a/n: Sorry it's been so long. Rereading it found me not as happy with it as I was when I first wrote it. Hopefully I've improved it. Please let me know what you think. Constructive criticism is welcome. And they are still not mine.
Anakin came to himself slowly, becoming aware of another person in the room Q had dropped him off in. Not yet able to make out the features, he began to back away from the unknown person. "Q?" he said tentatively, not wanting to be shown any more horrific memories.
"Anakin?" a soft feminine voice reached him through those terrible recollections, the same one that reached out to him that awful day his mother died. "Anakin, it's me," Padme said, moving closer to hold him after she had recovered from the shock of seeing him materialize in front of her. "Ani, what's wrong?" she asked, her worry for him evident in her voice.
Anakin rubbed his eyes with his clenched hands as if in exhaustion and smiled for Padme's benefit, not wanting to frighten her with his ordeal. "Nothing's wrong. Just revisiting a past experience, that's all." He drew her towards him and held her tightly, his Padawan braid gently brushing her cheek. She pulled back slightly to look into his face. "I'm fine, Padme," he said again as he saw from her concerned expression that she wasn't convinced. He could share almost anything with her but he just couldn't share this...
Padme didn't press the question. If he wanted to talk about it he would, so she would just have to wait until he was ready. She could feel that he was in anguish over something that had happened, but as much as it hurt her to see him suffering like this, she couldn't force him to share that burden with her. All she could do for him now was hold him and help to lessen his pain that way. So she did.
"Ani," she murmured softly, as he laid his head on her shoulder. She stroked his hair gently as if he were once more the lonely nine-year-old child shivering in the cold of space. It was the same gentle gesture she had used years later—but so recently—to comfort the hurting youth nearly destroyed by the death of his mother and what he had done to avenge that death, in those hours before he had brought Shmi Skywalker's lifeless form back to his stepfather's homestead to be properly mourned. Both times, Padme recalled distantly, she had been trying to help him as he dealt with the pain of his mother being taken away from him. Padme had been there for Anakin those times before and she wasn't going to take away that comfort now.
"Shh, Ani, it's all right," she said again soothingly, feeling him tremble in her arms.
Anakin tightly embraced Padme, his only lifeline; the only thing he knew was real in this moment. But while he clung so closely to her his thoughts were not anywhere so near. His thoughts were on that scene form the past he had been forced to relive as a spectator to his own actions, and they were on something else as well.
He couldn't get Q's offer out of his mind. His own words came back to haunt him, the ones he had told Padme the day his mother died.
When Padme told him he wasn't all-powerful he had shouted angrily at her, "Well, I should be!" He told her he would be the most powerful Jedi ever and that he would even stop people from dying. What if accepting Q's proffered powers was the only way to fulfill that vow? Should he accept such power to prevent another tragedy like Shmi Skywalker's death from occurring?
Obi-Wan Kenobi's face suddenly floated to the forefront of Anakin's mind and the words his Jedi Master had spoken to the super-being ran back through his memory. All the lessons Master Obi-Wan had taught him--how to control his emotion so it wouldn't master him and to trust in the Force to control his actions even as he learned to properly command such power as it gave him--these things swirled around in his mind , in direct opposition to where his other line of thinking was attempting to take him. Obi-Wan would not approve of Anakin even considering Q's proposal.
But, Anakin thought with a sudden flash of anger, Obi-Wan didn't understand what it was like to lose a mother. Obi-Wan had lost his Master, Qui-Gon Jinn, but losing a Master wasn't the same as a mother. A mother tenderly bandaged knees and laughed as she told you to stop growing, teased you about future girlfriends and helped stand your half-assembled droids back up after they toppled over. A mother comforted you and worried over you and loved you.
Besides, Anakin decided, what was good for Obi-Wan Kenobi wasn't necessarily good for Anakin Skywalker. Just because Master Obi-Wan didn't trust himself to be able to handle the Q powers didn't give him the right to make the decision for Anakin as well. After all, Anakin could handle the powers of the Jedi, right? And wasn't it worth the risk, even if he saved just one person by accepting Q's gift?
"Splendid!" Q's voice rang gleefully in his mind and Anakin recoiled in shock, looking wildly around for its source.
"Anakin?" Padme said in confusion, feeling him pull away from her and wanting very much to know what was wrong, what had disturbed him so much.
"I-I've got to go," Anakin's voice faltered as he tore himself from Padme's comforting embrace and staggered towards the room's exit. Before she could do more than make a grab for his arm, to make him talk to her, he was gone.
Padme wanted to run after him, to stay with him until he recovered from whatever had distressed him so, or until he felt the need to talk to her about it, but something within her mind seemed to hold her back. She didn't understand the feeling and didn't like it. The young man she loved was hurting and in need of someone to help him through the pain and she could not even force herself to go to him!
But, a small, irritatingly rational voice spoke up inside her, perhaps he needed to sort through things on his own and this was the best way she could help him, giving him space to work his own way through it. And she would always be there ready for when he decided to talk to her about his pain.
"I know what I can do," Padme said determinedly, leaving the room to find a speeder on her own. It was time to visit another old friend.
Anakin's feet pounded on permacrete, fists clenched tightly as he ran. He tried to outrun his thoughts, but his mind was racing faster than his legs could run. Finally, far from Padme's location, deep in the city's under-levels, on streets far too empty to be naturally so, Anakin had to stop running to catch his breath. With no one around to hear or care, he shouted, "Q!" into the night, once he was able to do so without gasping for air. A white glow Anakin recognized and was almost beginning to despise shimmered in his peripheral vision so he turned to face Q.
"You called?" the god-like being yawned, sounding incredibly bored.
"I want this power you offered," Anakin said, painfully aware of the disapproval Master Obi-Wan would show once he found out about this, but determined not to let that disapproval stand in his way.
"What?" Q replied in the same bored tone. "Oh, that! Yeah, about that power..." Q looked Anakin over slowly, and then suddenly began to laugh. "I already gave it to you!"
"What?!" Anakin demanded. "Why would you do that to me?"
"I had a feeling you'd accept." Q held up his hands in a placating gesture. "So perhaps Jedi aren't the only beings that can sense things about people and I jumped the gun based on this sense I had of you. Maybe the Force was with me. What does it matter? I was right about you, wasn't I?"
Anakin hid the mental turmoil he was experiencing, saying only, "So you're saying I've had these powers since Tatooine?"
Q chuckled softly. "Did you think I was the one who dropped you into Senator Amidala's waiting arms?"
Come to think of it, Anakin did feel something different inside of him. New power coursed through him in a strange new way, so unlike the smooth flow of the Force. He really did have the powers of the Q!
In the Jedi Temple two beings sensed the new disturbance in the Force, and both felt it centered on Anakin Skywalker.
a/n: no great shock that Anakin accepts, is it? I hope I have gotten the characters right. Don't worry, I haven't forgotten Obi-Wan either. Anakin just kind of took over for a while. Please let me know what you think!