"Ani, come to the table."

He pulled away from the curtains just far enough to look in her direction. "I'll be there in a moment, Angel." He returned his gaze to the world outside.

Everything was burning. Maybe not literally, but everything had been burning for a long, long time. The feel of the world, the smell of the world, the taste of the air… all of it was horribly, horribly wrong.

The sky, once tinted a beautiful blue in the day and a dazzling speckled black at night had been permanently stained red for over a year now. Ever since he had left… ever since he had killed himself.

What would have happened had he had the strength to stay alive? Would the world, the galaxy, the universe been different?

A tugging at his ankles pulled him out of his musings and back to the present. Down on the ground clinging to his boots was his baby boy, Baby Luke who was so thrilled to announce to his father his mastery of his own two legs by walking and running throughout the house as fast as he could possibly go. Last week Padmé had declared it a holiday miracle, and Anakin had only smiled, knowing that it would only be a matter of time before they were worn ragged chasing their little miracle across the galaxy.

Anakin picked up the boy and rested him against his hip. Luke looked up at him, impossibly blue eyes, sandy blond hair, much like his own as a child… practically his clone save for a quiet attitude and his calm nature. The calm before the storm, as Anakin liked to think of it.

The storm was a few minutes younger than her brother, but she had commanded enough attention to suffice for both of them the moment she entered into the world. She was currently screaming at the top of her lungs in the kitchen. "Daaaaaaaaaaadddddddddddyyyyy yy!"

Anakin chuckled. He ran his hand—his real hand through the boy's soft blonde hair, just studying his son for a moment before leaving the window. This was his life now—the life he had made after he had destroyed his old one. Everything was new and different, completely foreign and sometimes wrong… but sometimes right.

Sometimes it was hard to remember that; everything had changed so much in such a short amount of time and he had been precariously balanced between so many different lives, so many different choices he could have made to become the man he was now.

Instead of serving a master in the Jedi Temple, he served a secret alliance that worked to defeat the emergence of evil. Instead of serving that evil (and he had come so, so close) he served a sentence as an eternal prisoner claimed to be dead and living only in the shadows. Instead of serving the things greater than himself he had dedicated the former part of his life studying, he now served a master of two one-year olds and a woman who fought tirelessly to keep him from falling apart into a shell of what he once was.

He looked out the window again. There should be fireworks littering the sky now, but he wondered if people simply didn't feel the passion to celebrate the passage of a new year like they used to. He swallowed hard and caught his finger in a strand of Luke's hair. Tonight would be a night when he had nightmares again.

They were more often than not.

"Ani, come on, dinner is getting cold."

"I'm coming."

Padmé had made a simple dinner for them, but to him it looked like a feast. This was one of their few nights back on Coruscant, returning to meet with other refugees who had hidden within the city under the cover and distraction of a trivial holiday. Padmé's senatorial apartment was always available when they returned to the planet, often held for their little family by an array of decoys and body guards. Anakin was grateful for the place to stay, but he always worried that they'd be caught hiding in plain sight.

But he refused to leave Padmé's side, and the more she played her role of normality in the senate, the more theoretical protection they would be granted.

He absolutely hated how the universe seemed to work against him with cruel irony like that.

His nightmares tended to come more frequently when they were on Coruscant.

Anakin purposely took a seat across from his wife, putting his back to the window and focusing his eyes on his children. Next to him sat the most important man in his life; his former master, his brother, his friend.

Obi-Wan Kenobi had been forced to become a refugee with the death of the Jedi Order as well, and had joined Anakin's small family in a time of need and desperation. It killed Anakin to remember the days when he had believed Obi-Wan unworthy to even know of his family. Now it seemed like Obi-Wan had always belonged, like he was a staple holding everything together when Anakin himself threatened to come apart at the seams.

He smiled gratefully at his brother, just a small smile that he knew showed very little. But Obi-Wan noticed it, and smiled back.

"Happy new year," Obi-Wan said softly, raising his glass of champagne. Padmé and Anakin mimicked his gesture, and Padmé smiled.

"Here's to hope," she said.

"To hope," they echoed.

Anakin took a sip of his champagne and saw Leia fidgeting in her seat out of the corner of his eye, trying to catch the attention of her brother from across the table. He couldn't help but smile again, and he felt it reach farther up into his cheeks this time.

For a moment, the choices he had made didn't matter. Anakin looked to his brother, his children, and finally his wife, soul and lover and felt a kind of peace and clarity he could remember having ever felt before. The one thing that would protect them all from the nightmares, deliver them from the hell that had descended all around them since the Jedi Order had fallen and the Empire had arisen was to remember that even in the deepest despair and darkness, there was always room for hope.