AUTHOR: agentj
STATUS: complete
DATE: March 2005
CATEGORY: Challenge (There's a Pessimist in Us All, March 2005), Angst
CHARACTERS: Anakin Skywalker
TIMEFRAME: Saga: post-RotJ
CONTENT WARNING: Get out the tissues!
SUMMARY: After his death, Anakin ponders what could have been.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Sad and depressing in a light-hearted way. . . . Inspired by the Charlotte Martin song of the same name.
DISCLAIMER: I willingly and willfully use characters and situations copyrighted by Twentieth Century Fox and Lucasfilm Ltd. without permission, and without monetary gain. Additional characters and situations are copyright 2005 Lisa D. Jenkins.
Daughter.
Anakin watched her in silence. She could not see him; she had not trained in the Jedi arts, and although her Force-sensitivity was inherited, she had not honed it like her brother had.
She was smiling, her arm around Luke's shoulder. Bringing him back into the fold, Leia took Luke into their inner circle. The smuggler with his crooked grin looked embarrassed when she pressed her body next to his. How ironic, Anakin thought with his own crooked grin, she had chosen a mate just like her old man. He could only hope the ending would be happier for the two of them than that of himself and Padmé.
Anakin sighed, although he no longer breathed. He had missed so much. First words. First steps. First smiles. How could he not be mired by regrets of the past?
Once he planned for the future. A wife. A daughter. A life as a Jedi. Then the future happened, and none of the things he so desperately sought came to pass. He gave up his future for clutched straws of the past, and the shining beacon of what once was his life became the darkness of his eternal death.
This was not the life he would have chosen, and yet . . . he had chosen it. He chose it out of greed, desire, and arrogance. So many turning points in his life replayed in his mind; a solitary existence afforded him to venture into every possibility.
Never had he foreseen the day he would look upon his daughter and think of asking her forgiveness. Once he wondered if he would be strong enough to protect her from the darkness. Now he wondered if he would be strong enough to accept her rejection.
The horrors he impinged on his own flesh and blood still pricked like the searing heat of a saber's blade against his skin. He had seethed with thoughts of betrayal and regret every time he looked upon Leia's cherubic features. She had always reminded him of Padmé. The same sable eyes. Same delicate features. Yet never once had he considered the Organa's adoptive daughter as his own.
Anakin was a fool. And so foolish.
Luke passed on to speak words of happiness and sorrow to fellow pilots, many of whom drank to the memory of those who had not made it to this day. Thinking no one was looking, Han's arm squeezed Leia's shoulder tightly as he bent down to kiss her tenderly.
These stolen moments were all Anakin had of his family. Tomorrow, there would be no regrets, no pain, no sorrow. There would be only the Force, and he would be one with it. Tonight, he would have this.
Someone laughed at a joke unheard. Anakin's eyes lighted again on his progeny. Yes, the suns on this land would set, but they would rise again. They were borne out of love, and in an unlikely scenario, brought him back to life.
Anakin would still swear it's a beautiful life.