Author's Note: Warnings for use of second person because sometimes a story pops into your head fully-formed and you have enough time to write it down or to convince your brain it should be in third person but not both. Also, warning for the double entendre inherent in this title/the recurring phrase throughout this story; it crossed my mind way too late and I'm not changing it.
Not Even That Hard
It wouldn't even be that hard.
When you reflect back years later, that's the first thing you can remember thinking. The memory is fuzzy and you're not sure how old you are (4? 5?), but you very clearly remember seeing Watto and your mother trying to piece together some broken droid that has been causing him grief for the past hour at least. You can see exactly which pieces are supposed to go where and which wires are crucial and which can be cut and tossed aside. It would only take you a few minutes to have it back together and working better than it had before. You couldn't explain how you knew that or why it felt so important that you fix this particular droid, but it did. So you got up, singled out the piece that would fit perfectly with the one Watto was currently holding, and went over to your master with the appropriate tool. The droid was fixed in just under 16 minutes. Watto let you and your mother leave a few minutes early that day and she treated you to a ruby bliel. You didn't know that your mechanical skills would make you valuable to Watto for years to come or that fixing that droid had saved you from being sold off and separated from your mother. All you knew then and ever would, is that fixing droids wasn't even that hard.
"It wouldn't even be that hard."
After all, podracing was just flying but faster and the couple of times your mother had let you pilot Watto's speeder had gone without a single crash. Surely podracing would come just as easily as those short trips around Mos Espa had been. After declaring that surely you could win a podrace, you could tell from your mother's face you had said something wrong and from Watto's that you had said something incredibly right. Your heart clenched for a moment because surely nothing good was coming when Mom made that face (admittedly, it would be better than what followed Watto's disapproving face), but then the winning pod came around the final bend and crossed the finish line and your heart soared and you were filled with the certainty that podracing would not be that hard at all.
It wouldn't even have been that hard if it weren't for the blasted autopilot, you thought as you hopped out of the yellow cockpit, ready to celebrate with the other overjoyed, if confused, Naboo pilots. Surely the professional pilots would have figured it out sooner or later. After all, you are only 9, almost 10, and had never been in one of those ships before and you had pulled it off. It would be crazy if they hadn't been able to do it. But then you see Obi-Wan and he looks sad and Qui-Gon is nowhere to be found and something in you screams that now isn't the time to say how not hard blowing up the Trade Federation's ship had been.
"It wouldn't even be that hard, Obi-Wan. Why don't they just speed up?" Obi-Wan gives you a mixture of a confused and reproachful look, one you know means that he will have follow-up questions for you once you are out of earshot of the other padawans and their masters but that until then you need to stop saying such rude things.
Just as you had expected, the second you and Obi-Wan round the corner and can no longer see or be seen by the older padawans, Obi-Wan asks, "What do you mean, Padawan?"
"Well, their masters are telling them to double the speed of their lightsaber drills, but all of them start making easy mistakes once they speed up. Why are they making the mistakes? It's easy to do those forms." You don't mean to sound prideful (Obi-Wan always reminds you that pride is not the Jedi way and you're really trying to be a good Jedi), but you've sped up your own drills to four times the speed they were taught to you and you've managed to avoid making the same obvious mistakes that those much older padawans are making. Why couldn't those beings just… not mess up?
Obi-Wan seems even more confused now that you've tried to explain your previous comment, but that doesn't stop him from starting in on a lecture about pride and patience and how mastery takes time. You ignore most of it in favor of slowly moving back into a position where you can watch the padawans who keep making mistakes even though you know deep within your heart that surely it isn't that hard.
This isn't that hard, you think as you look around you at the ship that is hurtling towards the planet below you. You've flown plenty of ships and been in quite a few crashes and keeping this particular ship from crashing should not be that difficult, even if it is more or less falling apart with each passing second. You look to your unconscious master in the seat next to you and the scared orphans behind you and then to the controls in front of you and despite the despair that you feel within the Force, you find that all you feel is confidence. This ship may be about to crash, but stopping it from doing so won't be that hard.
This is incredibly hard, you think as you try and try and try and keep trying to not kiss Senator Padmé Amidala. This is so incredibly hard.
This won't even be that hard. This won't even be that hard. This won't even be that hard. Your inner mantra as you lead your own legion into battle is at odds with everything else around you. Inside you know that you can easily weather the battle that is about to ensue, but you are equally certain that some of your men, perhaps many of them, will not. Christophsis is shaping up to not be an easy planet to take and the Force is practically screaming at you to prepare yourself for something big when Cody runs up beside you and points out the droids rounding the corner, ready for another round of battle. "They're back!", you call out to your master, already preparing to make a snarky comment about how you hadn't wanted to send the ship back for supplies, all the while keeping up your refrain of 'this won't even be that hard's in your head.
"It won't even be that hard, Snips. I promise." You don't have to turn around to see Ahsoka to know that she is shooting you her patented annoyed look that has become so characteristic of her despite how little time you two have spent together so far. You know that Balmorra Run is supposedly one of the more difficult runs a pilot can attempt, what with the Neebray mantas and all, but you're Anakin Skywalker and surely it won't be that hard. After all, you've never met a pilot who wasn't at least passingly familiar with over exaggerating their flying prowess and you're a Jedi Knight and have the Force to guide you and your men through. Surely it won't be that hard.
You thought ending the war would have been so much harder than it is turning out to be. Of course the operation on the Invisible Hand hasn't been without its issues and you know killing Dooku was not the Jedi way, but if his death was necessary to bring about an end to the war, it will have been worth it. But even your concerns about Dooku are drowned out by the confidence that is coursing through your veins just as surely as your blood does as you, Obi-Wan, and Palpatine race back towards your rendevouz with Artoo. Soon the four of you will be together and will be able to defeat Grievous, get off this ship, and end the Clone War. Your final thought before you are trapped within ray shields is this: Turns out it's not even that hard to end a war.
It wouldn't even be that hard.
You know exactly where and how you would strike to stop the lightning leaving Palpatine's fingers and electrocuting Windu. You can think of half a dozen ways that would incapacitate, but not kill, your mentor and exponentially more that would rid the galaxy of the Sith once and for all. In terms of technical skill, stopping Darth Sidious would be easy. But your emotions are in control now, not your 13 years of lightsaber training, not the moral compass your mother instilled in you, not the countless hours you have spent in strategy meetings. In this moment it is the love you feel for your wife and your unborn child that is in control and that makes you pause and realize that it would actually be the hardest thing you have ever done to stop Darth Sidious from killing Jedi Master Mace Windu. (So you don't. You choose to take the easy way out instead.)
It wouldn't even be that hard, you think as you realize exactly what shot the rebel pilot is trying to make to blow up the Death Star. When he manages to make it, you scoff because you could have done it from double the distance with triple the number of enemy fighters on you on a bad day.
It won't even be that hard, you think as you consider how you will get your son to join you to overpower Sidious. After all, he is your blood and there is nothing more important than family. Luke Skywalker will surely see that.
It won't even be that hard, you try to reassure yourself as you prepare to face your son for the first time since Bespin. You have imagined how you will meet him again countless times over the past year but somehow none of them included Luke turning himself in. It won't even be that hard. It won't even be that hard. It won't even be that hard.
It won't be that hard, you think as you watch your master and abuser electrify your son while he pleads for your help. It has been many years since you last performed a kind, selfless act and you think that perhaps kindness is like a muscle that can atrophy, but as you move forward and throw your master off of your son whom you are just now realizing you loved more than you have ever loved anything else before, you find that the part of Anakin Skywalker that was selfless has not died, but instead been hidden away and kept safe for the moment it would be needed again. Thankfully, sacrificing yourself is nowhere near as hard as living as Darth Vader ever was.
Joining with the Force is the least hard thing you have ever done and following Obi-Wan's guidance for how to join him and Yoda on Endor to look over the Rebel celebration is only slightly more difficult. After years and years of each living moment being torture, this comes with an eery ease. Hmm.., you think wryly as you survey your two ghostly companions and those surrounding your children as they celebrate their victory, in the end balancing the Force wasn't even that hard.
Author's Note: The bit about the Balmorra Run is from TCW 1x03.
I can thank this story for being the reason that I learned 'Nubian' did not mean 'from Naboo' but is actually a reference to a completely different planet/system and it's just a coincidence that people from Naboo fly Nubian ships and the two actually have nothing to do with each other. I now have to live with the fact that I've been assuming anything from Naboo was Nubian for over a decade, so that's fun.
Also, this is dedicated to Liz/bpdanakins on Tumblr who has spoken with me about so much Star Wars stuff and who also loves seeing Anakin get to be incredibly overpowered. Here's a story where Anakin gets to be as overpowered as I could make him at 1:30 AM.
But seriously, when was someone going to tell me that Jar Jar wasn't wrong when he referred to the people from Naboo as 'the Naboo'?