Please read the updated author's note

It's been three months and yet everything is always wrong and still nothing is right.

In the dead of the night Anakin lies awake, tossing and turning. His arm lies heavy at his right. Cool against his skin. A constant reminder of his failure, of his recklessness. A mistake that could have cost him his life.

A mistake that cost him his words.

"So there is nothing left of me."

He can't accept it.


Life at the temple quickly goes back to the mundane it was before.

"I remember doing this for you when you were younger," Obi Wan chuckles. "Ah some things never change." At last Anakin is handed his robes back. Now smoothly folded.

"Thank you."

Anakin accepts the heavy robes and places them into his closet. They're nothing for his arm. He frowns.

"Anakin are you- Oh."

"No, no, Master it's alright. I was just in thought," Anakin lies and imitates a small smile. It probably resembles a grimace.

His Master offers him one last shoulder pat and a sigh. Heavy and sad, closer resembling a sound an elderly man should make, and all Anakin feels is pity. There are more important things to be done at the moment. Funerals to be planned, a war to be fought.

He knows what Obi-Wan is trying to say. They'll have to talk later, though Anakin knows that talk won't come.

"Goodnight, Anakin."

"Goodbye, Master."

Obi Wan gives him one last look, lingering at the door, before stepping out into the halls of the Jedi temple.


Anakin pulls on his glove, slowly watching the golden metal disappear underneath the leather. This time he doesn't trace words that are not there. He won't have to anymore.

Beru has the last piece of him, Anakin the person. She carries it in her chest, her heart, her mind and the arm where his words reside.

"They mean that there's someone out there who is meant to be with you."

His mother's voice burns in his eyes, sinks his heart and shatters his chest. He owes it to her. There has to be a reason his mother ended up with that family and met his soulmate. Her sacrifice, her capture, him meeting Beru - it is fate, foretold by the force.

The Jedi cannot be his destiny.

Anakin throws his small leather bag over his shoulder. There's no need to quiver anymore for he is free. He has always been free and free he will remain.

He's already failed his mother once. He won't fail her again.


Step into the hangar. Act like you belong. Smile.

Anakin waves at the young Twi'lek Knight working on her starfighter.

Then he gets into his own, pushes in the coordinates and adjusts the bulky hyperspace ring attached to it. Within five minutes he is gone.

He scraps the ship in Mos Eisley and steals a new one. It's almost laughable.

Nobody here would ever report a ship missing.

He parks the stolen, albeit a bit beaten up ship in Mos Espa. It's his now, why hide it? Doing so would only seem more suspicious Anakin decides with a shrug.

On his way out of the city gates he spots a speeder bike. Shiny and new, calling out to him. It's perfect.

Anakin smirks at the Rodian leaning against what soon will be his. "You will give me your bike." As an after thought he adds: "And the papers."

Better safe than sorry.


The dry wind cuts against his cracked lips as the bike picks up speed. Biting painfully into him. But it's not far anymore. The homestead is only growing in size as he crosses the desert. And then Anakin stops. Then the force whispers to him.

"She's not here."

It doesn't take long for her to be found.

She's is not even far from her home. Picking up mushrooms as if she had no care in the world - as if the storm wasn't getting worse. He wants to scream. Hadn't she learned from what happened to his mother? What if the Tuskens came? How could she just put herself in danger like that?

The speederbike moves closer until it comes to a halt in front of Beru's feet. The basket of mushrooms falls to the ground and she freezes.

"You are back... You shouldn't be here. You shouldn't- Your temple and-"

He jumps off the saddle.

"Did you think I would leave you behind?"

"I don't know."

There's shouting in the distance, almost completely hidden by the desert's howls. It's her name. Owen must be calling for her, Anakin realizes. Yet she doesn't respond, she stands there frozen in time as the harsh desert storm blows around them, staring at him.

He offers her his open palm.

"I will teach you," he shouts. "You have it too, this power, the Force. I've felt it, Beru, that day when my mother died. You have it."

"I-" She falters. But her gaze keeps flickering into the direction Anakin expects the homestead to be.

"This is the way, the path you are meant to take, Beru! If you stay here, you'll never learn the true meaning of the power you possess, of that part of yourself. You will never understand, never be real, never be complete. I can teach you!"

Inside his mind's eye Anakin sees her stepping away, rejecting their destiny. Rejecting him. Abandoning him. He won't take it. He won't let her. He sees it happening in a dreamlike state, a haze. Following her, shouting, screams and death. He kills everyone in sight, everyone who dares to stand in his way. The homestead will burn behind him and with it so will Beru's past. And then he'll take her with him.

Anakin's hand is still there, open, inviting. A chance... He repeats it in his head like a mantra over and over, begging the force for just this once to be on his side. His mind is screaming and his hand falters as a new thought whispers to him.

He'll be left alone.

Yet the real Beru is itching closer until finally their fingers brush, then they close around one another.

"I'll come with you."

The only thing she leaves behind is the betrothal necklace she had worn around her neck and a lone basket of mushrooms. They'll blame the Tuskens, but after what happened with Shmi he knows they won't search for her.


They don't make it far until he decides they can't ride into the storm any further. They'll have to take shelter, just for this night.

The wind howls angry outside of the abandoned cave, reigning down destruction and doom. But it won't reach them, here they are safe. The bike is parked right next to the entrance, hidden behind a large boulder, a beacon of hope. Tomorrow, Anakin thinks, tomorrow will be the last he is ever going to have to see of this desert.

"There's nothing we can do but wait. So wait we will," he says with one last glance at the storm raging outside.

Anakin can't ignore the way she is shaking, how she keeps fumbling with her sleeves as if the thin material could warm her.

"Wait." He pushes an arm out in front of her, pointing at the beige dress she is clothed in. "I think don't this is enough. You're shivering."

He hadn't even noticed her not being dressed for this weather, that he didn't even give her the chance to. Loose beige house clothing is all she's wearing. Way too light. But Anakin knows he would not have been able to convince her if he had not taken the moment. He had to rip her out of there. He had to.

"It's alright," Beru answers quietly, forcing her body to keep still. It doesn't fool him.

"No, it's not." He sheds off his coat and holds it up to her. "Here. It's only going to get colder, Beru, so take it."

She nods and takes it out of his grasp but the smile has disappeared from her face.

Anakin slumps down until his back lies down in a warm bed of sand. He shivers. Only one night, one night and then they'll be gone. Off to a better place, he tells himself. A better life. Together.

Her uncertainty hovers all over the cave, mudding the air and sinking down on him. How he could have ignored her force sensitivity? But he'd teach her shielding, he would teach her everything he knew if it would make her happy. If it would make her stay by his side. If it would make her love him.

Anakin closes his eyes, trying to block out every trace of his feelings into the smallest box of his mind. The box splinters, shatters, bursts into his consciousness with the power of a tidal wave. His thoughts come out, the ones that won't ever quiet. They are loud and red and angry and they burn with pain.

They are so loud, his thoughts- So dark and full of rage and greed and lust and want- He hates himself, he hates- Why can't they ever leave him be? His mother in his arms, soothing his cries- So loud- Death and suffering-

Anakin presses down on them until they obey and fall into a buzz. But they won't ever leave.

Focus on your surroundings, he tells himself as his breathing calms and his mind opens itself up to the force.

The cave is empty and cold. And dark, a darkness as deep as if it had never seen even the smallest ray of sunshine. Yet there is life. The sole patch of grass growing in the shade of farthest corner of the cave. The water sloshing in his canister. Each drop, alive, glowing. The grains of sand, he could feel every single one if he wanted to. A heartbeat, pulsating, pumping blood. Live.

He breathes. She's still standing, watching him.

"Sit." He pats down on the ground next to him.

Sand sticks to his palm, itching and taunting.

He doesn't need to open his eyes or use the Force to know she's sitting down as far as possible from him. But at least she doesn't run. Not that she would have come far in this weather. 'She would die within hours' the sandstorm whispers. But she was born here same as him, so he knows she won't run. Not when she already made her choice.

"Why did you come back?"

"Why did you come with me?" he retorts and finally opens his eyes.

She's fumbling with the heavy material of his cloak before closing it around her shoulders, hugging it around herself tightly. It looks right. It is right.

"As if you'd have given me another choice after what you did with the sandpeople."

"You are right. I wouldn't have." he admits.

Anakin barely refrains from shrinking back when she's suddenly lying down next to him. Their pinkies brush. It's soothing.

And he realizes he doesn't understand her.

"I won't ever come back here, will I?"

"No, we won't."

Anakin does not tell her about the vision of Owen dying on his saber, whispering Beru's name with his last breath. He also does not share the image of her trapped in his arms as the homestead burns behind her. Those are his to keep. Just like her. Instead he crosses his arms over his chest and closes his eyes again, listening to Beru's slowing breathing. Wondering what she might be thinking.

They stay like that for hours.

It is only when Beru has fallen asleep that Anakin dares to brush away the hair that has fallen in front of her eyes.


"I think it's time we go back on our way. The storm has died down enough for us to go on, so it won't be far to Mos Espa anymore."

"Then it's off to a better place, Somewhere you won't ever have to remember this hell." He smiles at the thought and accelerates his pace. It's only a bit to the bike.They'll be happy. "Somewhere you'll be happier," he declares.

Beru's steps behind him slow until they fully stop and the only sound is Anakin's breathing. "We'll finally leave it behind us."

He turns to touch her arm but she flinches.

"Why do you think so?" Her face flushes in anger. "Just because of some words connecting us? You, you don't know me." Her rage burns hot and raw against Anakin's mind and he doesn't want her to. He just wants her to understand. "Owen knows me! Cliegg does and your mother! But you Anakin, you don't know me. I never hated this life. I hated... I hated-"

She tears her sleeve up. Exposing her skin. He breathes in. The galaxy comes to halt, shifts, blurs, dies, and then comes alive again in his breath. Her hand. Her arm.

Scarred. Red and white, like a nightmarish painting. How could he not have noticed sooner?

His teeth grind painfully at the sight. It is wrong, and he desperately wants to reach out again, wants to touch the scars her words are hidden under. But he knows she won't let him, that she'll shy away again. So he doesn't. Instead he palms the grip of his saber, seething as the hilt begins to bend under the strength of his metal hand.

"Who did this?"

Who would dare to take away her mark? To rob her of the words left on her skin. His word marking her. Before his eyes flash the bodies of dead slave women, women with their limbs cut off. Slavers pissing on their wounds, spitting on their words, branding them as if they were cattle.

"Tell me!"

Beru laughs but is not the soft one Anakin heard her offer Owen during dinner on the fated day they met. It is harsh and grating like sand. Like Tatooine.

"Don't you see?" Her grip goes slack and the beige fabric of her shirt covered her arm once again. Her hand remains uncovered. "I never wanted this mark. I went to extreme lengths to defy fate fate, to avoid meeting you and saying your words. And yet..."

Her voice softens and her face loses some of it's hard edge. "And yet we are here, you and I. My entire live I was freeborn, the sister, daughter, and granddaughter of freeborns. One day I might have been the mother to freeborn children myself. Only to be shackled by fate. Can't you see why I didn't want this? Why I am still holding on? Can't you, Anakin?"

The only piece of happiness a slaved child had. The only thing he had owned besides his name. No one could ever own him, not while he is wearing her words on his skin. Not while he can still trace every word, every letter and every line. The one thing to call his own. Something special, something rare even across galaxies.

"No."


New Author's note :

Hello readers! Some of you may have been wondering about why I haven't been updating or why I'm not posting any of my other stories on this site.

I am sorry to tell you this but I will be solely continuing my stories on ao3. I cannot go on like this and I am very sorry that it has come this far. They are not discontinued or abandoned by me.

There are multiple reasons for this but the biggest three are my ongoing battle with depression and anxiety, my real life obligations and lastly itself.

I dislike they way this site is structured, simply publishing a story needs multiple complicated steps and even then the doc manager us authors have to use is very restricting. This site hasn't had a real update in ages, the code and interface is outdated and even responding to comments is made unnecessarily complicated. I wish I could simply answer without either having to fill a pm or reply on authors note - just like comment chains work on other sites besides here.

Further, I literally cannot upload any of my new stories on the site - I've been getting 500 errors for months by now and it's very discouraging. It means I can only update my current stories and not post any new ones.

However, I feel really guilty and sorry to say this but I can't stay updating here. I will continue writing my WIPs on my Ao3 account under the same name "Itohan". I primarily use Ao3 and have been cross posting here. Just the thought of going through the updating process on this site gives me such bad anxiety just like the thought of disappointing you, the readers, by not updating anything anymore.

But I cannot force myself to use this site anymore just out of guilt of disappointing people. I've thought of deleting my stories and being done with them here for months, however, as if someone was reading my mind I'd always get a nice review around that time that would stop me from doing so. Because I would then feel guilt that I'd be robbing you of you entertainment. I've had authors whose stories I've loved delete their stories and I remember how sad I was about it.

I don't want to do the same thing.

But I also can't stay here.

I am thankful for all of you who have made it this far and followed my stories. It has brought me a lot of joy and was the reason why I stayed for longer than I wanted to, because I liked making you happy.

If you want to continue reading please visit my Ao3 account that is also called "Itohan", there I will be updating them further.

Thank you for reading,

Itohan


"Original AN":

This is the last chapter from Anakin's point of view. Everything following is back to Beru.

Oh and I hope Anakin's behavior doesn't seem to come out of the blue. I mean in canon he's already so obsessive over Padmé, so in a universe where he's on of the rare people to literally be born with a soulmate his possessiveness would be up by 9000%

And I wanted to thank everyone for your nice comments, thank you to everyone! Knowingthat someone else besides me enjoys reading this story means a lot to me.