SAVE ME

Alright here's the submission for Anidala Week-Day 3, Shadows. This actually really fun and relaxing. Enjoy. U know the drill (comment, review below). Constructive criticism is always welcome.

-jedimasterroyal

Disclaimer: I do not own SW. Disney does. Nuff said.


He wants to be her shadow. He decides this the first time he meets her in Watto's shop. He wants to follow her everywhere she goes and protect her. It's what plagues and tortures him night and day in the Jedi Temple.

And now that she belongs with him, he is still bothered by the fact that he can't be her shadow. Especially now that he understands that his wife has a penchant for danger.

She's light in its purest form, it's why she is his angel. There's days when he's anxious and wishes he didn't carry such huge burden. He didn't feel like the Chosen One, he was anything but a model Jedi.

There was a time also, early on in their marriage where he wished to be her shadow if only to make sure that she in fact loved him. It was never because he doubted her but it was because he doubted and in all honesty who could ever love him. And what if one day she woke up and there was someone better than him? Someone who had not been a slave, who was more mature and wiser. Someone who could give her the full attention she deserved.

One night he voiced all his uncertainties and she reprimanded him.

"Who do you think I am Anakin?" she said exasperatedly. "Why would I marry you if I had any doubt that I loved you? You know, YOU KNOW that I love you and that the only reason why I would ever deny being with you is to protect you and to allow you to be a Jedi and you know why I even thought of that, because I love you."

She sits down and tears start to form in his eyes.

She sighs and looks at him with a pained look in his eyes, "Do you love me?'

"You know-"

"-then love me. Anakin, that's all I have ever wanted," she leans forward to capture his hands, "I need you. I love you and…all I need is your love. That's why I don't care about the circumstances."

There's darkness in him, he knows. But throughout it all his angel is what saves him. She is patient and she gave him love, even when he could not love himself. He figures that is why he needs to be her constant shadow. So that nobody could take his sunshine away.

He fights the war only because they damper her light and he thinks that when the ordeal is over they'll run away to a place where the sun always shines and that time could not erase.

The Jedi might think she's his weakness but in all reality she is his strength. She is the blood that runs through his veins.

So when he dreams of her impending death, a part of him dies too. And he goes to Palpatine because he knows that only he can make his dream come true. Selling his soul to the Sith to be her shadow seems fair.

It is much too late when he realizes that the darkness has consumed him. He realizes too late that he had gone at this all wrong. Padme was never meant to have a shadow. How could he have been so wrong? She was a beacon of light and a shadow would only mean that there was something coming between her good and the rest of the galaxy. He was the offending thing that stood between her light and he killed her. At least her spirit.

It is only until Luke saves him that he remembers her words that faithful night. She never needed protection or attention, all she needed was his love. Tears form under his mask when he realizes she had said the same thing on Mustafar but he was too deaf with darkness to listen. And Luke, just like his mother, manages to save him because he loves unconditionally.

When he meets his Angel once again, she smiles, embraces him, and whispers, "You don't need to be my shadow to love me."

"I understand."

FIN