A/N: This was done as a challange a friend gave me. 'Twas meant to help me break away from writer's block. x.x Beware.

What have I done? My mind screams at me as my knees buckle. Energy spent, I can not stop myself from crumpling into a ash-kissed lump on the isolated room's floor. My clothes smelled of volcanic perfume, making my stomach churn.

Face, long ago lined with lines that played witness to the years I had seen, crams painfully. An invisible object lodged itself in my throat, causing my breathing to become erratic. Salty tears, those I had fought so hard, came steaming down along my jaw line as I buried my flushed skin into my palms.

How did this happen? Why? I can feel the wall separating from my back for milliseconds and I know that I must be sobbing. I hated this emotion. But to express it was only to be human as the saying went. Not even a Jedi can shield themselves with some things.

I had let my guard down. I had tried my best, but there was no point in trying. I had warned Anakin, and he had refused. I had failed. And now was I? While the medical team worked on reviving Padme, I was hiding in my room crying like a youngling.

Dear, innocent, Padme. She had been caught in this war's awful crossfire. The life that had once burned furiously in those dark eyes was flickering now. They had been dimming ever since she had accepted my ex-padawan into her life. I had always had my suspicions. Yet, I had never addressed either of them.

If my training would have allowed the emotion, I could have said that I was envious of them. They had escaped the scrutiny of the world that bound them too it, the world they had chosen without knowing their fates. How could the events that have passed been conceivable by two so young? Powerful, both, but young.

Their youth had allowed them to clutch fiercely onto the pleasantries in the galaxy. They held onto reality with one fist, and onto the excitement and joy that those out of politics and service sample every day. I could almost pinpoint the day they had chosen each other as their own. Anakin's posture and mannerisms had been altered when he arrived back from escorting Padme to Naboo.

For a few short months, his change had given me hope. His iron-clad resentment and thirst for advancement had been subsided. While it still lurked, he had seemed content for the first time in his life. I had been under false pretenses to think that he could have changed, that maybe I had helped mold him into the Jedi I had promised I would.

That was shattered soon after he had passed his trials. When his braid floated down to the detailed floor, it had echoed throughout the Force. Yoda had exchanged a look with me, his former Master. We had either written our hope or sealed our doom. How I wish that it would have been the first.

But that boy's fate had always been scribed. We were just fools not to feel it. No. Yoda had been right this whole time. I should have listened to his advice. But I had given my word to my own Master. And I had been engulfed with my own youthful stubbornness that had only been intensified by the sorrow I reluctantly had felt.

When had Anakin possibly transformed into this...creature... of the Dark Side? Had it been when the Chancellor had hissed in his ear? When his lips had met Padme's for the first time? At his mother's death? No. It had been before that.. long before that.

We had freed him from a world of slavery and given him a life he could have never known. As hard as we try, as dedicated as our people are, we can only nourish the mind. His soul had not been giving the tender care that only a mother can show. Sexist, that seemed, but true none-the-less. Even if it weren't, I can't say that I would have made the best father figure for him.

It should have been Qui-Gon that had taken the boy in. I wasn't ready. I hadn't even been completely prepared to take my own trials. I had been late to start training, and lost much time trying to deal with my own frustration and anger. I was still a fledgling. I hadn't been given any other option though.

"WHY!" I scream out into the open, empty, air. If there was truly no death, that we all returned to the Force, maybe my pleas would be heard by some sympathetic being. "Why couldn't I change him? Why couldn't I be strong enough!"

We had been taught long ago not to question the Force or it's plans. But in times of desperation, the mind looses coherency. All I could think about was this streak. My failure had doomed us all.

"I have failed you, Master." I choked out painfully. This was the deepest scar. Even though a Jedi lives to protect, they are a fool if they don't follow the examples of those they admire and live up to what is expected of them.

" I did as you asked, but I didn't do it right. Oh, Master! What have I done? I wasn't able to stop him. My weakness has ruined so..so...many lives. Civilians. Jedi. Younglings!"

The sight of the cluster of small bodies bundled together on the Temple floor struck my heart. They had done nothing against the Chancellor. They could have been spared. He could have brained washed them as he had Anakin. Or, deserted them far away from where they could receive training.

But the Sith don't think like that. They have no care for what is damaged in their way. Just the way Sidious had no regard for the man who had been Anakin Skywalker.

I knew that he was not dead. But I had thought he would die. I should have been able to feel his life flicker out through the Force. Instead, it lingered though faintly. I had no doubt that the Sith high lord would find some perverse way to harness this trial to his own advantage.

The rage that had burned in those deformed eyes had chilled my core. Never had I seen his spite reach to such a boil. How had this happened? How had we let him fall so far into the abyss?

Each one of his blows hit my soul. I had bared hard against him. For many years I had been pressed to keep on my toes to even be capable of training him. I had even implored Mace to take him under his wing so that he could fully develop his lightsaber skills. Even thought the Dark Side had given him more strength than I had ever felt from any being, it had not made him any more careful.

He was clumsy with his moves. His cocky confidence bound tightly together with hate was the only thing that allowed me to emerge 'victorious' from that battle. Secretly, though, he wasn't alone.

Against everything I had ever been taught, I had let my own emotions run rampant. My frustration, guilt, disappointment, and even self-pity had gone into my own hits. I had felt obligated to admit to the newest Sith Lord that I had failed him,and for a moment I could have almost sensed a blink. Maybe somewhere in that shell I reached the man that was the little boy on that desert hell-hole.

But things had turned. Despite the odds, I had gained upper ground. I screamed my warnings. I had pleaded, begged, implored. But nothing worked. And when he had leapt, I had acted. There was no justification for my actions. I could have handled things differently, or at been quick to dispose of this monster.

I should have stayed to make sure Darth Vader had been eradicated. But I couldn't surrender the mother and unborn child's life. Are two lives worth thousands? There were so many doubts!

Pulling myself up from the floor I stumble over to the attached washroom. Activating the water, I place my hands under and begin to scrub away at my skin cells with a vengeance. The grime from my wrists and digits to collect together in a small pool,l before disappearing down the drain.

Still I wash. I spread the liquid over my face, drowning the concern from my cheeks and forehead-from my mind. If I can not discard this, I can not move foreword. I can not remove my feet from the concrete they are chained to. I must move.

Sadly, I hear my name called around me. I was being summoned to the medical section. There was no time now to finish my cleansing. Some how, I had a feeling that I would have much time to reflect later. Presently, I must resume my duty.