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Failure
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"I...love..."  She struggled to say the words, her breath coming in short, painful gasps around her cracked and broken ribs.

"Stay with me, Mom," Anakin begged, racking his brain for any possible Jedi healing techniques, learned over the past ten years under the careful and methodical tutelage of Master Obi-Wan, that he might be able to use to prolong his mother's life -- even for just a short while.  Just long enough to get her back to the homestead.  Long enough to tell her how much he loved her, and missed her -- and how sorry he was that he had not ignored the commands of the Jedi and come sooner.

But no -- nothing.  Nothing came to mind.  There was nothing he could do now.  Master Obi-Wan had taught him about patience, control, duty...about not forming attachments.  He had not taught him anything he could use to save his mother.  Maybe that was one of those lessons he deemed me not ready to learn yet, Anakin thought bitterly, a tear slipping down his cheek.

"I...love..."  Shmi Lars struggled again, through bloody and cracked lips, to give her son her final words of affection, a final goodbye -- and, failing, she drew her last labored breath and slumped backward in his arms.

At first Anakin was overwhelmed with a horrific feeling of helplessness.  He had come to Tatooine to save his mother.  She was in danger, and he knew he would save her as soon as he was strong enough to ignore Master Obi-Wan and start heeding his visions.  He was strong -- he had survived ten years of slavery under Watto, proving himself useful by being able to fix anything that was put in front of him.  Why should this be any different?  What had stopped him from fixing a situation that threatened the life of the most important person in the world to him?

The Jedi, he thought bitterly.  Obi-Wan.

Anakin tenderly laid his fingers over his mother's eyelids, closing them, then gently laid her body next to him and stood.  He swallowed back a lump in his throat, with it swallowing down the urge to collapse beside his mother's body and give into his grief.  Useless -- it wouldn't fix anything.  And if Anakin Skywalker could do nothing else, he would fix this, somehow.  No one he loved would ever be hurt again, as long as he had anything to say about it.  And no Tusken would live long enough to torture another innocent settler.

Anakin felt the rage burn within him like an erupting volcano.  It was a new feeling for him -- Jedi were not allowed to feel anger.  Anakin liked the way he felt -- energized, electrified, invigorated.  Powerful.  He nourished that power, fed on it, nurtured it, allowed it to continue to give him more energy than he thought was possible to have.  He knew the Jedi wouldn't approve -- they were weaklings, afraid to use their own power.  Besides, where had their approval gotten him so far?  Following their direction had left his mother tortured, dead from internal hemorrhaging, lying in the cave of a group of savage beasts who took her because they were looking for amusement on a boring Tatooine morning.

The rage burned even hotter in Anakin.  He ignited his lightsaber, ran out of the cave, and immediately decapitated the two Tusken guards sitting outside.  Several Tusken males rushed at him, their shrill cries echoing in the canyon, their gaffee sticks pointed straight at Anakin -- but it was no contest between them and the most powerful Force-user in the galaxy.  They also immediately lost their heads to the point of Anakin's blade.

Another voice cried out to him, echoing more strongly than the cries of the Tuskens, a voice forgotten but not unfamiliar.  "Anakin!  Anakin!  NOOOO!"

Qui-Gon Jinn.  The Jedi Master who had rescued him from Tatooine slavery and taken him to Coruscant to fulfill his dreams.  The Jedi who believed in him when no one else in the Temple would, who stubbornly insisted that Anakin be trained even when no one else wanted him.  What would Qui-Gon have done here?  Would Qui-Gon have heeded his visions and allowed him to come rescue his mother?  Would she still be alive, had Qui-Gon not been killed ten years earlier?  Or was Qui-Gon responsible for the fact that his mother was not freed ten years ago in the first place -- was Qui-Gon, like the other Jedi, responsible for holding him back?

The thought further fueled Anakin's anger, and he plunged his lightsaber through several more Tusken men's bodies as they charged at him.  By this time most of the encampment, realizing that fighting the Jedi was a losing battle, ran away from Anakin and ducked into a nearby tent.  This enraged Anakin even more.  What, do you think you're escaping? he thought.  Where was my mother's escape route?  He watched a Tusken woman grab the hands of two small Tusken children and run into the tent, followed by a hunched-over elderly Tusken.  Then, using one of Master Obi-Wan's best Force-lessons, he lifted a large boulder from a crevice nearby, set it high in the air, and dropped it full-force on top of the tent, crushing everyone within.

Within half an hour's time, Anakin had taken care of the entire encampment responsible for his mother's torture and death -- an encampment that included men capable of slaughtering all but four of Cliegg and Owen's posse just a week earlier.

He went back into the tent where he had left his mother's body, sat down on the dirt floor, and for a few moments, cradled her tenderly in his arms and allowed the tears to fall.  "I took care of them, Mom," he said.  "They won't be back.  They can't hurt you again."

After several minutes, Anakin stood, dried his tears, wrapped his mother's body in his cloak, tied her to the back of Owen's speeder bike, and rode home.

Not until he had returned to the homestead, and hidden himself in the garage, using the excuse of a broken shifter on the speeder to hide from his grief, did the horror of what he had done began to reveal itself to him.