Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

PRELUDE

┃ ᴾᴬᴿᵀ ᴵ

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁.     

     ⟡₊ ࣪⟡⋆₊˚. 

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁.     

     ⟡₊ ࣪⟡⋆₊˚. 

  They'd always hovered just shy of something more.

  That was the dangerous thing about time—

how quietly it slipped through her fingers

while she'd kept convincing herself there'd be more of it.

  More missions.

  More sparring matches. More half-teases, chaotic banter, and aching glances that held a weighted language under a guise—the truth behind a smirk or a jab. With Anakin Skywalker nothing ever stayed simple. He was fire, a relentless flame, never letting her hide behind her fears or excuses. Their friendship had been forged in bruises, laughter, and late-night dares; he pushed her, sometimes too hard, refusing to let her believe she was anything but fragile. She was the wind that refused to bow—never breaking, only bending, slipping past his walls and steadying his flame when it threatened to scorch them both. 

  Aydia Whitelighter had trained beside Anakin Skywalker for years. She had laughed with him, fought at his side, and bled in the same dust and fire. She'd seen the way he swaggered into every room like he owned the air itself, squared shoulders and a reckless confidence that challenged those who dare stop him. She knew the flash in his eyes before a duel, that sly, dangerous tilt of his mouth when he wanted a fight. The wolfish grin that meant someone was about to pay. The tight clench of his jaw when the past was unearthed but bottled in like lightning. 

  And Gods help anyone when it finally unleashed. 

  His presence in the Force was a gravity well—fierce and consuming, volatile as a storm, and had always burned too close to the sun.

  Until she watched the flames flicker behind his eyes, whispering the end with a deafening silence.

  Until the shadows clawed their way in like curls of smoke, holding fast to them both.

  This isn't a love story. Not the kind anyone teaches Jedi to survive.

  It's a story of choices. Of lines etched in silence and crossed. Of loyalties torn in the stillness between breaths.

  Before the war touched the stars—they were already fighting a war within.

  And fate?

  It had already chosen its battlefield...

Chapter Text

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁.
⟡₊ ࣪⟡⋆₊˚.
. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁.
⟡₊ ࣪⟡⋆₊˚.. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . 
⟡₊ ࣪⟡⋆₊˚.
. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁.
⟡₊ ࣪⟡⋆₊˚.. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . 
⟡₊ ࣪⟡⋆₊˚.
. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁.
⟡₊ ࣪⟡⋆₊˚.

LOCATION: Jedi Temple Training Room — 

Southern Spire, Upper Level 27, Coruscant

THE JEDI TRAINING ROOM WAS ABOVE THE TEMPLES SOUTHERN SPIRE. The transparisteel windows stretched from floor to ceiling in a wide, circular arch that offered an unobstructed 360• view of Coruscant's cityscape. From this height, the planet's surface shimmered like a metallic mirror, the glowing veins of traffic weaving between towers that rose into the artificial skies like polished stalagmites. Each skylane pulsed with ceaseless motion.

It was sacred in its stillness; a marriage of utility and serenity. Smooth durasteel walls framed the room in soft bronze with support columns that curved with the arc of the glass, giving the illusion of open air. Light filtered through high slats overhead in gentle bands, mimicking natural sunlight even in the Temple's late hours.

The floors were made of polished wood, inlaid with subtle concentric patterns as training circles for movement drills and saber practice. It bore the scuffs and wear from the worn sole of boots. Marks left behind by generations of Jedi. Those who had been forged and risen long before her time.

While it was no ceremonial room, every element was chosen with purpose, one wall racked with weapons and training sabers with unadorned meditation benches. 

It was a place to hone the mind, discipline the body, and focus the soul. 

Repetition. 

Repeat.  

Reflection. 

Reforge.

Aydia found Anakin Skywalker exactly where she expected.

Diffused halos from the overhead lights caught the sheen of perspiration that glistened on his bronzed skin, the air already thick with a cloying heat that radiated off of him. A bead of sweat rolled down his brow, his linen tunic stuck to his skin, accentuating the taut lean muscle and arms corded with a strength unparalleled in its fluidity. 

The vivid sapphire of his saber carved through the air, cracking hard against the holo droid's projection.

He was the epitome of poetry and violence she felt down to the marrow of her bones, his restraint barely contained.

Aydia stepped onto the training floor with a soft swallow. She paused just inside the threshold, arms sun-kissed by the constant exposure off world, crossed tightly over her chest. A muscle that ran along her forearms flexed, taut beneath the leather wraps that bound her hands. Her gaze assessed the scene right as Anakin's blade cleaved through another droid, the distinct hum of his blade clashing with more force than necessary. 

Her lips parted, voice cool but edged with challenge. "Planning to take your frustration out on that thing all night, Skywalker?" She arched a brow, "Or were you waiting to start a real fight?"

Anakin froze mid-strike, his Padawan braid snapping forward with the force of his momentum. 

The VHT-PX1 model rolled back, its stabilizers humming low as the local emitter flickered. The hologram collapsed with a sharp hiss, leaving the droid's stocky form that reached mid waist.

Slowly Anakin turned, chest rising in hard, rapid swells. The glow of his saber cast his features in cool shadow. The angular lines of his jaw tightened, a faint split from his lower lip prominent from their last mission. 

Dark curls clung to a broad forehead, damp from exertion. But it was those impossible cobalt eyes that seared through her and rooted her in place, halting the very patterns of her breaths.

 "You're late," he said, voice flat.

A flicker of anger surfaced in his gaze, followed by unmistakable disappointment. He didn't smile, sharpening the cold press of his mouth. 

"You didn't say it was urgent," she replied with a shrug. "But clearly trying to burn a hole through the floor."

His blade extinguished with a snap-hiss. "Then draw your blade."

He cocked his head rather unsettling, chin angled, one brow lifting with slow, deliberate mockery. It wasn't just a look. It was a provocation, the silent "try me" carved into every sharp contour of his face.

Aydia didn't hesitate. She rolled her shoulders back to loosen her stance, shedding her outer robes to the sleeveless wrap top in the hue of softened sandstone. She pulled the lightsaber from her utility belt, the blade emitting a steady thrum once ignited. It refracted off the polished floors like a blade of starlight. A stark contrast to his crackling aggression. 

Her fingers tightened around the chromium hilt of her saber, reflecting in the sea-glass green of her eyes. At 5'6", her petite stature afforded her to be quite lithe and quick— her adaptability underestimated, with a mind cunning as her tongue.

However... tonight, that confidence wavered. The doubt that gnawed at her resolve seeded not by peers, but rather the one person who wasn't supposed to make her feel this small.

Despite his towering height.

"Are you just going to stand there?" Anakin's voice sliced through the silence like a vibroblade. It was laced with impatience and devoid of his usual sarcasm. "You hesitate again. That's what got you into that mess on Ansion. If I hadn't cut down that tunnel beast you could've been killed."

The memory stabbed her like shrapnel. The panic and desperation. Trying to wield the force to bend the creature into submission, after the local nomads sent them off into the wilds upon agreeing to keep allegiance to the Republic. It had been a test of their endurance, a demand Obi-Wan himself had accepted the terms of as part of their accord. He'd believed the trial would prove their strength together. Yet Aydia would fail miserably. Her control would slip from frayed nerves beneath the pressure, the impact swift and brutal. Her body hurled against a cavernous wall with a white-hot crack to the skull that nearly snapped her vision. Then had come Anakin's arms around her, his breath ragged, hands trembling with barely controlled fury.

Little did he realize just how often that memory looped through her mind since they'd returned just a standard day ago. Every hour. Every breath. It wasn't just the pain of impact or the flash of failure. It was the echo of every Padawan who'd ever labeled her the fragile Jedi that had expelled her from day one.

"Oh, thank you, Master Enlightenment," she snapped, stepping into a slow strafe to mirror his stance. "How could I possibly forget you're the holy saint of the Order—here to bless my lowly cretin self with your glowing perfection?"

Anakin's hand twitched, readjusting his grip around the ridged hilt of his blade. The vein along his temple throbbed while his eyes narrowed. "I'm not trying to be perfect," he said darkly. "I'm trying to keep you alive."

"No," she spat, blade rising to guard, "you're trying to remind me I'll never have the same strength as you possess."

The accusation hit its mark.

He lunged igniting his blade with a hiss.

The saber came in high and fast, an overhead strike meant to overpower. Aydia grit her teeth and ducked low, twisting hard and bringing her blade up just in time to meet the follow-up aimed for her shoulder. She pivoted, swinging low toward his midsection.

He blocked. Fluid. Brutal. He pressed forward, their sabers flashing in a flurry of punishing strikes, a violent blur as he drove her back, each blow fueled by the raw power of Djem So. 

Designed to overwhelm and break her defenses.

She snapped her saber up and twisted into a tight, upward spiral—Shien—redirecting his blade and pivoting it back toward him nearly catching his shoulder.

His brute endurance had always been ruthless. Djem So suited him like a second skin. Relentless, grounded, powerful. Each movement from Anakin was forged in strength and forward momentum, forcing the fight to his pace.

They moved like fire and wind.

She was the wind. Fast, elusive, always shifting. Her footwork was sharp and clever, honed from hours of sparring in temple courtyards. Soresu had taught her how to endure, how to anticipate—but it was the Shien he'd shown her, reluctantly at first, that gave her the edge to strike when it mattered.

Her narrow frame slipped past his reach at the last second—almost. Then abruptly caught in it the next. She feinted left, darted right, her white blade a streak of light that hissed through the humid air, barely missing his shoulder.

Anakin countered instantly, stepping into the space she'd just vacated, saber crashing down toward her back. But she'd already spun away—her outer hand coming up to parry, the other guiding her pivot from behind as her boot slid.

They'd trained like this hundreds of times.

She knew his reach.

He knew her rhythm.

He'd taught her how to strike with strength she didn't believe she had.

She'd taught him how to wait.

Anakin came again, driving her back with a brutal sequence—high, low, spin, slam—and she managed to block, her breathing shallow, every movement tighter than the last.

"You're overcommitting," she muttered, wiping sweat from her brow with the back of her hand as she ducked under a side swipe.

"You're stalling," he shot back, eyes burning, feet anchored.

They circled, sabers hissing—hers glowing white, his azure and electric. The Force between them pulsed, alive

But he was lethally fast.

He parried with a growl and spun low, sweeping at her feet. She jumped back—barely—only to have the pommel of his saber crack into her ribs. A glancing blow but jarring enough to steal her breath.

"Too slow," he bit out.

"Too tall," she hissed, stumbling back before she spat, "And too smug as Obi-Wan would say."

That struck a nerve. 

He came at her again, saber arcing diagonally in a brutal slash. She caught it with a grunt, locking their blades together. The surge of energy rippled through the web of nerve endings in her arm like a livewire. 

His face was inches from hers now, wild, breathing ragged as he rasped, "You don't get to joke your way out of this," He growled. "You could've died, Aydia."

Her voice faltered right as she surged forward, planting a swift, defiant kick to his hip. "Tell me something I don't know."

The impact forced him back a step, but only barely.

"Still favoring your right side."

"I am not!"

They collided again with a snarl, sabers crackling, their blades clashing—then broke apart.

Aydia hit the floor, leather boots skidding across the polished surface in a backward slide. Her chest heaving, her grip remained yet steady. 

Just as he'd taught her.

But the silence that followed settled thick with an underlying tension. Echoed beneath her skin like an unspoken whisper. It tore through the threads of their bond like a snap of lightning, the revelation landing like a leaden weight in the pit of her stomach.

Oh.

He was punishing himself.

A deep-seated fear clawed at the edges of his psyche, a seismic wave of fury rippling at the mind's edge. The pulse of a storm threatening to break. Visceral. Familiar. Like the grip he'd had on her back on Ansion. When instinct overrode sense and she felt, for one breathless second, just how close to the edge he was.

He'd been wrecked from the moment that transmission crackled through, lancing clean through the silence when they dropped out of hyperspace.

Padmé's name.

Spoken aloud in that cold, clinical tone of Master Mace Windu, forwarding it from the Council chamber. 

Urgent.

The words attempted assassination landed like a detonator.

Anakin had been a ticking time bomb since.

Aydia could see it clearly now: He was scared. 

She had to combat this. His fear—left unchecked—would make him ruthless. And if she let herself falter now, he'd lose more than control.

Pain bloomed in her side, sharp and hot to the touch, her limbs beginning to quiver from the force of his last blow. Yet she refused to fall.

She couldn't afford to.

She gritted her teeth and shoved the ache down. Past the captive tightness that was like a gaping chasm in her chest. To the bruised ribs that creaked inward with each breath she struggled to pull in.

She bit into the flesh of her lip and and hardened her stance. Not as the Padawan they all doubted with a scoff in their gazes, but as the Jedi she reforged to be.

She raised her blade, steady. "Again."

They circled.

Not with fury, but with focus.

Taxing each other now in the language only they knew, forged in years of sparring.

"Don't hold back," he snapped, launching into a vicious overhead assault before the blade came down with a clean slash.

She blocked it, barely. The sheer impact jolted through every rivet of her spine like a shockwave through durasteel. "Don't be such an arse," she shot back, inhaling sharply as she spun back to create a barrier again. 

"You need to push harder, Aydia! This isn't a game!" Anakin's voice cracked like lightning, his eyes ablaze with visible raw emotion.

Anakin usually teased during spars. He would mock her footwork, throw her off with one of his lazy smirks or his cocksure "come on, Whitelighter," that made her want to punch his perfect face. 

 Tonight, he was all sharp edges.

She feinted left, pivoted, while he parried with brutal efficiency, then shoved forward. 

The force knocked her off balance. Her boots scraped against the floor with an audible screech just as the clammy bed of her palm slapped against the floor with a thwack!

"Focus!" he barked, advancing again.

Aydia's temper flared, pushing off the weight of her booted heel and stood. "I am focused, you karking, egotistical—!"

She left the last of those words hanging in the air and launched. Her blade became a streak of white fire, driving him back with a flurry of tight, furious strikes. Each blow was fast and focused. Less elegance now. More emotion. More teeth.

She wasn't defending now she was daring him. 

Anakin deflected each one as the tempo between them shifted.

She ducked under his guard and drove an elbow into his ribs hard. "You done?" It was less than Jedi-formal and scrappy. 

A hiss slipped past his lips, his pride clearly wounded. Anakin countered with a low sweep that forced her into a backflip to avoid it. "When you tighten up," he shot back.

Golden-brown strands that had slipped free from her braid, clung to the angle of her jaw slicked with  perspiration. The plait snapped over her shoulder as she dropped hard into a crouch, the breath ripped from her lungs, her muscles tensed like a drawn bow.

She saw it then. A lapse.

There was no hesitation, she lunged.

Her blade sliced just beneath his collarbone, the white-hot edge searing through fabric with a hiss. The tunic recoiled, edges curling in a thin, charred line. Close enough to singe skin.

The acrid scent of singed hair uncoiled into the air. 

A superficial mark... proof she'd finally broken through his defense.

Anakin only froze for a heartbeat before he stepped back, the fight ebbing from his body in a slow, measured exhale. He deactivated his saber. No words. No flare of temper. Reattaching it to his belt, his broad shoulders rose and then stilled.

"Enough," The word came low, coiled like a held breath. But the distinction in which he held himself, told her the storm hadn't passed. It had just gone silent.

Aydia slowly rose from where she'd thrown herself into a roll after, panting, saber still humming in her grip. She tilted her head as a bead of sweat, dripped off the edge of her nose. "You done now?"

He turned his back on her, drawing in a sharp inhale through his nose. 

His control was brittle yet. Aydia wasn't about to leave him like this. She fastened the blade to her belt with a distinct click before she took a bold step forward. "You going to tell me what this was?" she asked, her voice carrying a slight exhausted rasp scraped from her lungs. "We both know this wasn't just about Ansion."

His hand scraped through his hair, a habitual tic when his frustration peaked. Or when he lacked the verbal words to express himself properly. He exhaled a long, drawn sigh before he murmured, "Because I don't know what I'm walking into tomorrow." His gaze dropped for a moment. "I haven't seen her in ten years. Yet I'm supposed to protect her like I'm some knight she doesn't even remember."

"So, you want her to remember you."

He slowly turned on his heel looking directly at her now, eyes storm-dark. "I need her to."

Aydia's breath hitched. She looked away, then back at him, eyes steady but harder now.

"You still love her," she said. It wasn't a question.

The words came reluctant and raw. An omen in itself—for Jedi, for her. But she didn't flinch. She'd never judged him for it.

Not once.

He looked at her earnestly, brow furrowed. "I never stopped," he replied.

No hesitation. Just that raw honesty of his that she wasn't ready for and lodged itself in her throat. The ache in her chest seared, prickling at an exposed nerve. "So that's what this is," she said, voice quiet but pointed. "You lashing out because you're scared."

He didn't deny it.

She knew better than to feel this.It was forbidden. Always had been. But the look in his eyes was worse than any rule they'd ever broken over the years.

"Anakin," she sighed, the words thick on her tongue. "I've seen you walk into assignments outnumbered while throwing a sarcastic jab in the same breath," She continued, trying—failing— to keep her irritation from surfacing. "But the thought of seeing her again? That's what finally shakes the Chosen One?"

He laughed once, bitter and soft. "Don't call me that. Not right now. Not from you."

She crossed the last distance between them until they were barely a breath apart. "You know I've never looked at you, as the cosmic myth they all make you out to be." Her gaze didn't waver, even when that tired weight he carried reflected back at her once more. 

"I see you," she said softly. 

He looked at her, the shadows still there but his expression more open. For a moment she saw him: the boy from Tatooine. Who had become infamously revered on Naboo for taking down an entire droid control ship that had orbited the planet: a Trade Federation vessel, while piloting an N-1 starfighter. He'd come into the Temple late, older than the others, a chip on his shoulder with sunstreaked hair. Unshaped yet and burning with an unmatched passion to matter. To prove himself. 

"You know I'm not good at... being vulnerable," he said softer.

She knew those words alone hadn't come easy. Not for him. But he knew she didn't look at him like a cosmic deity or some mistake waiting to happen. "No, you aren't," Aydia said, eyes searching his. "You're just good at hiding until that fire within burns you through."

He huffed just short of a laugh. "That obvious?"

"To me? Always."

Their gazes held, the moment suspended between heat and heartbreak. Fragile and burning. She wanted to reach for him. To close that remaining space and be that anchor. If just to remind him someone saw him even when he couldn't see himself.

But she couldn't bring herself to move. The feelings she harbored were far too vast, too consuming. The sheer weight of them left her ill at ease within the Temple walls. The Code had been etched into her since childhood, ground into every lesson, every silence between commands: Attachment leads to fear. Fear leads to suffering.

And yet...

It was a struggle just to keep it tempered. To keep from bleeding too much truth through the bond, that pulsed between them like the wavelengths of a heartbeat. 

A constant.

A presence.

And a danger.

Because if she wasn't careful—if she slipped—that connection would expose everything.

Everything.

She wasn't nearly equipped for that. Not for what it meant. Or what it could cost. Her hand found his arm anyway. The damp,worn leather wraps, warm beneath her touch. "Don't shut me out in your fear," she said, her voice low but a grounding force. "I've never been an enemy, Anakin."

He nodded, slowly—barely. His jaw tensed first, then relaxed, the words caught in his throat. His eyes, usually so bold and unflinching, flicked down for just a second before returning to hers. Finally that edge to him he always wore like armor, that kept him on a razors edge with the Council, softened.

"I know," he said, voice low and rough. The last of his words trembled, carrying the weight of guilt. Yet there was gratitude in the slight curl of his lips. An old aching loyalty etched into the soft lines around his mouth reserved for her. When he looked at her, it wasn't as the reckless Jedi others saw. Not the infamous Chosen One. 

It was just Anakin.

A boy who'd known her most of his life. Who made coded messages through their walls when halls were patrolled. Who could throw back a chaotic spar—verbal or blade— to match her wit. Both of whom had given their Master a few stray grays over the years. 

Aydia could practically hear her Masters words now. Those pale blue eyes glimmering with a stern reprimanding in the bow of his brow, the exasperation in the steady exhale that would follow, "If Master Qui-Gon had been alive to see this..." 

The room settled into stillness between them again, like ripples fading across the surface of a vast pond. Tomorrow would bring Senator Padmé Amidala.

The mission.

The weight of their oaths.

The quiet, rising tide of Aydia's own anxiety. 

It was no secret to her, or anyone that truly knew him that her friend had long pined over the once brazen Queen.

Still, it didn't stop that bruised ache that settled. Annoyingly so. Especially when it was the kind that didn't ask for permission. 

For now, she closed her eyes and took a long breath before her voice broke the silence, dry and hoarse from exertion. "Obi-Wan is going to kill us if he finds out we used our actual sabers." She opened one eye, leveling him with a look. " No live blades. No private matches. No Force-based cheating. And no broken ribs, Skywalker."

Anakin gave a half-hearted smirk, one shoulder lifting. "I didn't break a rib."

She scoffed, "You tried."

He let out a breath, somewhere between a sigh and a laugh. "Yeah, well... Rule Six was thirty days of meditation with Master Yoda. No missions. No excuses." He glanced at her with a deadpan stare. "You think they'd go easy on us if we said it was therapeutic?"

Aydia snorted. "It's us, Anakin. Not unless Yoda's been replaced with a compassionate clone."

Anakin let out a low, amused breath. But it didn't quite reach his eyes that had begun assessing the fresh scorch mark near his collarbone, fingers brushing the worn linen that had charred."Obi-Wan's going to see this," he muttered. "He always notices and I'll be lectured into next Centaxday."

There was a pause.

"Last time, he threatened to revoke both our sabers and assign us to teach hand-to-hand drills to younglings for a month straight."

He looked at her. "And not the coordinated ones."

Aydia groaned, dragging a hand down her face. "You mean the feral crechelings who use the Force to fling training mats and scream when they lose?"

Anakin raised an eyebrow. "The very same. He said, and I quote, 'If you insist on risking your limbs unsupervised, do it with foam weapons and a signed liability waiver.'"

The corner of her lip curled into a smirk. "We're the reason they made that waiver."

Anakin smiled truly this time, brazen, a row of crescent pearly whites he flashed with a shake of his head. "You realize we've given half the High Council migraines?"

"Half?" Aydia laughed lightly. "We're the reason Mace Windu meditates in complete darkness. I'm pretty sure Plo Koon prays before every mission roster review."

Anakin mirrored hers. "And Obi-Wan?"

Aydia grinned, devious, sweeping a strand of damp hair that had crusted behind her ear. "That poor man has probably aged ten years because of us."

His gaze dropped again to the scorch mark then lifted to hers, his own smile softening. "Yeah. But I wouldn't have done it with anyone else."

And in the tenuous quiet—where the Force itself seemed to ease their frayed selves—they were just two Padawans again.

Not the future the Council whispered about.

Not the prophecy and the problem child.

Not the chaos that kept Masters up at night.

Just them.

Standing in the calm before the coming storms.