Title: Luminous
Rating: PG-13 for the disclaimer; G for the fic itself.
Dedication: To my two favorite tweakers, who laughed as hard as I did in the theater at the love scenes ;)
Disclaimer: George Lucas, whose wonderful idea Star Wars was originally, is a rich lawsuit-happy asshole and frankly I don't care if he sues me for using his material. It's not like I'm making any money off it or that anyone besides a few bored websurfers are really reading it anyway. If he did I'd turn it around on him, play the poor broke all-American recent college graduate struggling to make my way in the world angle, and give him so much negative publicity he'd be begging me to accept a multi-million dollar out-of-court settlement and some original props and a role in the third movie. So this isn't so much a disclaimer as a rant. George, you're a brilliant creative genius, but you're a stuck up dick who can't write decent dialogue to save his life. Stick that in your hooka pipe and smoke it, ya pudgy bastard.
Distribution: If for some odd reason you think this drivel is worth the web space it's coded on, go ahead and put it up on your site, just credit me proper and let me know please. Thanks.
~*~
His son smiled back at him for a long moment, and then turned away. Closing his eyes and letting the joy that had spread across the entire galaxy course through him, the spirit of Anakin Skywalker stood beside his former mentors.
It isn't a matter of making up for one's sins, Obi-wan reflected.
No, it is not. Returned you have. All else matters not, for the universe moves forward only.
He could formulate no thought in response. Somehow he could not feel guilt or any kind of regret or pain. It seemed he should, but from this new vantage point he could view everything, everywhere. This gave him the knowledge that all was right with the universe again, that in the long run, time progressed regardless of the actions of any individual. Nothing he had done, no matter how terrible or unforgiveable, could have ever changed that. He could even sense the souls of all those he had murdered flowing across time and space, searching for a place to resettle. There was no anger there, no pain – it was just as he himself felt. Whole. At peace. The way he should have been able to feel while he was alive but almost never had.
There's someone waiting for you, Anakin, Obi-wan informed him. Where years ago there would have been reproach and condemnation, now was warmth and wisdom. The spirit who had been Vader turned and watched the ghosts of his friends fade and disappear. His heart would have beat faster if he were still a living creature, and he turned once more to watch the celebration of his children and their fellow victors. Leia so closely resembled her mother that he could not help but smile and remember when he saw the way she looked at the man who danced with her. May the force be with you both, he thought. Then he, too, vanished.
The other face of the Force- the true face- was brilliant and bright and unlike anything that could be known through ordinary senses. It was endless and dark and light and full. Location was meaningless and time a confusing blur that amounted to nothing. Peace and contentment flowed in a slow and powerful current over a rushing undertow of hatred and fear. Souls floated over the top and floundered below but most swam through the middle, striving to keep their heads above water. Anakin sensed it all, but no current swept him away. Life was all around him, but he was no longer a part of it.
A figure appeared suddenly and faced him in silence with poignant trepidation. It was a face and body that he had known in every dream he'd ever had from childhood until death, but it was only an image. The real Amidala was represented through the figure's shining eyes.
"You're home," she spoke aloud, strangely corporeal because at that moment she wanted to be. She came towards him until they were close enough to touch. Then she touched his hand and it felt like living flesh against his own. Anakin didn't understand how she could be so real. He stared down at her and tried to comprehend it for a long moment.
Heaven isn't a place, it's a state of being. He folded his arms around the mother of his children and kissed her, and slowly the two lost their fleeting tangibility. It no longer mattered that neither of them had substance or form.
They no longer knew or needed the physical world. Love is not a mere phenomenom of crude matter. Anakin and Amidala were in a love that had transcended life itself, and they were luminous.