Chapter Three

I manage to convince Padme' to leave Coruscant and travel with me to Tatooine with very little prodding just as I had promised Obi-Wan. While I'm sure he likely assumed I was speaking out of ego, the truth is much simpler. I know my wife. I know her reasons for wanting to stay behind and support the bill that she championed just as I knew that she would easily abandon those reasons for something she deemed more important. The warning of an imminent attack on her life had not been enough to convince her but when she learned that my mother might possibly be in danger and that I meant to rescue her, she had stopped resisting. Her bags were packed within the hour.

By early evening we are boarded on a transport ship bound for the Outer Rim after bidding farewell to Captain Typho and Padme's handmaiden at the station. The only possessions we have with us are two small bags and R2, who wastes little time telling me all the things I am doing wrong and what I can do better. I must admit that I've missed that sassy little astromech. He hasn't yet developed that same fondness for me that I have for him, however, so I'm careful with how familiar I am. Both with him and his mistress.

Currently, he is standing guard over Padme' while she quietly eats her dinner. I am stationed over near the viewport, staring out into the vast, starry space beyond as I mentally strategize my mother's rescue. I won't be able to approach the Tusken camp as soon as we reach Tatooine because I will need to see that Padme' is taken care of first. Thankfully, I don't have to waste time seeking out Watto to learn of my mother's whereabouts or ask for directions to the camp either. This time, I can take Padme' straight to the Lars homestead and then, after that, I can go after my mother.

"How long have you been having nightmares about your mother?"

The question abruptly shakes me from my thoughts and when I glance up, I find Padme' watching me intently. "Off and on since I left Tatooine, but they've gotten worse in this last month."

"Why do you think she might be in danger?"

"These dreams are different. I sense that she's in terrible pain. I'm worried about her."

"And you haven't seen her at all since you left?"

"No. Jedi do not have attachments. It's forbidden."

"But she's your mother," she argues as if that fact alone should have been enough to render the concept absurd.

"I know."

She grimaces her distaste though she doesn't comment on her personal feelings about it. "That must be extremely difficult for you."

"It has been. I've missed her very much."

"So…you can't love anyone at all?"

"I can love anyone I choose," I reply softly, "A Jedi can't fulfil his duty to others without having deep compassion for others and their well-being. But we cannot love so much that we can't let go."

Padme' appears thoughtful at my reply, a pensive frown furrowing the smooth, porcelain skin of her forehead. "So, have you mastered that yet?"

"Mastered what?"

"The letting go part."

I bite back an ironic smile that she should be the person to ask me that. "I'm working on it."

"I suppose that's what you're trying to do with me then."

Her matter-of-fact summation of the truth leaves me speechless. Even now, after she and I have been apart for so many years, Padme' can still read my thoughts as skillfully as any Force user. I feel defenseless against her probing stare and quickly glance away from her. She, of course, observes that faltering action and immediately pounces.

"Don't think I haven't noticed that you've been keeping me at arm's length, Anakin, as if we're merely polite acquaintances rather than good friends."

I grit my teeth against the chagrined smile that threatens, unable to meet her gaze directly though I do study her from beneath my lashes. "Are we good friends?"

She narrows her eyes at me in unspoken challenge. "I thought we were. Was I mistaken?"

A short bark of laughter escapes me. "I was a nine-year-old former slave. You were a queen. I didn't imagine I had made that great of an impact on you, Padme'."

"Well, you were wrong," she retorts quietly, "I've thought of you practically every day since we met, Anakin Skywalker. You're a very difficult person to forget." A pregnant pause of silence rises as we regard each other in the wake of her reply. And then she favors me with an arch smile, I suspect in a bid to dispel the sudden intense, crackling tension that is flaring between us. "And now that you know that you were wrong, feel free to prostrate yourself before my queenly excellence and beg my forgiveness."

I can feel a smile tugging at the corners of my mouth despite my best efforts to keep my features neutral. "My deepest apologies, milady."

She laughs in response, but then quickly sobers and appraises me with a deeply pensive expression, as if I'm an intricate puzzle that she's trying to solve. "You seem so different from how I remember you," she murmurs.

"Is that a bad thing? I was nine after all."

"No, it's not a bad thing," she giggles, "Just intriguing. I'm trying to reconcile the Ani you are now with the Ani that I once knew."

"I'm not a little boy anymore," I reply dryly, "I've grown up. Ten years will do that."

"Has it only been ten years? If that's true, then I think you might just be the oldest 19-year-old that I've ever met!"

"Excuse me?" I scoff in mock affront, "Are you implying, milady, that I am mature for my age?"

"Not implying it at all. I'm stating it outright," she teases with an airy smile, "You're practically ancient in my estimation. I also find you to be unfailingly responsible and reliable."

I'm grinning at her before I can stop myself. "Oh well then, if you're going to insult me, we definitely can't be friends."

We share a giggling burst of laughter and, for that split second, I don't feel anything except incredible, unadulterated joy. But the feeling is altogether fleeting and is quickly replaced with self-loathing. It's frightening how easily I fall back into playful, light-hearted banter with her, how simple it is for me to become lost in her delightful laughter. But those are gifts I do not deserve. I don't get to have this with her again, not when I've lived the last decade of my life as a heartless machine devoted to dismantling everything she ever stood for.

How could I even think I would ever have the right to laugh with her again, much less the privilege of basking in the warmth of her glowing smile? If she knew what I truly was she would back away from me in horror and disgust just as she had that night on Mustafar. I don't know you anymore! Anakin, you're breaking my heart! You're going down a path I can't follow.

All traces of my laughter fades away with the stark memory, leaving me suffocating under the weight of my guilt and shame once more. I turn aside from her then and stare out the viewport once more. "You should get some sleep," I tell her in a tone much colder than what I intend, "We likely won't reach Tatooine until the morning."

"Wh-What about you?" I don't need to see her face to know that she's confused and hurt by my abrupt, inexplicable mood shift. I can sense the underlying tremble in her words. "Aren't you going to sleep as well?"

"No. I don't sleep."

It's not an exaggeration. I rarely do. Or, at least, I hadn't. Very sporadically even before my fall and even less after Sidious confined me to the suit that had served as my prison…and my haven. There had been times when I could go days without sleeping, operating efficiently like the machine that I largely was. Only on the occasions when I was submerged in my bacta tank did my consciousness relax into something that was close to sleep. But with those infrequent occurrences came the inevitable nightmares, terrors associated with Anakin Skywalker's suppressed past…aching regrets mostly centered around her. They had made sleep or anything resembling it quite…unpleasant.

Eventually, I learned to use those subconscious terrors to fuel my rage and hate so that I could expand my power in the dark side, become more deeply entrenched in it. I became a master at transforming my incredible pain into unimaginable power. My connection to the Force became like nothing I had ever experienced as a Jedi. Still, the emptiness inside of me, that yawning void she had left there always remained.

In glaring contrast to then, however, my connection to the dark side now feels tenuous at best. As opposed to feeling omnipotent, instead I am as powerless as I had been as a nine-year-old boy standing before the Jedi High Council while they decided the course of my future and I withered under their disapproving scrutiny. But strangely, that void inside of me is starting to fill again and there is an emotion rising in me that I haven't felt in a very, very long time. Hope… Beyond the self-hatred and guilt and shame, it's there, slowly, gradually pushing me back towards the light and it's because of her.

After more than a decade, I finally understand what Master Yoda meant when he told me that I had to be willing to lose the thing I loved. Because love should never be about our own personal needs. It isn't selfish. It was never supposed to be about me. It's about her and what she needs. What she deserves. I didn't consider that the first time. I allowed my needs and my fear to take precedence over everything else and I destroyed us both. That cannot happen again. I'm determined to put her first this time, even if that means breaking my own heart in the process.

And so, I continue to ignore her even though I can feel her eyes on me the entire time, even as her bewildered hurt over my rejection radiates back at me through the Force. Thankfully, she doesn't question me further, but I don't completely relax until I hear her settle down for the night. Only when I'm sure that she's fallen asleep do I finally step away from the viewport and station myself beside her with a heavy sigh.

She looks so beautiful and peaceful lying there. I can recall many nights when I would simply lie in bed and study the perfect lines of her face in the pale moonlight, dreading the rise of the sun because I knew that it meant that I would have to leave her again. I hadn't wanted to waste those precious hours sleeping when I could watch her instead.

I have missed her so much. I literally aching with the need to touch her, but I fist my hands against my thighs and resist the urge to lightly brush her cheek. It is enough to simply exist within her precious space again, to bask in the warm radiance of her presence.

And so, I allow myself that small contentment and spend the rest of the night watching her dream.

The following morning, I am not surprised when Padme' treats me with a fair amount of courteous indifference. She's consistently polite but emotionally inaccessible. Despite the fact I am expecting her reaction and even knowing that I deserve it, I cannot say that I'm thrilled to be on the receiving end of her frosty ire. Beyond the perfunctory "good mornings" and "thank yous" and the occasional inquiries regarding our travel itinerary, she doesn't bother speaking to me at all. Even R2 finds her behavior curious, and he whistles and whirs snappy accusations at me over the change.

Because I can feel myself growing frustrated with the situation, I must continually remind myself that this was what I wanted after all. If I'm going to keep Padme' at a distance, I must maintain a neutral, professional relationship with her. But in truth? I hate it and I spend most of the morning waging an internal battle with myself not to break my resolve.

Currently, we're on a small convoy bound for the Lars homestead. Padme' is seated next to me but largely ignores my presence, seemingly fascinated by the endless desert terrain that is sprawled before us. I hunch down in my seat, ignoring the blistering heat from Tatooine's twin suns while I try to strategize the most expedient means of introducing myself to the Lars family, leaving Padme' in their care and then going after my mother.

I'm so lost in my own thoughts that I don't immediately hear Padme' when she finally breaks the silence that has been persisting between us all morning. "I'm sorry. What did you say?"

"I asked you where we were headed," she says with an air of impatience, "It has been some years but, I don't remember this being the way to your home."

"It's not. My mother doesn't live there anymore."

"But I thought you said that you hadn't seen her since you left Tatooine."

"I haven't."

"Then how do you know she doesn't live there? Where are we going?"

"It's complicated."

She regards me with a hardened look. "In other words, you don't want to tell me."

"No. It really is complicated."

"You don't owe me an explanation, Padawan Skywalker," she replies, shifting back in her seat, "It's not like we're friends."

I groan inwardly at her response, silently lamenting the prospect of enduring days of this sort of tension. "Can we just agree not to be hateful to one another?" I sigh in exasperation.

She spears with me an irate glare. "Are you somehow implying that I am being hateful to you?"

"You're being cold."

"And you're not?"

"I'm being professional. I want to keep you safe, and I can't do that if I'm distracted."

"You're saying that I distract you?"

"Yes. You do," I admit quietly, "You know that you do."

I don't know what she sees when she meets my earnest stare but, whatever it is causes her to slump forward and heave a small sigh. I can practically see the angry fire leak out of her. "You're trying to be a good Jedi," she discerns softly, sadly, "I'm not making it easier for you."

"Being a 'good Jedi' is somewhat debatable where I'm concerned," I scoff in a self-deprecating tone, "But I will take being one who doesn't get you killed." My words carry more implication than she could ever imagine but she is, thankfully, oblivious to that fact.

"I understand. It's never been my intention to pressure you, Ani. I'll try to do better."

"I'd appreciate that."

We make the remainder of the trip in companionable silence as opposed to the prickly tension that had been present before. While our interactions with one another remain subdued and reserved they are, at least, friendlier. At this point, I'll take what I can get. And I remind myself that has to be enough.

An hour later, we finally reach the Lars homestead. It is much the way I remember it. The domed roof of the house gleams a dust speckled white on the desert landscape, scrubbed smooth by decades of violent sandstorms. Only the grave marker where my mother had been buried in that first timeline is absent and, hopefully, it will remain so.

As Padme' and I approach the house, Cliegg and Owen Lars immediately exit to meet us on the way. Their expressions are friendly and curious but tempered with wariness as well. Given the location of their moisture farm, I don't imagine that they get many unexpected visitors.

Beyond them, I can see Beru hovering in the open doorway of the house, ever watchful. I give her only cursory attention, however, because it is Cliegg Lars that commands my full consideration. I am disappointed although not entirely surprised to see that the elder Lars is already confined to the repulsolift chair, a clear indication that he has already attempted and failed to rescue my mother.

"Hello," Owen greets us cautiously, "Can we help you?"

I take a step forward to introduce myself. "My name is Anakin Skywalker. This is my friend Padme'. I've come for my mother Shmi."

The suspicion gradually recedes from Cliegg Lars' countenance and is replaced with a mournful, bittersweet smile. "So, you're Shmi's son?" he says, stretching out his hand to me, "She always said that you would return. I'm Cliegg Lars and this is my son Owen."

I step forward to quickly shake his hand before getting straight to the point. "I know who you are, sir." He and Owen aren't the only ones surprised by my simple admission. From the corner of my vision, I spy Padme's dubious doubletake as well. "You're my mother's husband. I need to know how long she's been with the sand people."

Cliegg Lars squints at me, incredulous. "I…How could you poss-,"

"—How long?" I insist brusquely, "I need to know." I realize that I am probably not making the best first impression on these people with my curt tone and mannerisms but, I have no patience for polite niceties at that moment, not when my mother's life hangs in the balance. "Tell me!"

"It's been nearly three weeks now," Owen provides when his father seems incapable of speech, "They took her when she was on her way back home from picking mushrooms."

I digest the information with a brisk nod. It's not the brutal month that she originally spent in captivity among those savages, but it is still much too long. Suddenly, having this head-start doesn't seem like that much of an advantage to me, not when I'm fully aware of how horribly they had brutalized her.

"I'd like to leave my friend in your care until I return," I tell Owen, "I'll need to borrow your swoop bike in the meantime."

It's at this point that Cliegg Lars suddenly regains his power of speech. I'm surprised he doesn't levitate right out of his chair. "You're not thinking of going after her on your own, are you?" he cries, looking at me in a way that clearly communicates he thinks I've lost my mind, "The Tuskens may walk like men, but they're animals! They will slaughter you, son!"

"With all due respect, I can take care of myself, sir," I reassure him, already heading off towards the bike, "You take care of Padme'."

Threepio catches sight of me as I commandeer the vehicle and begins to make his shuffling approach in protest. "I do beg your pardon, sir, but I don't believe that belo-,"

I have no time to revel in the joy of seeing him again. "—Not now, Threepio!" I snap at him before depressing the gas and speeding off, his sputtered objections echoing in my ears.

Much like before, it hasn't been the homecoming I wished for but, I can't think about that now. There is still a small chance I can turn this around. And if I'm successful, there will be time for reunions later, and hopefully, plenty of celebration as well.