Note: This is a sequel to "Horse with No Name," and I recommend that you read that one first.

Disclaimer: Nope, it's still not mine. All belongs to George.

Fragile

For all those born beneath an angry star
Lest we forget how fragile we are
On and on the rain will fall
Like tears from a star, like tears from a star
On and on the rain will say
How fragile we are, how fragile we are

--Sting

Anakin always loved the rain.

It has been a long time since you thought of him. Long enough, perhaps, that it no longer even hurts to think of him. He was killed long ago, and his murderer has now become your murderer, as well. You think that is fitting, somehow.

But you find that you must be constantly reminding yourself of these things now. It is his son. Anakin's son, bright and full of promise, and always questioning, always seeking, seeking even the truth that everyone else denies. His is a painful glory.

You had so little time with him in life, but that hardly matters. It is your duty to watch over the boy, and death has not changed that. But you find yourself wishing, now, that it had. Because thinking hurts now just as much as it always did, and even one with the Force, you still dislike the rain. Once, you thought that was simply because it left you with nothing to do but think. But now, the boy has questioned everything you spent so long telling yourself, and he has forced you to question, too. You wonder if, perhaps, you really hate the rain because Anakin always loved it.

Luke, too, loves the rain.

On some days, it is more than you can bear.

"Ben," you hear him plead once again, the words that have become his mantra, "why didn't you tell me?" And as always, you give him no answer.

He thinks you lied to him, purposely misled him. The simple truth, though, is that you lied only to yourself. And you wish desperately that you were still capable of believing your own lies. But Luke will not allow you that luxury. He is unflinching, almost heartless in his pursuit of the cold, factual truth.

You watch him as he sits in the rain, the droplets running down his face like tears, and you know that he is thinking of his father. His father. Vader. You wish that you could forget, but Luke will not let you any more.

It seems that it is always raining now.

You remember, for the first time in years, Anakin's first experience of rain. You remember the wonder that filled his eyes and made his little face seem almost to glow. You remember how he told you the sky was crying for joy. And, remembering, you think that that hurts most of all.

With a suddenness that is almost painful, you wonder what Vader thinks of the rain now. Perhaps the sky is still crying, but you cannot imagine that it is happy.

And yet, you wonder what Luke might say if you were to ask him why he loves the rain. But you don't ask. You are almost afraid to. In many ways, he is nothing like his father, but in this…

"Ben," he says, though he cannot see you and you are certain he does not know you are watching. He is merely speaking his thoughts aloud to the rain. "I know there is good in him," he says and trails off, his eyes gazing through the rain to something beyond even your sight. You wonder what it is that he sees.

His hand reaches out, and you both watch as the drops fall between his fingers, glittering like stars. Luke smiles with a knowledge that he never learned from you, and as he closes his eyes and stretches his arms out to the rain, you find yourself almost wishing that you could touch it again. You remember Anakin laughing at your abhorrence of getting wet, at the way you used to hunch under your cloak to avoid the rain drops. Sometimes, he would splash you when he thought you weren't looking, and when you scolded him, he would simply laugh and splash you again. Such incidents were most common when he was young, but you remember a few times even during the war when he seemed to forget all the pain and death for a time and just stand laughing in the rain.

Time mists in the rain before your eyes, and Anakin is gone, as he has been for so long now, but his place beneath the weeping sky is not left empty. Luke stands there now, face upturned and beautiful under the glowering sky, drops of rain or tears (that's the thing about rain—you never can tell the difference) running down his face. And he is laughing—the quiet, joyous laughter of the one who sees what others cannot. You think, with a flash of insight and regret, that this boy is what his father always wished to be.

You stand beside Luke, invisible in the rain, and in that moment you let go the last of your lies, releasing them into the falling water. You acknowledge Anakin for what he was, and for what he has become, and you do not run from the pain that it brings. And the rain, his rain, is there to cleanse you as you fall.

But you cling even now, all unknowing, to the final lie, the lie of certainty, and so you do not see what Luke sees. You allow yourself to remember Anakin as he was, and you force yourself to see him as he is, and the falling rain hides your grief.

But beside you, the image of the one you have lost laughs under a sky full of tears, for he alone sees what Anakin may become.

And the rain falls on.