DISCLAIMER: I own nothing apart from my own work. I do not own Star Wars, LucasFilms, Disney, Anakin Skywalker - fml - and if this work of fiction is similar to any that have been done before, I apologise in advance. I can assure you, this was created from my mind with Star Wars as the basis and my own insanity commingled in.
Author's Note: Really though, thank you all for the feedback. It truly means everything and keeps me thriving to get this story out to you all. Let me know what you think about this chapter, I'll be off trying to get my sanity back! I'd also like to apologize for how long it took me to get this out. I feel just so freaking terrible about it and just, yes. I'm sorry. Also, just a heads up, I finally was able to get a job so postings won't be as constant but this will be the only thing that can keep be grounded so I will continue to write when I can! Don't forget to review or PM me if you'd like! x
Love.
It is what defines a person; sculpts them into the paths of what is right and what is wrong. There are loves that are the epitome of peace; working in unity to produce a fluidity that only the lovers alone would be able to orchestrate. There are loves that are built from hate, stemming from the depths of sorrow and mutiny that gives it a raging fire that never ceases. Then, there are loves made of power. The foundation strong with roots branching into every direction and stemming upwards with the greatest of tenacity. No matter what the love is made of, each lover combines them self to the other to become a force to be reckoned with when they are one.
Love.
It is what defines a person; sculpts them into the paths of what is right and what is wrong. It has its conflicts, its deceptions. Its lies and its heartaches. Love made of peace can be murdered under a current. Love built from hate can burn in its molten fury. And love of power, well, even the most powerful of beings have their downfalls. To maintain the lightness of their heart when love is gone or to succumb to the darkness of the shattered remains, it is but the lover that decides. Let it create or let it destroy.
In the Force, Anakin felt the destruction. It was primal, instinctive. The operation being executed throughout the galaxy was one of conditioned thoughts. Knowledge wasn't necessary amongst the clones, only the necessity to kill and to kill swiftly. The Jedi, the Senate, and anyone who favoured the Republic were all a threat, no matter who was against them - a child, an adult - none of it mattered.
So naturally in return, Anakin couldn't help but find the dropping corpses dying at his hand to be of the purest satisfaction.
Every other second, though, whether he was mid-leap and preparing to attack or already with his lightsaber impaling another, he felt a blow to his soul. To the life source of the Force within the inner workings of every midichlorian inside of him as another, whom he was attached to by that living orgasm, had their life severed. Their lives of constant justice, wisdom, and peace-making all but stolen from them in an unfair death. They were all placed with pre-programmed clones that would act immediately once they were told to execute Order 66. Each Jedi made as General to command their own legion and in return for their leadership, they were inevitably made to be overthrown. His comrades and teachers, brothers and sisters - his friends and family. All dying under the most brutal of currents taking them under, never to arise again.
Their death only allowed more of the darkness to creep over the light in him, and resting in the dark during the whole scene was a shadow with feral yellow eyes.
The Jedi are the enemy! Darth Vader yelled in a furious rage. It shook the man to his core but he allowed his movements to continue on in their precision to kill those attacking him - instinct over mind as the movement of the current of clones continued around him, threatening to take him under. And how Vader revolted as the man fighting for dominance of his mind ignored the darker half of it.
Besides, how could they be the enemy when they were slain by those they trusted?
That makes you a Jedi, Vader growled in disgust, and Anakin help but allow it to emerge from clenched teeth. His blade flashed and another trooper was impaled.
Before Anakin eyes, the many clones of the 501st Legion fell; their armour made of the most delicate of materials when matched against his lightsaber as it was easily sliced away in precise skill. The currents of hot plasma entwined together, its rays illuminating the organs in which they were residing in for the moment's grace before they were cauterizing the impacted area and cutting it in half, leaving the organs in blackness. Yet they still kept coming to meet their doom - and he kept attacking, and striking.
There were oh so many with not enough sabers to get them all but oh, how he made do.
The hate that fueled the Force-sensitive man was felt in the inflictions placed on his enemies. Like a hunter's instinct to successfully capture, murder, and consume its prey, it was the only rule Anakin was living by in that moment. The necessity to kill all of those against him was a necessity of passion and complete infatuation with the blood drawn in the wake of his wrath. With each fallen corpse, the yearning to step on the body, to feel the death in his heel and have it wave up his skeleton like a shock wave, it was paralyzing. It paralyzed his true self to do the actions of the one in love for their destruction. With its menacing smile piercing the eyes of the clones, the troopers had no chance against Anakin.
Anakin was off and running, off and leaping. His blade spinning left and right in a blur with every stab taking a soldier down, writhing to the ground. Every slash putting another severed limb of a clone on the ground.
The sizzling blade shone in a clean blue light, flickering so fast that it became a deflector shield in appearance and reflected the particle beams directly back at those shooting them. His mere presence took apart the clones in his path leaving them charred and smoothly dismembered with the reigning thought of how they had turned against him at the hand of someone who had supposedly been on his side - been his master.
Anakin Skywalker was no longer coherent to what was happening apart from simply knowing to kill them all. Anakin alone was a weapon. The greatest weapon either side could have, and much to the Jedi's luck - though they did not believe in it - the Hero With No Fear was on their side. Not to him, though. He was still fighting for himself and for Padmé's protection. If the Jedi were to turn on him, they would be perceived as much a threat as the clones.
He leaped into the air, flicking his wrist in an elegant manner that sliced the head of an intricately decorated clone trooper's helmet. In the far off reaches of the moral part of his mind, Anakin would have noticed the design. Connecting it to-
"General Skywalker, we are being ousted!" Rex shouted beside Anakin.
Blue eyes averted around, gradually coming to understand the situation in whole instead of just at the end of his lightsaber.
During the execution of Order Sixty-Six on Coruscant, far too many Jedi had fallen, but not as many as there should have been. Could have been, Anakin corrected himself, beating down the darkness with as much remorse as he was giving the trooper that had stepped in front of his path. He looked back towards his captain and a genuine piece of Anakin shined through.
"Have a little faith, Rex," he grunted back, hissing out a laugh as another soldier went down.
"I'll lose faith when you die, General," the Captain answered with his noted sarcasm.
If Anakin were anything, he was his determination and his determination always loved to prove another wrong.
"You underestimate my power, Rex," he answered with a grin then sprung gracefully over a pile of corpses to pursue another squad.
Anakin wove himself through the bodies of three armour-clad troopers, dicing the white cases through the chest, arm, and thighs of the unfortunate and sending them to their fatalities. "That won't be happening," he muttered to himself with pure conviction, adding on to his previous statement as he plunged the emitter of the lightsaber into the soft flesh beneath the another clone's jaw.
The love for these men and the hatred for them, they were as much at war in his mind as they were around him. The part of him, the Jedi side, was telling him to stop the carnage. To reason, and to withhold all attack and advancement of his Legion. They were being controlled by another entity and they had no control over the protocols embedded into their minds for as long as that entity had it triggered in. And, most importantly, they were his men, after all. Together, they had defeated more battles than any other squadron, platoon, or legion in the clone army. Together, they had become one countless times to destroy the hatred inflicted by the Separatists. Over the course of the years the Clone Wars had been active, they weren't even clones to Anakin - they were his brothers. They had been around him so much that they had even taken on some of his personality traits and fighting style, infiltrating it with their own. They had fought and died for him and he would do the same because their love for each other stemmed out of the pure necessity to defeat the Separatist cause.
He was torn from his calloused mind when an alarm went off in his body. He hadn't even heard the sound externally, but the pain internally was agonising.
A guttural scream was pushed through clenched teeth once his body had registered he'd been shot. Anakin found that the rest of his body threatened to begin shaking, but he pushed through the pain of the blast that had entered his right, lower abdomen and had escaped cleanly through his back. His knees buckled beneath him, but he refused to allow himself to fall fully to the floor, regaining some strength with the sheer force to take out whomever had hurt him. And he did.
Anakin's wrath exploded like the very rivers and volcanoes of Mustafar and he wouldn't have it any other way. His steady pace left behind a trail of smoking slices of limbs and their owners meeting their body parts on the already covered floor. How he had let the Force not guide him to dodge the blast as he so fluidly did before, he couldn't answer; but what he could make known was how his attention was diverting. His technique became more brutal and messy than it normally was, the saber-wielder wasn't just using Form V anymore. He was pure aggression and rage.
The surge of energy and strength coursing through him was stronger than any vengeance or peace could give him. No longer was he empty, but full of the power, the life, and every aspect of the Force was in him. Anakin was the Force.
A few more minutes of time passed along with the lives of the clones gradually diminishing against the Jedi Temple. Skilled padawans, young Jedi Knights, and those who had been in the complex either resting between missions or those injured, all had come to fight the war over dominance of their home. Though no one could meet the kill count that the Hero With no Fear was increasing every other second, they were doing a great justice on overthrowing the threat.
Anakin appeared to be in control with his immaculate swordsmanship and grace. It was as if he were in a dance of death and he lead the show. But to those who saw into his eyes, you would see the droplets of sweat creeping down the skin in exertion and the discomfort in his dark eyes. The lean body was on edge and a darkness loomed over it, different than the Dark Side of the Force that was sporadically hazing his mind and limbs in its dark fog. It wasn't as strong as it was before, the new essence easily taking dominance over all of him. As he fought, Anakin's thoughts gradually became of crystalline substance as his morals sharpened and cut off any form that threatened to dismount it from its place, but along with the clearness came his connection to what truly kept him whole.
It wasn't the feeling of the many deaths of the Jedis occurring in the Force - the most recent of them being Aayla Secura, in which Anakin's blue eyes watered slightly at the loss. He found her as a strong soul, one he looked up to and in return, he delved the pulsating blue plasma savagely into the neck of an oncoming trooper. It also wasn't of the constant reminders of betrayal in every death he inflicted, the adrenaline coming from the hate he felt towards them and the necessity to use this passion to take them out. Though both could be contributing factors, they weren't the ultimate basis of it all.
The root of his consciousness came from a woman placed in the southwest corner of the Jedi Temple; and though her pain could not be heard by those around him, they shot through Anakin like lightning.
The darkness was not of the death of the Jedi race or the massacre he was exploding upon the 501st Legion. The darkness was of the agonizing dread that Padmé felt - that he felt.
Running. He knew he was running. The exertion of his movements brought shots of electricity to burrow their way up the soles of his feet and towards the base of his spine. It held there for only a second before the gathered energy burst into his chest, then into his throat, and lastly, into his skull. It was a powerful surge, one not for the faint of heart, but Anakin was not that. He was far from it.
Yet, in that moment, he was.
Anakin's body was far from unfit. His muscles fortified and disciplined; every organ in perfect working order and his health was near perfect, as well, if it already weren't that. With overexertion being more of a common occurrence for him than any other Jedi, he didn't obtain the title of Hero With No Fear by sitting around, and it showed in his undeniable strength.
Yet, in that moment, he wasn't.
His heart felt like it would unravel from the unsteadiness of its beat at any second. Even trying to channel this discomfort into the currents of the Force went without prevail as Anakin brought his mechanical hand to his chest, mentally seeing himself rip the organ out as it would give him more strength to keep going.
Everything screamed Padmé, from the pillars shooting up into the vast ceilings to the bodies running past him as they went to offer themselves to the battle pursuing behind him. The battle in which he had left when he knew he shouldn't have. But the very thing that was guiding his legs blindly through the halls of the Jedi Temple was also encasing his mind in its hold. Like a fist that was clenching itself tighter and tighter for the punch, all Anakin could do was focus himself on the small crevices of the palm he was left for a leeway.
So much had happened since the last time he had walked down the halls he had once called home. Now that he thought of it,though, the Jedi Temple had never been home. How could it? It housed the very creatures that had corrupted the minds of so many in the journey to condition whomever was in its path to think as they did. They were said to be peace-holders, but instead, sought violence to relinquish the violence around. How could they do such an atrocity? Disobeying the very fabrications of what the Jedi Order should be? It only brought the question of whether or not they were actual Jedi to begin with, or mere impostors attempting to be what the Jedi were and should be. As Anakin believed he was.
No, he told himself, eyes clenching shut in refusal to see what he was doing to himself despite it being an internal battle.
Anakin had fallen to the Dark Side of the Force. One with anger, fear, and lust. Though he possessed those emotions nearly every second of his life, they could not overthrow the good in him. The Jedi were his friends, his family. They had saved his life and given him the chance to learn his powers and cultivate them. And without the Jedi, he would have never met Padmé on that fateful day.
It did not matter if he found the Jedi Temple to be his home or those who resided in it to be it either, so long as he had Padmé, she was his home - his sanction. And it was crumbling.
The pulsating disturbance of the Force sent a wave of frenzy through his system and before Anakin could counteract it, his stomach was rejecting the acidic residue that had coated his empty stomach walls. He knew it was Padmé. Knew that something was terribly wrong and that the living Force within her was beckoning for him to be by her side. No battle, whether internal or external, could keep him away from that and after spitting to get the last of the acid out of his mouth, Anakin took off in full frontal endurance to get to the Halls of Healing.
The dragon flew beside him, blowing a trail of fire beside his booted feet as he maneuvered blindly through the Temple. He was but a blur, but his presence was enough to illuminate the grim complex and also burn everyone in the process. He was one with the Force, the epitome of it, with his strides enhanced by the power and fire.
How could a woman so powerful fall into the crutches of the enemy? Allowing herself to be harmed by them and allow her child to fall in danger alongside her? Padmé held an explosion of intelligence within her that radiated out to everyone even in her sleep, so how could she allow this to happen? How could she lose him to this foe?
A growl escalated to a shout as Anakin stopped. The furnace within his heart was burning him whole and it hurt. But the furnace had a body, and the furnace had a name. A body of ivory silk and a name of every dream and fantasy since the day he was born - Padmé. He could feel her thoughts, her betrayal and it lacerated even the most sane part of his mind.
He was the enemy. She had allowed herself to be harmed by him and had allowed her child to be in danger against him. She had allowed him to fool her. And she had lost him.
A new found surge of betrayal incarcerated Anakin's body into a strange paralysis that trapped all of the remaining light within his body, left for the darkness to feed off of. Whatever it was she was thinking was not true. It couldn't be! He had made a vow to both himself and to her that he would never allow anything to hurt her. Everything he had done was to ensure that he would not lose Padmé the way he had lost his mother and the only way to do so was to become more powerful than any Jedi had ever dreamed of. He was capable of it! Every Master had told him and he was already aware of it in himself!
Palpatine had promised that when he was anointed as his apprentice and with the rise of Darth Vader, he would be unstoppable. Anakin was weak, ruled by fear. Vader was power and could only grow stronger for fear had no power over him. He had destroyed his fear. Yet, now, here was Darth Vader and Anakin, coinciding with one another as they raced to the epitome of their souls.
So, was Vader truly stronger than Anakin, or were they one in the same? For they both loved more than any other could love in the past, present, or ever in the future. And if one could love, that made them human. And if evil could love, that only meant that they were human, too. Anakin was human, and so was Vader - they were one.
Anakin stopped them, a sudden revelation hitting him. He was calm. There was no pain or suffering, merely a serenity in the Force that had an over current of… Happiness? There were tears falling from his eyes and his mechanical hand instinctively went upwards to swipe them away, but he stopped himself and left them where they were.
Since the first day he had seen her intricately braided head, woven with such perfection that only Padmé was capable of obtaining, he knew that she was the one. He didn't even need to see her face because her presence alone was enough to tell him that she was it, she was everything his future would hold and more. She would be his life, and she would be his death. Every feat he obtained would be for her because action without cause is futile. Everything he did and would do, since meeting her on Tatooine, a hell amongst the galaxy, the angelic form Padmé Amidala cast down upon him gave him a strength that matched every life force and sun to ever exist.
She alone could sway the minds of millions and he alone could do the same. Together, nothing would stand a chance against them. Not the Jedi nor the Sith, nor the Senate or the Chancellor himself. And the smile that shown on Anakin Skywalker's face was enough for even the dragon to evaporate along with every doubt he ever had.
Then he ran.
The cry was a stubborn one, brought on by the purposeful rough handling to awaken the newborn and clear its lungs. The one emitting such a sound was protesting but only in the necessity to do so to stop harsh behaviour it wasn't used to. Already, it was defying what was done to it showing it was assertively against this injustice when all it wanted was to return to the warmth. It gave the healers holding it the benefit of its already strong lungs, and letting everyone else in the premises know, as well.
The cry was indeed stubborn, only lasting no more than a second but the sound echoing throughout the room easily. Hearing the sound brought Anakin to burst even faster through the vacant hall and even the sight of the room through the observation windows looking down into the room that held what he was lead to couldn't diminish his spirit. From that point forward, it was pure instinct leading Anakin to be with the woman who held his existence in her own.
"It's a girl."
"Leia," they said simultaneously. One voice of deep resonance, the name said with overwhelming emotion; the other voice of collapsed weakness, feeble and meek.
Automatic doors pressed shut behind the Jedi's entering figure, muffling the sounds of the distant battle that was having no effect on the affair occurring in the Halls' main operating theatre before him. The two young padawans that had been placed to guard the room came rushing in behind Anakin, protesting his entry but were easily ignored. Various eyes looked upwards from inside the room but he ignored them as well.
Their questions for Anakin Skywalker's presence in the operating, made delivery, room were suffocating the already hectic air. What was the Jedi Knight doing here? Why wasn't he stationed in the place where he was needed most - outside fighting off the threat? Why was Anakin Skywalker here?
Shaak Tii watched the young Jedi with wary eyes. Earlier, when she was relocating the Senator to a place more suitable for a mother to give birth, the Master could not deny the gradual revelation of the interaction she had shared with the knight. She did not need to search into the Force to know the truth of the relationship Senator Amidala and Anakin Skywalker shared, it was written purely shown in his eyes. In his eyes, in his lips, in the hold he had on the unconscious woman. In the passion that radiated off in waves… Everything was there, and now it was only fortified with his sudden attendance. There was also the factor that the infant she held safely in her arms inherited the same eyes as its father's, as well as a fair set of hair, for it surely did not have the brown of its mother's.
The orchestra of medical instruments crept into adagio with its composer settling after the long and climatic middle. But there was only silence in Anakin's ears. There was nothing else in the room to him and it was as if the world had gone dim except for a path illuminated for him that led to Padmé and Leia. Just a few seconds prior, the pressure in his chest was enough to make him collapse and now, he knew he never would or could he. The crushing fist encasing his heart was a welcomed friend, a celebrated one. It was love. It was everything that had ever been loved and ever would be and it was in the form of the two most beautiful angels he had ever-
Blue eyes stared mildly at the infant on the opposite side of Padmé's flushed face, held by the brilliantly orange arms of the Togrutan Jedi Master. The baby looked so tiny in Shaak Tii's arms, frail even. But it wasn't the size of the baby that mattered to Anakin. Though he hadn't thought of it that moment, he already knew that he'd love it whether it were short like its mother or tall like him. What had stopped the inner workings of his brain at the sight of the boy was exactly that - it was a boy. All thoughts, all actions - nothing connected.
It was a fussy baby, he had to give it that. Even in the always calming aura that Shaak Tii seemed to constantly uphold could not settle the newborn, nor could the trembling hand of his mother that was placed haphazardly on his bare chest. With his shiny, fair hair and skin blotched with red bursts of its inner fury of being ripped from its mother.
"Luke," the Togrutan offered soothingly to the new father. Master Tii knew, and it was plain as a Tatooine double-sunned day.
"Luke?" Anakin choked in an overly strained whisper.
Suddenly, everything made sense. Padmé had told him that she thought it was a boy, yet he always argued it was a girl - his Leia. Had he imagined the voice informing them it was a girl? Obviously the crying boy before him wasn't of the female gender. Though Anakin could have sworn he'd heard them say there was a girl-
As if on cue, Barriss Offee returned with a pouting baby, head covered fully in dark hair that spiraled into every which way but the newborn refused to utter another sound. She only showed the distaste in her face. Luke had all but been forgotten as Anakin basked in the sight of his daughter. This is who he saw in his dreams. This was the child with her mother's eyes and father's ferocity.
"Leia…" Her name was a gasp of captivation and his vision swam, but Anakin made no attempt to wipe his eyes clear of the dreams falling down in the form of tears. "Oh, Leia."
Without even asking permission, Anakin took his daughter from Barriss' caress, earning a dumbfounded expression in return that he had done so. Nevertheless, she withheld any form of protest and quickly pattered backwards with her head lowered. All eyes were still on the Jedi Knight, though, and no one saw the fluttering eyelids from below watching what they could as Padmé continued to keep a hand on her son, giving her heart to him and soothing him altogether.
Never had she seen a smile so bright on her husband's face in the time she had known him. The light that illuminated the vicinity around him was like watching an angel descend from heaven. "Not even an angel," her mind countered. "A God." If only she could go back to those many years ago, when she was first asked if she were an angel by a weathered, yet innocent little boy. She would have surely answered, "Yes, for I could not bear to not join my God."
By now, the various minds in the room had pieced together the sight in front of them, and their expressions showed it. Shaak Tii, however, knew better than to seek answers in confusion and conspiracy. Such a range of emotions wasn't of the Jedi way nor suitable for the state of the fragile beings in the room at the moment.
"Leia…" Padmé whispered, bringing Anakin's adoring eyes to look heavily onto her. Their crystalline hues shimmering with the tears in them.
"Twins?" he questioned with a disbelieving astonishment.
A powerful presence infiltrated the Force around them and Anakin had to look away to grudgingly give his attention to the approaching blue figure.
"Anakin Skywalker, I have to ask you to leave. This is not the time nor place and whatever it is that must be informed, say it now or-"
"No."
Bewildered blue eyes stared at the golden-haired man with pure bafflement. Master Che also did not neglect to note that he hadn't called her Master nor did it seem as though his refusal would falter.
"Senator Amidala needs to begin her healing trance, Anakin, you are delaying her healing and even more-so you are not allowed into the personal affairs of the Senator, nor anyone else, Jedi Knight," Che pressed, refusing to give in.
His jaw began to clench and blood began to pool into his mouth from biting down on the tender skin of his cheek. The dragon was awake and allowing the fuel within itself to bubble and boil until a blue flame licked the surface. With Leia still in his firm hold, Anakin walked towards the Twi'lek at a menacing pace. The fire grew and its presence was visible as in sparked off his body.
"You are not my Master, Vokara, nor is anyone. If I choose to be in the presence of this occasion, I will do so without anyone's permission but my own," growled a voice that should have been Anakin's. "And if I'm not mistaken, the only one delaying the healing of Senator Amidala is yourself in which I will gladly ensue a form of encouragement if you do not heal her."
The Master Jedi stared at him incredulously, trying to channel her anger and confusion into the Force rather than allow it to fuel her next words. Anakin could sense this and the dragon within sneered at the weakness of the Jedi. So weak, so useless, the dragon hissed and the smile on Anakin's face was that of the dragon. Her threats had no power over him, nor did anyone else's. The babies were alive, Padmé was alive. His family was alive. Nothing could stop him now.
"Anakin…" He spoke too soon.
All presence of the malicious creature within disintegrated at the words along with the remnants of his soul. His blue eyes were cast Padmé's way, at her delirious movements that only paralyzed her even more. Then, the sight of the room finally stunted Anakin because he recognized it - how could he not?
The white hospital gown. Her sweat sheen forehead with a tired scowl and dying, closed eyes. Flushed skin with blood sinking back into her body leaving a corpse. The alien table with her head idling as she tried to stay conscious but was losing to the darkness.
The nightmare.
"Padmé, no," Anakin instructed her, not even realizing the tightening hold he had on Leia. Noticing this, Barriss Offee ignored the risk of his wrath and quickly scooped the newborn from the Jedi's constricting embrace and stood away from the impending dark energy that was suffocating the air.
"Anakin, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry... Anakin, please, I love you..."
Anakin was moving, though he was hardly aware of his actions. Knees hit the floor without the grace that a Jedi naturally held or a Sith fluidity brought with pain and his hands clawed at the air in open fists. Over and over again, his mind shouted and screamed in agony, but no form of catharsis was shown. The only answer that could be given was the helpless shake to his head because in that moment, his furnace heart was going out.
This was his nightmare becoming his reality, and there was nothing he could do. Just as his mother before her, he was going to lost Padmé and there was nothing he could do.
"All things die, Anakin Skywalker. Even stars burn out," the dragon had told him. The dragon had warned him, had become him and shown him that it would come true, but he refused to believe it. He couldn't, how could he?
He loved her.
"Padmé, please," Anakin tried to say, and heard his voice speak for him, but it wasn't his voice. Horror had squeezed his voice down to a whisper. Small, and fragile, and very young. As though he were transferred back to his time on Tatooine as a child being taken from his mother, knowing he couldn't bring her with him. As though he were transferred back to the Tusken camp, surrounded by those he had slain in his moment of rage and holding his mother's dead body, knowing he could never bring her back.
Love is a powerful thing to those who use it, but to those that need it for their own strength have nothing when it is gone. Anakin watched as the life in Padmé, his life, slowly faded away.
"Please, my love. Please, don't leave me," he pleaded. His voice was as full of emotion as his entirety was. Hands grabbed hold of the face he so loved, a coldness already setting in the skin.
Suddenly, her wondrous brown eyes cleared, and she knew him. She traced over his features, from the golden spiral of his hair to the brilliancy of his rose-tinted lips. From the eyes she had always found amenity in, with a blue that made her think of home and the many possibilities life could give. And to the mouth that held the most resonate of voices that could only belong to that of an angel. That spoke her name. That spoke the words of love no other person could accumulate words for. Her love - her life.
"There… Is still good in you," Padmé gasped, her delicate hand pulling away slightly then reached for nothing in particular. "I know there is… Still.."
Her voice faded into an empty sigh and the hand that had gone forward to reach for her lover's touch had fallen. Her exhausted body sagged back against the pillow. Within seconds, the conductor of the orchestra led the near dozen scanners into the piece's finale - scanners and machines buzzing and shrieking with conflicting alarm tones that brought droids and healers in to reply. But they were all propelled backwards in a fury stronger than the exhaust of the galaxy's largest ship's engines.
The Force was strong in Anakin, both in the Light and in the Dark, and in that moment, both sides coincided with the anguish he felt. The energy burst from him like a dying star, sending everything in his wake backwards in its frenzy. Machines crunched as the power met the energy coursing through the instruments and bodies hit the floor heavily as they held no match against the Chosen One.
And all that could be said was his soul screaming in reply to its lover's death.
"NO!"
