Title: Impossible, Improbable, Inevitable
Summary: A little vignette telling of how Anakin Skywalker's tragedy ended in triumph.
Disclaimer: George Lucas owns everything even remotely related to Star Wars.
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The white, sterile walls of the Temple healer's wing slowly came into focus as Anakin Skywalker drifted towards full consciousness. Piercing pain exploded in his brain as the artificial light hit his eyes. He tried to move his head to the side so he could avoid the brightness of the room, but found that he was immobilized. He couldn't move, not his head, or his arms and legs; he couldn't move anything.
"Don't be frightened, Anakin. You're in the Temple, you're safe," came the soothing and comforting voice of his former Master, Obi-Wan Kenobi. "Everything is going to be fine."
Anakin knew it was a lie. He could sense Obi-Wan's emotions as easily as he could feel his own. The older man was afraid. It was a fear that Anakin had never before felt from his former teacher. Most disconcerting was the fact that he could sense that Obi-Wan's fear was for him. There was something very wrong.
"Oh good, you're awake," Anakin heard Jedi Healer Bant Earin's friendly voice say to him as she walked into the room. Using his peripheral vision, he watched her move from the doorway to stand right next to him. He saw her rest a salmon-colored, webbed hand on his shoulder. Alarmingly, he quickly realized that while he could see her hand on his shoulder out of the corner of his eye, he couldn't feel her hand; there was no sensation at all.
Obi-Wan immediately felt Anakin's panic. "Calm down, Anakin. Try and relax. Bant has a few things she needs to explain to you, but first she needs to ask some questions," Obi-Wan explained to the confused and scared Jedi Knight. "You're on a respirator, so you won't be able to talk. We need you to speak to her through the Force. Can you do that?" he asked, hoping his soft tone would reassure Anakin somehow.
"Yes, Master," Anakin responded.
Obi-Wan smiled at Anakin's use of the title. He hadn't been Anakin's Master for more than three years. "Good," Obi-Wan said.
"Anakin, I need to know what you remember about your duel with Palpatine," Bant told him, her voice clearly shifting from concerned friend to Jedi healer.
Anakin's mind seemed to drift for a few moments before he answered. "I confronted him in his office. He seemed…shocked that I knew his true identity," Anakin began. "When it became apparent to him that I wouldn't be turned, he hurtled Force-lightening at me. I barely had the time to ignite my saber and block it before he launched himself at me with his own saber. We fought for…I don't know, it seemed like hours. So much of the fight is a blur. I was getting tired and I knew I had to end it soon, so I started attacking. I drove him back into the corner, but he just became angrier and more forceful with his strikes. I don't know how it happened, but he flipped over my head and I felt his saber enter my back at the same time I felt the lightening hit me again and…," his voice broke off. Tears were falling from his eyes.
Obi-Wan leaned down and placed a gentle, fatherly kiss on Anakin's forehead and continually smoothed back his dark blonde hair in an attempt to calm the younger man. "Take your time, Anakin," he instructed.
"Ye-yes, M-master," came Anakin's halting reply. He gathered himself quickly and spoke again. "Palpatine was toying with me. He knew he didn't stab me deep enough with the saber to kill me. That was my advantage, and I took it. I had fallen to my knees, and he stopped the lightening for just a moment. I whirled around as fast as I was capable and…and thrust my saber into his chest, right through his heart. He was dead before he hit the floor," he finished.
"Do you remember anything after you killed him?" Bant inquired.
"Not really. I remember falling to the ground and everything fading to black around me. The next thing I remember is waking up in here as few minutes ago."/ Anakin told her, uncertainty and fear coloring his facial expression. "What's wrong with me, Bant? Why can't I move anything?" he wanted to know.
Bant moved closer to Anakin so that he could see her face as she broke the news to him. "As you said, the saber wound wasn't deep, but it did serious damage to your spinal cord. You're paralyzed, Anakin, from your shoulders down."
/
Oh, how he remembered that day; the day nearly eighteen years ago that changed his life forever. Palpatine's lightsaber had fractured the vertebrae and damaged the nerves in his spinal cord. The neural pathways leading from the brain to the spinal cord that told his body to move had been eroded by the Force-lightening attack. Along with the Force-lightening that had damaged his lungs beyond repair, his injuries had left him dependent on a respirator and confined to a hover chair.
"Are you okay, Anakin?" Padme asked her husband.
Anakin turned to face his love, his hope, his angel. "Yes, I'm fine. I was just watching the traffic race by the window," he told her.
Padme didn't need the Force to sense that he was worried about their son, Luke. The eighteen year-old Padawan was off on a dangerous mission with his Master. Padme herself was worried, but she had confidence in her son's abilities. She knew Anakin did as well.
"He'll be back soon," she said, letting him know that she knew where his thoughts had drifted.
Anakin didn't reply; there was no need. He and Padme had been married so long that they didn't need words to communicate. One look or touch said a thousand words.
/
"Father, Mother, I'm back!" Luke Skywalker yelled as he entered his parents' apartment.
"We're coming, Son!" Anakin yelled back as he jumped up from his chair in the kitchen and practically ran into the common room to greet their son.
Padme shook her head. All those years ago, if someone had told her that she would ever see Anakin walking again, she'd have told them they were crazy. But he'd done it. He'd become more determined than any one person she'd ever seen. Anakin had tackled his therapy with a fierceness and single-mindedness that she had never known. His determination to walk again had led him all over the galaxy, speaking to government officials and scientific researchers alike. Anakin had inspired them to work harder so that he and every other being in the galaxy that was paralyzed would one day walk again. They worked harder, Anakin himself worked harder, and he walked again.
"I always told you, Angel, at first, dreams seem impossible, then improbable, and eventually inevitable. I dreamed impossible things that became inevitable," he told her, having picked up on her thoughts as he and Luke came back into the kitchen where she was cooking dinner.
With tears in her eyes, Padme hurried across the kitchen and hugged her husband and son for all she was worth. Tragedy had nearly torn their family apart, but Anakin's force of will and his inevitable dream had held them together.
The End
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"So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable,"~Christopher Reeve, 'Superman'
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I wrote this fic in memory and in honor of Christopher Reeve, a man that persevered in the face of incredible tragedy. He fully and truly believed that his dream of one day walking again was inevitable. Sadly, October 10, 2004 saw that dream end when Christopher passed away at the age of 52. It is my hope that all of the work he did in getting funding for spinal cord injury research will not have been in vain. I look forward to the day when the first paraplegic or quadriplegic gets up and walks again, knowing that it was Christopher Reeve that set the world community on the path to finding a cure for paralysis. I hope his determination, his fighting spirit and his superhuman belief that all things are possible will serve as inspiration for us all. It's time for us to take up the fight for him.
RIP Chris. You were loved and you will be missed.
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Okay, I made myself cry. I have always been a huge Superman fan, and I was deeply saddened by the news that Christopher Reeve had passed away. I'd always hoped that he would walk again. As a child, he made me believe that a man could fly, and as an adult he made me believe that he would walk again. In writing this vignette, I gave Anakin the outcome I had always wished for Christopher. So, wherever he is now, I believe that he's walking. Maybe he's flying.
Thanks for reading folks.