Fear
While Anakin was wondering where Luke was Padme clinked a spoon to a glass. "Everyone, may I have your attention," she said, and all eyes turned to her. It seemed every Jedi in the Order had made it to the Skywalker Ranch, Padme just wished they could be home on Naboo or Coruscent, no matter how many years had passed she could never get used to Dantooine, even though she loved her life with Ani and the children. "I want to thank you all for coming to the party to celebrate my love for my husband, Jedi Master Anakin Skywalker. When we married, Anakin was nineteen years old and I was twenty-four. In a time of war, our love survived. It was hard on Anakin to keep our love a secret, ever since I've known him; he has readily expressed his emotions. It was especially difficult to keep the secret from his Jedi Master, Obi-Wan, and his padawan, Ahsoka, or his Clone Captain, Rex," as Padme said their names they bowed, and sure enough Anakin's eyes filled with unshed tears. "I was blessed to be the wife of the Jedi's Chosen One, but Ani you weren't just chosen by the Jedi, you were chosen by me as well. My life has been blessed by you. While Anakin's dear mother told me that she believed he was meant to save me, and save me he did, not just from the many assassination attempts, but from a life of politics, Anakin taught me what love was about, and what true happiness meant. And so, my love, this one's for you," she said as she clinked glasses and drank, feeling Anakin's hands come around to her face as his lips met hers.
"That was a wonderful speech, Senator," Anakin replied, as a few tears slipped down his face. Anakin and Padme took a seat as did the rest of their gifts, as Three-pio and Artoo began serving the guests.
Shaak Ti didn't attend the anniversary party of Anakin and Padme. She missed the time when the Jedi weren't soldiers, but peacekeepers, the whole Academy displeased her. The Jedi, thanks to Anakin, were now soldiers. They trained their younglings from the time of entrance to the Jedi to defend and fight, not just to protect their selves, but every aspect of their training was meant to turn them into soldiers. Shaak Ti love Ahsoka but she couldn't become attached. She knew that she was probably one of the only Jedi to still think this way, but she was a Jedi of the Old Order, and unlike Plo Koon she didn't subscribe to Skywalker's new order, and Plo not only subscribed he had led this new order of attachments and soldiers. Shaak Ti supported the Rebellion, she could never live under the rule of the Sith, but neither could she stand by idly any longer while the Jedi remained soldiers. She wished she could talk to Mace Windu, not the monster he had become. She could understand what had drawn him toward Sidious, and she wondered was there a way to bring him back?
Leia had just finished desert when she met Galen's intense gaze. Every time she looked at him, she found him looking back at her intently. Leia went to her room, and got her anniversary gift, for her parents. She too, wondered where Luke was. She felt Jinn behind her. He bounced on her bed, kicking his long legs as he did so.
"So what did you get Mom and Dad?" he asked.
"You know what," she said as she pulled out the bag that held her gift. There was a holo with their whole family plus Uncle Obi-Wan and Aunt Ahsoka's family, engraved, not much different from the japer snippet had Dad had given Mom years before. It was a mini holo inside two pendants; each half of one another, and that could come together or separate, because her parents were two halves of their love. 'With Love, Always Leia' was engraved on both halves. Leia split the halves and opened the pendent, showing Jinn.
"Oh, look, I was just a baby," he said, looking at himself in Padme's arms, while Luke and Leia hung around Anakin, Anakin mouth was open in laughter and his eyes twinkled. Obi-Wan was stroking his beard as he held baby Anella and Mara sat with Satine.
"Do you think Mom and Dad will like it?" she asked hopefully.
"Mom and Dad like anything we make them," he said, as he grabbed her hand and tugged her forward. "Look," he said as he took out a figure of Mom and Dad at their wedding, it was made out of carving, and Leia marveled at the attention to detail.
"That's really really good, Jinn, almost puts my gift to shame," she said, marveling over the wood figure. It was why Jinn had been following Padme around asking for details. It showed a young Padme and Anakin and beside it was Anakin and Padme at their wedding, you could tell the aging on the figures. It was so perfect. There was a knock on Jinn's door, and Leia looked to see Galen with a confident grin on his face as he looked at her, in her white fancy dress, and the white Jedi robe she wore with it. Leia's hair was done up in buns, in a style of the Naboo and she wore white boots, with light make-up on her tanned face. She could feel him looking at her intently and her skin turned a rosy color.
"Your parents are wondering where Luke is, so I came to fetch you," Galen said to her. He noticed the figure. "Did you make that?" he asked.
"Jinn did," Leia said, feeling the tension in the air between them. Or the lust, Leia wasn't sure, all she knew is she was feeling things she had never felt before, and that because of him her connection to the Force had strengthened, she wondered if his had too.
"That's wonderful, Jinn," he said, and Jinn smiled, the grin making Galen feel like he was looking into the light of the Force. He was blinded for the moment. "Well, that is a surprise," Galen said as he smiled at the five year old. Galen reached for her hand and led her out, Jinn following behind as he grabbed both gifts and dropped them on his mother and father's lap before climbing up on top of his father.
"You have to see, Dad, I spent a lot of time on it, just like you do in the garage," he said. Anakin opened the bag and looked from him to Leia. "This is wonderful," he said looking at Jinn's gift. "Padme, look," he showed to her. "You did this Jinn?" he asked, and the boy beamed at him, Anakin shielded himself from the light coming from his son as his thin arms circled his neck. Anakin handed it to Padme as Padme showed him the gift Leia had given him.
"Princess, thank you," he said, hugging Leia close. "I can't believe how the years past, I remember the day you and Luke were born. I barely made it," he told her. "Where is Luke?" he asked, and the Jedi talked among themselves. Padme heard her beacon and displayed the message.
"Oh, Ani. I'm sorry everyone, but we must go. Anakin, I am truly sorry," she said as Anakin kissed her quickly.
"I'll meet you there Padme," he said, knowing that he could use the Force to arrive quicker. Anakin, followed by Obi-Wan, Leia and Galen made their way using Force speed to the Jedi healers. He approached his son, who appeared to be in a healing trance. "Luke, it's Dad," he said, touching his son's forehead. It was clammy. What was wrong with his son? He turned to Revan. "What happened?" he asked, reaching for his son's hand. "Luke, it's Daddy," he whispered again. "When you get out of here, I'm going to take you flying, anywhere you want to go son, just like we did when you were a kid."
"Anakin, don't make promises you can't keep," Obi-Wan said, gently.
"I will keep my promise, Obi-Wan," he said, as his heart clenched at Luke's condition.
"I hate to be the one to break this to you, Anakin," Revan said, "But he was using the Dark Side, I've wiped his memory of the event."
"But why?"
"Dad," Leia said, "I don't think Luke made it to Padawan, perhaps that's why."
"Oh, Son," Anakin said as he held his son, "I don't care if you made padawan, or even if you are a Jedi, but you must never use the Dark Side it takes you to a place you do not wish to go. It brings enslavement, not freedom," Anakin said as Luke's eyes finally floated open.
"Dad?" he questioned weakly, before he fell asleep.
"Inform his teachers, he will be going with me to visit the Rebellion, it's time Luke sees more of the galaxy that Dantooine and the Enclave," he said, as Revan went to do so. He paused as he spoke to Anakin.
"I think that would be best. Luke has always wanted to see the Galaxy."
"I know the feeling," he said, remembered the young slave on Tattooine he had been who wanted to see every planet in the Galaxy; he hadn't seen them all, but quite a few of them.
Anakin felt Obi-Wan touch his shoulder and he was thrown into a vision of a different future. He was on the planet Mustafar; he recognized it from when he and Ahsoka had saved the padawans-to-be destroying Sidious/Palpatine's plan. He recognized the Nubian cruiser in front of him, it was Padme's. Anakin didn't have any control over his actions as he watched the course of events unfold. Padme was there, she was so glad to see him; she was heavily pregnant with the twins. Anakin felt the anger leave him as he schooled his features into that of the Hero With No Fear, into Anakin's features, allowing the light to fill him as she ran into his embrace. He held her rocking her back and forth as he placed his hand over her womb feeling the younglings inside, his younglings, his family.
"Are you alright?" she asked him, she was searching his eyes for something. He stroked her chestnut hair, kissed the top of her head, as it was tucked under his chin. She was the only one he still trusted, her and Palpatine. "Anakin, my Anakin," she said desperately happy to see him. She shivered against his chest. "I've been so frightened."
"Shh. Shh, it's alright," he soothed her, kissing the tears from her cheeks. He stroked her hair until her trembling began to fade, then he cupped her chin and raised her face to look into her eyes. "You never need to worry about me. No one can hurt me. Don't you understand, no one can hurt either of us, ever."
"It wasn't that, my love," she said, looking into his eyes, revealing herself to her husband, only with him would she ever truly put away what he called her senator face and leave herself open to being hurt. "Oh Anakin, he said such terrible things," she admitted to him.
"About me?" he asked with a gentle chuckle. "Who would want to say such bad things about me? Who would dare?" he asked her as his lips met hers, but she wasn't appeased.
"Obi-Wan told me such horrible things. He said…that you've turned to the Dark Side…that you murdered Jedi…even younglings," she said, and as she spoke Anakin felt his anger spike. How dare his old master do this to him, go to his wife and feel her head with tales, she was his wife, and he was her husband. Perhaps, Palpatine had been right, perhaps they were seeing each other behind his back, laughing and carrying on about the naïve boy from Tattooine he was. He would show them all! She belonged to him, and he was Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith! How dare they laugh at him!
"Obi-Wan's alive?" Anakin asked, sure that Order Sixty-Six would have gotten rid of his old master, his voice dropped an octave, and took on a voice with coldness it in. A voice that was colder to her than the icy winds of Hoth, a voice that didn't sound at all like the husband so adored so.
"Y-yes-he, he said he was looking for you," Padme admitted.
"Did you tell him where I am?" he asked, in that same cold voice.
"No, Anakin!" she said vehemently, "He wants to kill you," she said shocked that he could want to hurt Anakin, "I didn't tell him anything-I wouldn't. I'm your wife," she stressed.
"Too bad," Anakin said conversationally, and even Anakin watching this couldn't believe what he was hearing, what he was seeing, it was so surreal. He couldn't believe that he and Obi-Wan were enemies, Obi-Wan who had been like a father to him. He had always been the closest thing Anakin had ever had to a father, and now they were plotted to destroy one another, where would this end, with Padme and the twins caught in the crossfire. And what about Jinn, where did he fit into this vision, this alternate universe, this reminded him of the vision he had had in the cave, and Anakin realized this was the vision it was only him, he had been the man that massacred the Jedi at the Temple, and he had attacked Padme and the twins, only now he was seeing and hearing it in HD rather than in DVD.
"Anakin, what-"Padme asked as startled as he was. This being in front of her was like the Anakin Skywalker she had lived the last fifteen years with, he was someone different, someone Anakin didn't recognize, he was a shadow of himself, the Dark Side of himself, the side of him that had attacked the Sand People.
"He's a traitor, Padme," the Anakin-like man said to her. "He's an enemy of the state. He has to die," he continued in the same passionless voice. The voice Anakin now recognized as a voice of the Dark Side, he had heard it before in Dooku and in Maul.
"Stop it!" Padme screamed at him, backing away so that she could see him. "Stop talking like that…you're frightening me."
"You're not the one who needs to be afraid."
"It's like-it's like- I don't even know you," she cried as her lovely brown eyes filled with tears that spilt forth. Look, Anakin, wanted to tell himself. You made her cry, you promised that you wouldn't and even though Anakin and Padme had fought through the years, Anakin had never intentionally made his wife cry.
"I'm the man who loves you," he said through clenched teeth. "I'm the man who would do anything to protect you. Everything I have done, I have done for you." Anakin wondered what this Dark Anakin meant by this. How could murdering the Jedi ever be for her? What position would Anakin have to be in to have murdered for her. Yes, he would kill anyone that harmed her, but the Jedi, innocent sentinents who would never harm Padme. There had been many times throughout the war that Anakin had destroyed droids to save her, even doing his best to destroy Grievous, but he was a droid to, and the times he had thought he had killed Ventress, she hadn't been defenseless.
"Anakin," she said, squeezing his hand, her voice low, horror squeezing her voice down to a whisper: small, fragile and very small. "What have you done?"
"What I have done," he answered in clipped tones, tones that sounded so UNLIKE him, "is bring peace to the Republic."
"The Republic is dead," she continued in that horrified whisper, "You killed it, you and Palpatine." Anakin's worse fears were realized. He had joined that monster, he had joined the Emperor, and he had murdered his brothers. And what had become of Ahsoka? Anakin shook his head horrified at the dark side of his soul.
"It needed to die."
New tears trickled down Padme's face, Anakin wanted to snarl at himself to do something anything to stop his beloved from crying, from being so horrified of him. "Anakin, can't we just go? We don't need to stay…everything is gone. We can go away together. Just you, and me, and the baby. Nothing else matters anymore. We can finally be together. Let's just leave. Now before you-before something happens." Anakin shook his head; she had been prepared to give up so much, to give up everything she had ever believed in for him, for their family, for their happiness. Come on, he told Dark Anakin, listen to her.
"Nothing will happen. Nothing can happen. Let Palpatine call himself Emperor. Let him. He can do all the dirty work, all the messy brutal oppression that it'll take to unite the galaxy forever-against him. He'll make himself into the most hated man in history. And when the time is right, we'll throw him down." Anakin couldn't say he was shocked. Palpatine was the most hated man in the Galaxy by those that held honor, the only ones who loved him were grubby power hungry politicians and men like Moff Tarkin, Anakin still had a score to settle with him.
"Anakin, stop."
"Don't you see?" Dark Anakin's voice was passionate, heated, excited; he was lit up with some kind of dark power. "We'll be heroes. The whole galaxy will love us, and we will rule together."
"Please stop-Anakin, please stop, I can't stand it," she said, as she grabbed at her heart, as if it were breaking in two. Anakin wanted to take her in his arms and soothe her pain; it was getting harder and harder to tell himself this wasn't real with his wife's pain apparent. Dark Anakin wasn't looking at her, he wasn't listening to her. Feral joy burned within his eyes and his face was no longer human. Anakin could see his reflection in the lava lakes, and it frightened him, to think that he could turn into that dark creature, into that Sith.
"You," Dark Anakin said as he looked past Padme to his old mentor. Anakin cheered slightly, maybe Obi-Wan could talk some sense into Dark Anakin, but then he frowned if Padme didn't have any luck, what luck would Obi-Wan have?
"Padme," Obi-Wan said calmly, precisely in that clipped Coruscenti accent. "Move away from him."
"Obi-Wan?" she whirled, stunned as she was seeing him on her boarding ramp. "No." She turned back to Anakin who was now looking at her, his look calculating as if he was trying to figure something out.
"You," growled a voice that should have been her love's. "You brought him here," he growled, his voice filled with accusations. Dark Anakin's eyes were full of flames.
"Anakin?" she questioned, fear entering her eyes.
"Padme, move away," there was urgency in Obi-Wan's voice, and it was as close to fear as she or Anakin had ever heard it. "He's not who you think he is, he will harm you." Anakin sadly admitted that he now believed Obi-Wan, even though he would never harm Obi-Wan, Padme, or their children this dark specter, he wasn't so sure about.
Dark Anakin snarled as his lips peeled off his teeth, "I would thank you for this, if it were a gift of love."
Padme trembled, shaking with fear, she was afraid of him, and truthfully Anakin was too. It reminded him of his massacre of the Tuskan Village amplified by a hundred thousand. How could he be so dark? So dare he say evil? And yet he felt the current of power fill him, so that it made his thoughts hazy cloudy laced with anger and the dark side. It was only by seeing Padme and her pain, that Anakin retained his grip on the Light Side as he watched the dark side of himself. "No, Anakin, no."
"Palpatine was right. Sometimes it is the closets who cannot see. I loved you too much, Padme." He made a fist, and Anakin longed to draw his lightsaber against his specter, and then he could move. He lunged at Dark Anakin as Dark Anakin closed his fist.
"Get away from her! Leave her alone!" he commanded. Dark Anakin looked at him perplexed. Obi-Wan's gaze flew between the two of them, everyone seemed unsure of his sudden appearance. Anakin knelt on the ground by Padme. "Padme, my love, my angel," he murmured as he kissed her eyebrows, for she had fallen as Dark Anakin's attention was diverted. "Wake up, baby, it's me." Anakin used the Force to check for vital signs. "She seems okay," he said to himself. "Master," he pleaded. "Help me get her on the cruiser. She's my wife," he admitted. "I am their father," he admitted looking back at Dark Anakin.
"No!" he roared. "You cannot take her from me!"
"She doesn't belong to you," Anakin said calmly. "She is my wife, and I would die before I allowed harm to come to her. Go back to your master, pet," Anakin sneered at Dark Anakin. "You are as much a slave now as you were to Watto." Anakin picked up her body and held it to her. "We have to find Ahsoka, she can heal her."
"Whose Ahsoka?" Obi-Wan asked, looking between the two. Anakin knew that this wasn't just a vision, it was an alternate universe. A universe in which Ahsoka was never taken to the Temple, never given to Anakin as a padawan which he still believed Obi-Wan had a hand in.
"Leave him, I'll explain everything, Obi-Wan," Anakin told the alternate version of his master.
"He's dangerous," Obi-Wan said, his eyes still narrowed.
"I know, sometimes master, a great leap forward often requires a step back," he said and Obi-Wan frowned, that sounded awfully like something he would say.
"Don't tell me you've actually started to listen to me," he said.
"Duck!" Anakin shouted as Dark Anakin shot Force lightning from his fingertips, and Obi-Wan found himself igniting his lightsaber to protect one version of his apprentice. "Artoo, set a course, for the nearest planet," he told him. He heard the whistle and beep and the disapproval. "That wasn't me," Anakin attempted to explain. "After you set the course, I'll explain," he told him.
"Oh my, Master Ani," Three-poi said as he looked at Mistress Padme. "Do you think Mistress Padme will be alright?"
"I hope so Three-poi, I really hope so."
"Alright, Anakin, let's have it. Are you or….." Obi-Wan couldn't finish the thought, "my apprentice."
"I believe I come from another dimension," Anakin revealed. "Not long after I was knighted I received a padawan…" Anakin paused as he spoke to the medical droid, he held Padme's hand. "I'm here." Then he frowned, "Perhaps I should start with the day I married Padme."
"That would be a good place to start," Obi-Wan agreed.
"You had told her to break it off with me, that we couldn't have a relationship as long as I remained a Jedi that our relationship was impossible. She told you she wanted to do it in her own way, while I escorted her to Naboo. She wasn't entirely honest with you, Master," Anakin said. "I'm thirty-seven years old, Master," Anakin continued. "I am a Jedi Master in my own right and Padme and I have three children."
"Three! The Code….a Jedi Master…but the Council denied you the rank of Master."
"Settle down, Master," Anakin said with a hint of a smile that faded as he looked at her. "I don't know about his relationship with Padme, it seems so twisted and perverted, but I love Padme, there isn't anything I wouldn't do for her."
"Even turn to the Dark Side?" Obi-Wan asked.
"Our marriage isn't like that, Master. Padme is good; she brings out the best in me. I am not that monster. I know I was good friends with Palpatine but after I captured Tyrone Dooku he started acting strange, and then the purges happened. I was able to relocate many Jedi and Clones."
"You?"
"Yes, you wanted me to accept a position on the Council, but I couldn't see staying safe while the Galaxy needs me."
"But you weren't given a position on the Council, you were appointed by the Chancellor," Obi-Wan explained. "You were so angry about it…when Master Windu told you…." Obi-Wan shook his head.
"Master Windu kidnapped my wife, he became a Sith," Anakin explained. "He kidnapped Satine."
"Anakin, how do you know about Satine? I haven't seen her since I was a padawan?"
"I thought I was having a vision, and then seeing what he did to Padme somehow I crossed into this dimension. I can't be here, Obi-Wan; you have to get me back. I have a family that needs me. Then, there's the Rebellion, and I was about to accept a mission to obtain the plans for the Death Star, it's the Emperor's new weapon, they say it can take out a planet, and I cannot allow that to happen. I have already watched the twins be born, and I need to be there for Luke…Revan tells me he touched the Dark Side."
"I don't understand what you are telling me, slow down," Obi-Wan told him.
"We are entering Polis Messa," Three-poi told him.
"Thank you, Three-poi," Anakin said and Three-poi appeared uncomfortable with him. "Am I that terrible in this dimension that even Three-poi is afraid of me?" All Anakin had to do was think back to Dark Anakin's attack on Padme. "Maybe Master Yoda knows something about dimensions," he pondered. "How many Jedi are there?" he asked.
"I may very well be the Last of the Jedi," Obi-Wan said, sadly. Anakin growled in frustration.
"That's impossible, when this happened before there were many Jedi that survived, Master Yoda, Master Kota, Master Ti, and Master Fitso."
"Master Yoda went to face the Emperor and Master Ti and Master Fitso are dead, killed by Palpatine."
"Get me Captain Rex," Anakin said.
"Who?" Obi-Wan asked.
"My Clone Captain, you know hangs out with your Clone Commander Cody, practically bored Rex to death, much like you do me," Anakin said, trying to consider where to go from here.
"Cody shot me," Obi-Wan said.
"No, he didn't, he was with us when Order Sixty-Six went down. The twins were being born and I had just gotten back from a mission with Revan, barely made it for the twins' birth. We were on Tattooine when Order Sixty-Six happened. Rex explained everything to me, and both he and Cody joined the Rebellion. You were saving Satine from Jabba the Hutt at that time."
"I think I like your galaxy better."
"There's one thing though, Master Windu joined the Sith."
"It seems like the Galaxy fared better with you on our side, you said many Jedi survived."
"I wasn't the only one that broke the Code. You have two daughters, Obi-Wan, with Satine."
"I broke the Code? Now, I know I'm going crazy," Obi-Wan pondered. "Perhaps, seeing my padawan join the Sith and choke his secret wife was too much for me, I'm imagining a Jedi Anakin and a fantasy parallel universe."