Author's Note:
The longest chapter yet! W00t!
And hugs and kisses to everyone who has favorited this story or put it on alert! Thank you so much!
Okay, I've gotta say this: when I started posting this fic, I was expecting some flames for the Christian tone. I really was. And thus far, I've gotten several positive reviews over it! It's really overwhelmed me – I never dreamed I'd get this kind of feedback! Thank you all so much!
Oh, and I keep getting reviews which say that people hope that Obi-Wan and Siri find Anakin and Padmé soon. Now I feel cruel not just to the Skywalkers but to my readers the longer the Skywalkers stay on Beltaine. Lol!
To my reviewers:
StormieSkywalker: Thank you so much for the article reference. I copied it, and I'll be sure to read it soon!
Pearlmaidenredskyla: Wow, thank you for your overwhelmingly positive review (and the fave)! =D …Anakin and Padmé need to be stuck on a planet for a while, lol.
Christ's Sister: Wow, thank you! And without Wookieepedia, we'd be DOOMED. *nods sagely* Mm-hmm!
==Day Six==
Complications
I'm not too sure that I can go much farther
I'm really not sure things are even getting better
- "What's It Really For?", Tim Jenson (lyrics), Ghost in the Shell: S.A.C. 2nd GIG
"I know what happened yesterday."
Anakin turned at the sound of his wife's voice, trying to ignore how weak it sounded now. "Really?"
Padmé nodded. "It… it's hereditary. Heart problems… they run in the Naberrie family. My grandfather died two years before the Invasion of Naboo – he was just seventy-five, but he died of a heart-attack."
Anakin paled. "You're saying that you could die young because of a weak heart?"
Padmé's eyebrows drew together. "My heart isn't weak, Anakin. But under large amounts of stress, well… I guess we saw the result yesterday morning."
Anakin bit his lip, mind racing. A vow resurfaced in his memory to taunt him: "I will learn to stop people from dying."
"All things die, Anakin. Even stars."
NO!
"I won't let anything more happen to you, Padmé," he told her, voice rough and unsteady. "I promise."
The look in her brown eyes chilled him, and not because they were cold. "You can't promise that, Anakin. You don't have any more control over this than I do."
The life, the spirit, was slowly leeching out of her eyes, and Anakin instinctively knew that the sight would haunt him forever. Padmé Naberrie Amidala didn't give up, no matter what. She'd faced down and beaten back the odds time and time again, ever since she was a child. She was strong. She was a fighter.
She was all that he had left, and he would not let her go.
"Maybe not, but that doesn't mean that I won't fight it," he said, firm voice belying his sudden desperation.
Padmé closed her eyes and turned away. "Some things, you can't fight," she whispered.
"I will fight destiny itself for you, Padmé," Anakin declared, his voice holding a note of rawness. "I will fight the entire universe if it keeps you safe."
A tear slipped out of one closed eyelid. "I wouldn't want you to."
This was a good way to go blind.
Obi-Wan leaned back from the Holonet display and pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. The trip to Ansion had revealed nothing, and now he'd been consulting the navicomputer for half an hour. That in and of itself wasn't enough to blind someone, but if you focused your eyes long enough on the holographic display, it could hurt.
"Anything?" came Siri's voice from another room.
"I plotted out the course Anakin probably would've taken," Obi-Wan replied, "and highlighted all the worlds in-between."
"Really? That's great!" Siri walked into the cockpit and came to stand behind the pilot's seat, studying the display and screwing up her face. "Huh, that's still a lot of planets."
"But not the entire galaxy," Obi-Wan pointed out.
"Nope, not even half," she agreed. "All right, then – shall we get started?"
"We certainly shall," he replied easily, keying in the coordinates to the nearest planet. It was a short jump, and when they reverted to realspace…
"Sithspawn!" Siri cried.
Before them, a battle waged between two starfleets.
"Rival pirate fleets," Obi-Wan surmised, his hands flying over the navigational console. Z-95 Headhunters from the larger of the two fleets changed course and began to fly towards them.
"Holy stars… Obi-Wan, get us out of here!"
"I'm working at it!"
Flak began to rock the ship, and the navicomp was still calculating. "Obi-Wan…"
"I can't make the navicomp go any faster, Siri!"
Siri growled in frustration. "Move over," she ordered.
He blinked at her. "What?"
"Get out of the seat!"
Bewildered, he obeyed, and she quickly sat and took the helm. "Let's just hope this thing is faster than its navicomp," she muttered, throwing the ship around and heading away from the pirates. "Better sit tight – this is gonna be one wild ride."
"Terrific," Obi-Wan commented sourly as he complied. Another Anakin – in his longtime comrade, no less. "Siri…"
"No backseat driving!" The Millennium looped around and headed back for the battle, soaring past the incoming Headhunters.
Was she insane? "What are you doing?"
"Buying the navicomp some time!" Laserfire streaked past the cockpit, and she pushed the freighter down into a dive. "This hunk of junk handles well!"
She sounded faaar too much like Anakin. Obi-Wan just gripped the armrests of his chair and braced himself.
The freighter rocked again from another blast. Siri dialed the inertial compensator down to 95 and threw the ship into a spiraling maneuver.
The navigational console pinged, and Obi-Wan checked it. "We're a go."
"And we're out of here!" Siri threw them forward into hyperspace, leaving the battle far behind. She turned to Obi-Wan with an incorrigible grin. "Made it."
"No comment."
She rolled her eyes and turned back to her console. "Uh-oh."
Only long years of practicing patience kept a hint of whining out of Obi-Wan's voice. "Now what?"
"We've got a leaking hyperdrive," she informed him. "When we get back, I am going to personally recommend to the Council that this bucket of bolts be scrapped."
Obi-Wan frowned at the news but managed a light tone. "Don't. She's got personality. If she could just be fine-tuned, she'd be an excellent ship."
Siri choked out a laugh of surprise. "This coming from the Jedi who hates to fly?"
He threw her a longsuffering look, then turned his gaze to the copilot console, not deigning to reply. "Just great," he muttered after a minute. "Last time a hyperdrive leaked on me, I got stuck with Anakin."
Siri laughed. "Maybe this time, you'll get a girl."
He turned to her sharply, startling her. She couldn't decipher the look in his grey-blue eyes… until the realization of what she'd just said hit her like a blaster bolt.
"Never mind," she mumbled, sure that her face was red. "Boys are just fine."
An awkward silence settled over the cockpit. At last, Obi-Wan's quiet voice broke it, saying, "We can land on Gariuse for repairs. It's two parsecs away."
Siri nodded mutely, refusing to meet his eye. Dumb… that was a dumb thing to say.
She'd vowed to pretend that the Talesan Fry mission had never happened.
She hadn't counted on it haunting her seventeen years later.
"Forget? I can't forget!"
"Well, you just have to. You have to push it down. You have to bury it. I'm not saying it's going to be easy. But I am going to do it. I am not going to think of you or wonder if we did the right thing."
Seventeen years later, the woman cried inwardly at the decision the girl had made.
The sun had set an hour ago, and the moon was climbing to the zenith.
Anakin sat on a log, rocking back and forth on his heels, staring at the stars, his mind empty. He wasn't meditating, wasn't thinking… was just being there. Existing.
He couldn't imagine anything emptier.
A low groan came from the tent, and he rose from his seat and looked inside. Padmé slept, but her beautiful face contorted – she was having a nightmare. Anakin crept up to her side and took her hand in his real one. "Padmé," he whispered. "Padmé, it's just a dream – wake up."
"Baby…"
Anakin's eyes watered. "Padmé…"
Still asleep, Padmé shifted slightly and groaned again. "Sweetie, don't cry."
Anakin brutally shoved away his own grief and took his wife's hand. "Padmé, wake up."
Her eyes slowly opened, slowly focused on him. "Ani…" The brown eyes watered.
Angels weren't supposed to cry. He bent over and kissed her forehead. "Honey, it's going to be all right. We'll get through this, and… we'll get another chance."
Something – he wasn't sure what – passed over her face, before she gave him a grieving smile. Her voice was barely audible, but he heard her say, "You would have made a good daddy."
He gathered her into his arms and cried.
everything is falling apart
and yet a cacophony of voices
(still) whispering
"it will be alright"
echoes in my head
and i wish they would shut up
because just maybe
(sometimes)
i want to fall apart
maybe
(sometimes)
i need to fall apart
- "echo," teenelizabeth
Author's Note:
Yes, the angst continues. *points at the genre* But it's not… angst for the sake of angst, you know? Each couple has its own severe issues, and in working through that angst, they come to resolutions. …Aaand that's all the spoilers you're getting for now. ;D
The poem there is by my old beta reader, from her FictionPress profile. She cleaned out all her stuff a while ago when I wasn't looking, I guess, which saddens me. Fortunately, I still had already copied a lot of her poems to my hard drive. "echo" resonates with me the most, because there really are times when I want to fall apart, and times when I need to fall apart. It's a beautiful piece.
I WON'T BE ABLE TO UPDATE FOR A WEEK. Okay? Sorry about that, but I've got several writing projects going right now, including my own fantasy novel and a college writing course. I'll get the next chapter to you guys by next Saturday, though, all right?
