The Chapter Summary:

Anakin's mark is something solely his. Something special just like him. There has to be a reason why he is one of the few people that have a soulmark! These words belong to him and so does the person who will one day speak them. It's the one thing he knows to be true even through the Jedi's teachings

And then his words are gone.

"Mom, what do these words mean?"

His mother let's go of the little shirt she had been working on.

"They mean that there's someone out there who is meant to be with you," Shmi says, gesturing to the stars in the sky. "Whoever they are, wherever they might be at this moment... you'll meet them, because you have their words, Ani, and they have yours. You are soulmates."

Anakin the Jedi

He reads those words over and over again, tracing his soulmate's writing with the tips of his fingers. Each line and every letter. It brings him comfort during the nights when the howling of desert storms terrorizes his dreams.

He cannot wait to meet them.

.

.

.

Anakin is nine years old when he is freed and becomes a Jedi. There's no mother to mend his clothes anymore.

"You need to learn on your own, Padawan. There can't always be someone around to help you."

Anakin pretends as if he doesn't see Obi-Wan's eyes lingering on the long sleeve underneath which Anakin's words are hidden. A Jedi should have no worldly bindings. The first lesson Obi-Wan taught him. Instead of frowning at the implication, for once he listens to his Master's words, wanting to understand the religious body he had been destined to join his entire life.

"Us Jedi, we are like a machine, you see. We only work if everyone does their part, even if it's just something small like fixing the tears you've gotten into your own robes."

"Yes, Master. I know." Anakin barely stifles an annoyed groan at the fairly obvious slight and Obi-Wan chuckles.

By the time he has managed to finish fixing his robes on his own, his hand is covered with bloody needle pricks. But his Master smiles at him and brushes through his hair as he calls him self reliant, so Anakin smiles as well.

He's doing more and more on his own and he's proud. He doesn't protest when the Council tells him to abandon the worldly chain that his words are. It's a sacrifice he is willing to make if only it means they will finally accept him as one as their own.

"You are so much more," Obi-Wan says.


Anakin tries so hard but he doesn't ever succeed.

He is fifteen, friendless and cannot ever make the Council happy. He's all and lanky and with every day he loses more of the little boy his mother loved so much.

The Masters are eyeing him critically, watching his every move.

"Too arrogant," the first voice whispers.

A cane is stomped on the ground.

"Too attached."

"Too reckless." Master Windu adds.

Anakin grinds his teeth and thanks them. Tears prick in his eyes, shaming him from the inside. He quickly wipes them away with his wool sleeve, ignoring the stares at his sniffs.

No matter how often he asks, never is he ready for the trials. Never is he a real Jedi to them. An outsider. An intruder. Never a brother, a friend. Never just Anakin.

He steps out of the council chamber and begins his walk back towards his room.

The halls of the Jedi Temple are humming with life. Younglings running together, shrieking happily. An elderly Master being carried by his Padawan. Three Knights giggling together. The feeling is warm and soft and he wants to burry himself in this soothing happiness.

The calm lasts until Anakin gets to his room. It's cold, always too cold and never warm enough. Never as warm as his real home. The posters he's hung across the walls only seem liveless and shallow today, grave imitations of what he wants them to be. The bright colours bite against his eyes and he hates everything about it. How small it is. That nothing about it is individual. Everything is wrong. Nothing is right.

He throws the door shut behind him.

The anger is back.

He sheds off his robes, the tunic, everything that makes him a Jedi. He unbraids his Padawan braid. He kicks his boots into a corner.

Who is he without it? Is he a Jedi? Is he a man? Is he a boy?

His eyes fall down onto his right arm. Tensing from his anger, the words bulging on his skin. Anakin the Jedi

He strokes across the mark tentatively, caressing each word, tracing each line.

He's Anakin. He won't ever be anyone else because somewhere in the stars there is someone who is going to love him the way he is. Someone that he can call his. The emptiness in his soul, the part that is missing is with them. They will meet.


Anakin is nineteen and he is dreaming of his mother. She's dying. She's in pain, crying and begging. "Ani! Ani, please help me!" She's calling for him but he cannot answer.

When he wakes up his Master is by his side, cradling his head. He hasn't done so since he was a little boy. Anakin is not on Tatooine and he's not with his mother. Obi-Wan and him are on a ship on their way back to Coruscant, on their way to protect the Senator he hasn't seen in so long.

The moment they step into the elevator, he can feel himself getting giddy. His heart beating fast inside his chest.

"Relax, Anakin. Everything is going to be fine," Obi-Wan says, nudging against him.

"I am relaxed, Master," Anakin laughs. It might be a bit hysterical, not that he'd admit it. He hopes he doesn't reek of sweat.

Obi-Wan raises an eyebrow.

"If you say so, my dearest Padawan."


Padmé is the same as he remembered her.

She is everything he himself is not. Strong but kind and beautiful. She makes him stutter and blush and every bit not the Jedi he should be. He might love her a bit.

And someone is trying to kill her.

So they go to Naboo.

And he kisses her.

But at night he still follows the words on his skin, the ones left behind by the ghostly hand of his soulmate.


The beginning of the end is when Watto tells him his mother has been sold, Anakin decides. How often had he imagined coming back here and rescuing her? Her awaiting him in this very shop? That dream is gone.

The Lars' homestead is quaint like any other moisture farm on Tatooine. Nothing about it is special. It doesn't fit his mother.

"I've come to see my mother," he says to C-3PO, his eyes already on the house that she must call her home. His mother. He's going to see her again.

Padmé and him follow behind C-3PO as the golden droid calls for the occupants of the farm.

Soon after a young man and woman step out, both dressed simple and looking at him very unsure. Possibly even in fear.

"I am Anakin Skywalker," he introduces himself offhandedly.

His eyes keep flickering all over.

"Anakin?" The man almost seems to stumble over the words, overtaken by surprise.

Anakin's senses are too alive, to overloaded, he can't concentrate. He wants his mother. He ants peace and quiet. He wants-

"Anakin the Jedi."

It is the quiet voice of the blonde girl that tears his world apart. It's her.

His right hand trembles as he contains the urge to reach out to her. They only a foot from each other, if he wanted to he could just pull her towards him-

Anakin forces his eyes to lock onto the man in front of him. Away from the girl. He needs to know where his mother his. Why isn't she here to greet him?

"Owen Lars. This is my girlfriend Beru. I had a feeling you might show up."

"Is my mother here?"

A wave of unease rolls of Beru, anxious, rapid and overwhelming. Anakin squeezes his eyes shut at the vortex of emotions overtaking him. 'Calm down' he wants to scream but he can't it's as if his voice were gone.

"No, she's not." A gruff voice answers in their stead. The man it belongs to is confined to a hoverchair, old and injured. But his eyes are kind and Anakin would have almost eased the tension in his shoulders if not for the words the man said.

His mother is not here. Once again Anakin's only companion takes hold of him, anger and hatred. Why isn't she here? She was meant to be safe! She was meant to be-

Padmé places a hand on his shoulder.

"Let's hear what they have to say," she whispers.

"Cliegg Lars," the man introduces himself. "Shmi is my wife. We should go inside. We have a lot to talk about."

And something inside Anakin dies.


Anakin is nineteen and the closest to taking his own life he's ever been.

His mother is gone and these people sitting with him at this table won't save her, they are leaving her to die, to rot alone and unloved. He wants to cry and to scream and to rage and- He just wants his mother back.

"I'm going to find my mother."

He will not be the one to abandon her. Not when he can feel her pain and suffering as if it were his own.

Anakin let's himself be led out by Owen towards his speeder bike. In the distance the first lights were fading as the two blazing suns begin their decline. With he bike he might reach her by nightfall. It's the only way to reach his mother he has and he will take it. He will bring her back, he just knows it. She can't be dead.

"Thank you," Anakin curtly directs at Owen. The other man responds with a nod. He's fidgeting with his hands and his nervousness, but Anakin doesn't have the time for family bonding. So he doesn't ask. He doesn't care, and Owen leaves back into the cool shade of the homestead. The only thing that matters is his mother and... Anakin's eyes linger on the vast desert in front of him. He needs to come back alive.

Padmé's lips move but he doesn't hear her. He moves on his own, responding through a veil.

"I'll find her," he promises and allows her to embrace him with her tiny arms. He feels like dying at the thought of what is to come.

Then Padmé too leaves.

Anakin straddles the bike, his hands tightly clinging to the handles as if they were the last thing keeping him afloat.

Hasty footsteps run towards him and a voice calls out towards him. He could have ignored it and already left. But he doesn't, he lets her. He lets Beru give him the piece of cake for her mother, a piece of her soul. He lets her believe in him and he allows himself to believe as well.

He will bring his mother back and everything will be right again.


Anakin is nineteen and his mother is dying in his arms.

Anakin is nineteen and he slaughters an entire village. Men, women, children, They suffer for what they've done to his mother. For what they've caused! They on't deserve to be alive while she is dead.

Anakin is nineteen and he doesn't know who he is anymore. Not even Padmé's soothing can ease the torment within him at the pain and grief for what he's caused, for what he's become. For what he has lost.


Geonosis is going to be where it ends.

Anakin is going to die before he hits his twentieth year. He's going to die without ever seeing his home again, without having said goodbye to...

The chains on his hands dig deeper into his flesh, dig into his words.

He breathes in.

He's going to die and there is nothing he can do to change it. He's going to die. He' going to die. He's going to die. And he's afraid. Afraid of dying. Afraid of losing everything. Afraid of...

Will he ever be remembered? Will there be someone to mourn him as his body lies dead in an arena, torn apart and bleeding? He can't even touch his mark, find comfort in it like he has done so often over the years. He's left alone with his thoughts until too they will be gone. Until he will be gone.

His mind wanders to Beru. He imagines her in her kitchen, her eyes locked on a blue milk cheesecake. He is calm. He won't mind this being his last thought, her being safe. He breathes out.

The thoughts come back, scratching against every defense in his mind. Doom and darkness and pain. So much suffering. Death.

Padmé is shivering next to him.

They are going to die just as certain as he is going to take his next breath. They will never the sun again. She will never see her family again and it's his fault.

The cart comes to start with a harsh jerk.

"Don't be afraid," he whispers to Padmé.

"I'm not afraid to die," she smiles at him. It's a sad one. "I've been dying a little bit each day since you came back into my life."

He shakes his head.

"What are you talking about?"

"I love you."

"You love me?" His hands tremble. There are no words, they die in his throat.

His gaze falls down and his heart pierces with regret. "No, this isn't love. I won't let you die with a lie. I can't love you." He thinks of his mothers words when he was just a boy.

"There is someone out there that I love, but this someone isn't you and I am sorry."

Padme turns towards him, looking into his eyes, searching, lingering. The contact is deep and gentle and for a moment he imagines himself truly loving her, building a life with her.

Blinding light engulfs them and they arrive in the arena.


Anakin is nineteen and he is alive.

He flexes his right arm and recoils at the sensation. No warmth and no flesh. As if he never had any in the first place. Smooth metal.

He traces over the place her words would have been, following each line and every letter that isn't there.

—-

AN: This chapter and the following one were originally one chapter, however, together it was way too long so it became a two parter.

In the next chapter (which I'll update tomorrow) we'll finally get to see what happens that causes Anakin and Beru to meet once again and results in him taking her with him :)

I hope this chapter wasn't boring but I felt that the difference between Anakin and Beru needed to be illuminated. And in the next part we'll see how these differences clash.