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ANAKIN'S REDEMPTION

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Miss Arie: Yes it is a powerful feeling LOL! It was funny, the first time I posted this, I got a lot of people begging me for Leia to forgive Anakin, getting mad at her, getting mad at me for making them mad at her, and I'd sit and smirk cos I knew she eventually does get over it. I think it wouldn't work nearly as well if the forgiveness scene happened in chapter 3! But now that the Leia suspense is out of the way, y'all have to wait and see what happens with Padme! Will I uncrazy her? Or will I make her Force powerful and become the new Emperor? Or will she put a lampshade on her head and dance on a table in the Cantina?

Sayuri Akimoto Female Jedi: "Now I want to know who kidnapped Padme not that I really care she's making me really angry but I just hope she'll change or else she might have to die" ROFLOL! Best comment of the day hahaha! You and VFSnake need to start a club hehe! Aw, be nice to Padme, the poor girl's clinically insane.

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Chapter Nineteen: Getting Away

"Missing?"

"I'm sorry Luke. It seems she panicked and disappeared somewhere," explained Leia sorrowfully.
"But…but…we just found her!" Luke protested in dismay. "How can she just leave us like that!"
Leia sighed. "You have to understand what she has been through. Father…er, I mean, my adopted Father, Bail Organa, told me that she was once a very strong woman. But after what Vader did to her…something broke inside her. She's lived her life in a permanent state of fear. She's run away like this many times before."
"Well we have to do something! Ask her family…or that handmaiden of hers…"
"Even Dorme has no idea where she is."
"I'll find her then! I should be able to find her through the force…"
"She has the ysalamiri with her," Leia cut him off.
Luke was stricken. "But…but…we have to do something!"

Leia put a hand on his shoulder. "I had this exact conversation with Father. I'm afraid that there's nothing we can do, until Padme decides to contact her family. It could be awhile, considering what happened with Father."
"But no! We have to – "

Anakin walked up behind them, sensing Luke's pain. "You heard the news, then?"
Luke ran to his father and hugged him. "Yes I heard. I can't believe it…just when everything was going so well…"
Anakin gave a heavy sigh. "I know son."
"Are you going to do something?" Luke implored him.
Anakin looked from Luke to Leia, who was standing with a tense expression. "If Leia says she will contact us, she will. I'm the last person who can do something. If I look for her, she may run even further, maybe even into the Unknown Regions where we'll never find her."
"We have to assume she's somewhere safe, where she will wait until she thinks the threat is over," Leia told them.
"But…I just…she's my Mom!" objected Luke.
"She's my mother too!" interrupted Leia. "I'm as worried as you are. But she's done this so many times during my childhood. We'll make ourselves crazy if we agonize over where she is. She won't hide from us forever."
"But we can't do nothing!" Luke was ready to explode.

Patience, Luke.

Luke closed his eyes and breathed deeply. "You're right, Leia," he said, opening his eyes. "We must have patience. She will come back to us."
Anakin nodded approvingly and squeezed his son's arm. Leia looked at her brother. "I know you only just found her," she sympathized. "But she won't hide from you forever. She wanted to find you as much as you wanted her."
Luke gulped and nodded in return. "I know."
"She'll come back," said Anakin, as much to convince himself as Luke.
Luke struggled to pull himself together. "What are we going to do while we're waiting then? Leia's right, we'll go insane just hanging around for word from her."

"Let's take a vacation!" suggested Leia brightly, trying to bring some positivity to the gloomy atmosphere.

Anakin and Luke looked at her as if she'd just grown two Twilek lekku tenticles out of her head.

"YOU take a vacation?" said Luke with a skeptical sneer.

"Who would run the Senate and the politics and the universe and everything?" wondered Anakin, frowning.

Leia scowled. "I do NOT run the universe," she snapped, hands on hips. "I'll have you know Mon Mothma runs the Senate, not me!"
"She does?" Luke and Anakin looked at each other, nonplussed.
"Don't you two know anything that goes on? Ever watch the news holos? Mon Mothma was just declared Supreme Chancellor!" Leia informed them, exasperated.
The boys shrugged. "I've been busy," said Luke casually.
"I hate politics." Anakin shuddered at the words 'Supreme Chancellor.' "I want nothing to do with it. But I'm very glad to hear that you are not Sup- Supreme…Ch…...the leader of the Senate. It's not a job you want, trust me. I hope you're not too disappointed that you didn't win though, sweetie. Maybe next time…"
Leia shook her head in annoyance. "I wasn't even running for election, Father. Shows how much you pay attention…."

"I said I don't like politics!"

"…I don't even want the job. I have too many family commitments - between Han and the two of you causing me endless headaches I have no intentions of taking on a high demand position as Supreme Chancellor."
Anakin shuddered again. "Good."
"But hey Mister 'I Hate Politics'…didn't you once say you wanted to help me with the new government?" Leia suddenly remembered.
"I was just saying that to make you like me," answered Anakin innocently.

Leia glared, not knowing whether to laugh or smack him. She found Anakin infuriating. One minute he was a loving father, the next a petulant child.

"So does that mean we're going on vacation?" Luke changed the subject, still unconvinced.
"Yes!" said Leia, with a decided nod, deciding to drop it with Anakin for the moment. "It will be the first Skywalker family holiday and it will be good for us. We've all been though hell the last few years and we deserve it."
"If you say so," said Luke dubiously.
"I suppose it could be nice," considered Anakin. "It would be a chance to act like a family for once, and get to know each other. There's still so much I don't know about you two."
Leia nodded. "Exactly my thinking. Since we all met, we've been caught up with endless fighting and drama and we've hardly had a moment to spend together. The Empire is gone, things are under control – and the three of us have a LOT to work out with each other."
"I like the idea," agreed Anakin. "I missed out on so much of your lives already. Let's do it. But where will we go?"

"Ooh can we go to Corellia!" said Luke, suddenly excited. "I want to see the shipyards where they build the ZT68 Star Cruisers!"
"Oh that sounds great!" agreed Anakin enthusiastically. "Han would enjoy that too…"
Leia rolled her eyes. "Men. No, I was thinking Tatooine."

"TATOOINE?" Luke and Anakin looked at her in horror.

"Yes…" began Leia.
"It's just a desert!" protested Luke. "I lived half my life there and I never planned on going back! You were there too, why would you want to return!"
Anakin looked at his daughter curiously. "Why do you choose Tatooine?"
"I've been thinking about the story you told, about your mother," explained Leia seriously. "I want to go and visit the gravesite you talked about. Our grandmother's grave." She looked pointedly at her brother.
Luke calmed down from his tirade immediately. "Oh," he said. "That's actually quite a nice idea."
"What better place to spend our first family holiday, than the place it all began?" said Leia. "It's you and Father's home, it's where he met Mother, where our grandmother lies…"
Anakin smiled, emotion welling up inside him. "I think it's a wonderful idea."

---

"Remind me again why we're going back to that dismal hole of a planet?" Han asked with disdain as he dragged Leia's luggage to the Falcon. "It's a family thing," Leia said dismissively.
"I don't wanna go there," he pouted.
"Well you're going, and you're going to like it," Leia put him in his place.
"What if I trip and fall in the Sarlaac Pit? What will you do then?"
"Oh Han." Leia rolled her eyes. He was almost as infuriating and childish as Anakin.
"I don't know why you want to go there anyway," he muttered.
"I already told you," Leia said impatiently.
"You don't take holidays anyway," said Han. "I've known you six years, you don't take holidays."
"I do now."
"Hmph. If you're not controlling everyone and everything, you go insane."
"That's why I have you, sweetie."

Han grumbled to himself.
"I need a break from my Senate work," added Leia.
"What, politics not working out for you, want to try out being a Hutt Slave Girl again?"
Leia shot him a look that would terrify a Rancor. Han however, was completely oblivious. "It's really too bad I was blind. Lando tells me you looked dynamite in that little slave costume of yours."
Leia glowered. "You didn't miss much. There wasn't much of it to see. If I bent over, you could see all the way to Dantooine."
Han gave a wicked grin. "That's why I wish I could have seen it."
"It didn't cover anything you haven't seen before, darling," Leia said sweetly.
Han raised his eyebrows. "Still wish I could have seen it. Don't suppose you kept it?"
"Just get in the ship Han. Try to keep your mind above waist level."
Han grinned. "Yes, Your Worshipfulness." Chuckling to himself, he picked up his bags and started up the ramp to the Falcon.

"Oh, and Han?"

"Yeah?"

"I did keep it. And if you behave yourself, you might just get to see it."