managed to catch him off guard. He’d expected at least hesitation from her. But to find her… excited?
He wasn’t sure why he was even worried. He forgot sometimes that Ahsoka was too much like him. Headstrong. Loyal to a fault.
Her ability to accept the impossible with open arms should have worried him, he knew. But it was exactly what he needed right then. Someone he didn’t need to worry about over-analyzing his connection to Havena.
“Soon,” he answered, leaning back in his seat. “We’re just waiting on confirmation from the council.”
Anakin spared an impatient glance at the comm on his wrist, then flicked his attention back to Ahsoka when she spoke again.
“You don’t seem very excited,” she noted almost carefully. “You look tense. What’s wrong?”
Anakin’s jaw tightened and he adjusted himself in his seat with a somewhat forceful exhale. His padawan had always been good at reading him.
Sometimes too good.
“There’s more to it,” he admitted, leaning back in his seat. “She’s in danger. And… I don’t think she’s in any condition to really defend herself right now.”
Ahsoka paused, taking a moment to look over her master with surprise swirling in her blue-grey eyes. She crossed her arms.
“Then shouldn’t we be going now? Why are we waiting for the council?”
“Believe me. I’d love to,” he said. “But they’re still preparing for the ritual. We’re rendezvousing with Obi-Wan over Arkinnea so we can move the second we get the signal.”
She nodded slowly in response. “And then?”
Anakin let out a slow sight, almost resembling a groan. He knew exactly what his padawan was getting at.
And it wasn’t happening.
“You’ll stay with the Council while Obi-Wan and I go through the rift to find her.”
Ahsoka’s hopeful expression melted, and was quickly replaced with irritation. She moved to argue, but Anakin held his hand up to stop her.
“They have to focus to keep the rift open, Ahsoka. They’ll need protection. If they’re attacked and the rift closes… then Obi-Wan and I will be stuck there until they can reopen it… if they can reopen it. It’s a more important role than it sounds.”
She crossed her arms defiantly. “No one even knows about this mission except us and the Council. Why would anyone attack them? And why not leave them with a squadron-”
“We are,” Anakin assured her. “But I need someone there I can trust. This mission, Snips… it’s risky. I need you there in case something happens. Because I know you can handle it.”
Ahsoka raised her brow and leaned back in her chair, clearly not buying into her master’s words. “You’re just leaving me behind again.”
“Snips… we don’t know what we’re walking into. The only person who’s ever done this before is long gone. We don’t know anything about this place. I’m not risking you.”
“But, Master-”
“No,” he cut her off firmly, a harsh edge to his tone and his growing irritation evident in his voice. “I need you to listen to me for once . No buts. You’re guarding the Council. That’s final.”
She fell quiet, her eyes lowering to the table in front of her. Disappointed. Hurt. Angry. The feelings that Anakin himself was very familiar with. But he didn’t back down. He knew that his padawan hated being benched and underestimated. And after their time together - everything she’d done, everything she’d proven to him - he understood why this felt like betrayal.
But she would get over it. She always did.
And Ahsoka knew that, too.
She tightened her hold on her arms, her eyes still set on the table in front of her, refusing to look Anakin in the eye. He very rarely used that tone of voice with her.
Whoever this girl was… she wasn’t just important to the mission, or the jedi. She was important to him . More than he was letting on. More than Ashoka could have imagined.
Finally, she flickered her gaze up at him again. “Fine,” she muttered, resigned. “I’ll stay.”
Anakin gave her a nod and exhaled, rising from his seat. He placed his heavy hand on her head and rested it there for a beat before giving it a gentle squeeze as he exited the room. Ahsoka groaned in response, but bit back an amused look. His touch was soft. Appreciative. Protective.
The door slid shut behind him. Ahsoka remained seated and rested her chin in the palm of her hand.
It was a lot to take in. Cross-Universe travel. A force bond across realities . It defied everything she’d been taught. Everything the jedi had ever believed possible. Well… until recently, anyway.
She let out a quiet sigh and stood from her seat, following her master out of the conference room.
Anakin made it to the hangar bay just in time to see Obi-Wan’s ship land. As the landing ramp extended, Obi-Wan strolled down it with his usual calm demeanor.
“Any word from Arkinnea?” Anakin asked, breaking through the chaos that was the hangar.
“What ever happened to ‘hello’?” Obi-Wan asked, raising an eyebrow as he stopped in front of his old padawan.
Obi-Wan noted the look in Anakin’s eye and then shook his head, growing more serious. “No, not yet. Patience. We will hear from them soon enough.”
“I don’t like this,” Anakin muttered in response. “The sith could already be there.”
He turned his gaze back toward the main floor, following the clone troopers as they scurried around and worked on their various tasks.
Obi-wan hummed in agreement. “I know. But we have no choice but to wait, and trust that she will be safe until we arrive. You must be patient.” A beat of silence passed between them. Then, he added, “- She will be alright.”
“You don’t know that,” Anakin snapped suddenly. “You say for me to mind my feelings, but so many of them are hers coming through the bond. You wouldn’t be saying that if it were you in my place.”
It was quiet for a moment. Obi-Wan crossed his arms and sighed, shaking his head. His voice lowered as he spoke, and his tone remained even. Encouraging, yet scolding.
“Maybe not.” Obi-Wan sighed quietly, “You should be trusting that the Force has brought you two together for a reason. It will not abandon her now.”
Anakin shook his head and swallowed hard, trailing his eyes down to the ground before lifting them to meet Obi-Wan’s gaze once more. “It’s never been this strong before,” he admitted. “The bond. It’s intense. I see her every time I close my eyes. I hear her. I can feel her grief, her fear… it’s overwhelming. I can’t let it go.”
“You must , Anakin. You have to let go of your fear of losing her. You cannot help her if you’re falling apart yourself.”
Obi-Wan’s words were gentle, but firm. And though Anakin hated to admit it… he was right. The problem was that Anakin couldn’t bring himself to just… not worry about her. To not fear for her life. The bond was too strong. But he didn’t have the answer to argue with his former master, so he didn’t respond.
Obi-Wan studied Anakin more closely, and his eyes narrowed slightly as he noted the heavy shadows under his eyes. He’d already noticed that the younger man was tense and on edge, and there had been a certain exhausted undertone to his words that Obi-Wan hadn’t missed. But to see the fatigue in his eyes only confirmed his suspicions.
“When was the last time you slept?”
Anakin shrugged. “It doesn’t matter,” he declared.
Obi-Wan gave his former padawan a stern look. Anakin sighed.
“Decent sleep? Two standard days ago.”
Obi-Wan’s eyes widened, and he nearly choked out his words in surprise. “Two- I- Anakin , that’s reckless. Even for you. You can’t possibly-”
“I see her when I sleep,” Anakin interjected. “It won’t stop. It’s like the Force is screaming at me.”
The older man went silent for a moment, and his expression softened. He lowered his head to the ground for a moment, as if considering his next move, and then changed his gaze back toward Anakin.
“You need rest. You’re not going to help her by destroying yourself. I’ll monitor communications and let you know the second we hear anything.”
Anakin hesitated, his eyes staring at the ground behind Obi-Wan. Then, with a reluctant nod, he turned on his heel and made his way toward his quarters.
Obi-Wan was right. He was exhausted .
Anakin had only been asleep for three hours before he felt the familiar vibration of his comlink rousing him from his sleep. In a haze he answered it, his eyes squinting at the sudden blazing blue light in front of him.
“Anakin,” sounded his old master’s voice. “We’ve received word from Master Yoda. The coordinates are set. Transports are being prepared. You’re needed on the bridge.”
“What?” The half asleep Jedi knight murmured, blinking as he worked to rouse himself from the deep sleep he’d been in.
All that Obi-Wan said was, “It’s time.”
And suddenly, Anakn was awake, his heart pounding in his chest. He didn’t even respond. He was already leaping from his bed and racing through the halls of the Resolute, making his way to the bridge.
Finally… Finally , he was bringing her home.
chubby_unicornz on Chapter 1 Fri 18 Jul 2025 03:17AM UTC
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ReaganJenelle on Chapter 1 Thu 07 Aug 2025 03:21AM UTC
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Star Sunday (Guest) on Chapter 2 Tue 15 Jul 2025 04:19PM UTC
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Delagwen on Chapter 2 Wed 16 Jul 2025 04:00PM UTC
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DireRose on Chapter 2 Wed 16 Jul 2025 04:24PM UTC
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ReaganJenelle on Chapter 2 Thu 07 Aug 2025 03:35AM UTC
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Strawberrynyra on Chapter 3 Sat 19 Jul 2025 06:35AM UTC
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Delagwen on Chapter 5 Thu 17 Jul 2025 04:23AM UTC
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Taemar_Art on Chapter 5 Thu 17 Jul 2025 10:39AM UTC
Last Edited Thu 17 Jul 2025 10:39AM UTC
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Delagwen on Chapter 6 Sat 19 Jul 2025 07:02PM UTC
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DireRose on Chapter 6 Sat 19 Jul 2025 07:27PM UTC
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Delagwen on Chapter 6 Sat 19 Jul 2025 08:27PM UTC
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DireRose on Chapter 6 Sat 19 Jul 2025 08:37PM UTC
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Delagwen on Chapter 6 Sat 19 Jul 2025 09:20PM UTC
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Taemar_Art on Chapter 9 Sun 20 Jul 2025 01:16PM UTC
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DireRose on Chapter 9 Sun 20 Jul 2025 01:30PM UTC
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Delagwen on Chapter 9 Sun 20 Jul 2025 05:02PM UTC
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DireRose on Chapter 9 Mon 21 Jul 2025 02:45PM UTC
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Taemar_Art on Chapter 10 Mon 21 Jul 2025 11:02AM UTC
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DemonBunnySlayer on Chapter 10 Fri 25 Jul 2025 08:10AM UTC
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LadySorsha on Chapter 10 Mon 28 Jul 2025 12:16PM UTC
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KitKatNovak on Chapter 10 Wed 06 Aug 2025 04:49AM UTC
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ReaganJenelle on Chapter 10 Thu 07 Aug 2025 04:37AM UTC
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DumbBitchJuice0302 on Chapter 10 Thu 14 Aug 2025 02:36PM UTC
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Taemar_Art on Chapter 10 Mon 25 Aug 2025 08:54AM UTC
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Amyliana on Chapter 10 Mon 08 Sep 2025 01:40AM UTC
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