Here it is, Chapter 6! This one's a long one, much to get through, so hopefully it's worth it. The next few weeks are massively busy for me, and the next chapter is the one that's been giving me more trouble than I'd like, but I will have it up for all you wonderful readers as soon as I can, which hopefully shouldn't be too late. I've also updated the chapter tabs to correspond correctly with the chapter numbers you're reading. Thank you all again for your brilliant reviews and for continuing to follow and favorite this story! Two more chapters to go!
CHAPTER 6
He smiled shyly at her, glancing up from underneath his lashes and she couldn't help but smile warmly back. She had gotten used to his coy looks when he thought she wasn't paying attention, the shy, almost childlike smiles he would give her, and it was incredibly endearing. Padmé had never known Anakin to be shy about anything in his life, with his confidence and arrogance masquerading as self-assuredness seeping into everything he did. He was definitely never shy with her, save for their wedding night when he had asked her to lead him, and though she had grown used to it over the past few days, Padmé found herself missing aspects of her cocky, confident, young husband, but at least he no longer looked at her in trepidation, as though she was going to disappear.
She glanced back down at the board on the table in front of them and calculated her next move, feeling his eyes on her as her smile widened. It felt good to know that he was there in at least some capacity, even if it was still difficult for him to remain in the present, but as time went on and he got better, she saw more and more glimpses of her Anakin. Seeing her move she bit her lip, knowing he wasn't going to be happy, and she picked up her shiny black chip and jumped it over three of his in quick succession, bringing their longest game yet to a dramatic close.
"Gotcha," she exclaimed softly as she collected the last of his red chips and placed them beside the board. He dropped his head in defeat and she giggled at the good humor lacing his wounded face.
"You couldn't let me win one, could you?" he asked. She giggled harder.
Three words, that's all it had taken for Anakin to break the chaotic realm of his puzzled memories, and like a jigsaw, the pieces had slowly and seamlessly begun to fit into place. From her first visit, his healing rate had tripled, and with her continued presence he progressed more quickly than even the healers could have hoped for. He had gained a bit of his weight back, and though it hadn't been much, she had still immediately seen the effects of a lax in daily morning exercises, lightsaber training, and his normal voracious eating habits the moment she had set eyes on him a little over a week ago. His eyes were no longer rimmed in haunted, sleepless circles, and their hollowness was beginning to subside, but as his mind would wander to moments she couldn't see, sometimes mid conversation, the spark would leave his blue orbs, and she was reminded of how far from himself he still was. However, as soon as it had started fitting, his mind found it easier to knit itself back together, starting to close the gaps where the darkness had been, and with Padmé visiting him religiously every day, what was developing was a calmer, softer, more even tempered Anakin than the one who had faced Darth Sidious.
He smiled at her again and bit his own lip. "I remember the first time I heard you laugh like that," he said, and she lifted her eyes from where she was putting the game away.
"Oh? When was that?" She knew perfectly well, but part of their game was seeing if he was right in his remembrance.
"On Naboo, in the meadow. You thought I was making fun of you, and you laughed just like that."
She smiled closing up the box. "I'm glad you remember that."
He nodded to himself. "I knew that was real," he said, tapping his hand absently on his knee. "That… feels real."
"That day, I started falling in love with you, Ani." She reached across the table and gently grasped the hand on his knee, bringing his eyes up to hers again. "I tried my hardest not to, but I couldn't help it."
He clenched his jaw as his face suddenly fell, and his eyes lost their momentary sparkle as he dropped her gaze, staring at her fingers that stroked his lovingly, and Padmé knew he was losing himself somewhere. Though it happened less now, and he no longer clutched his hands to his ears in torment, Anakin still couldn't, or wouldn't vocalize to his worried wife all that his healing mind still plagued him with, the horrors it played for him at her words, a look, even the smallest sound that escaped her lips. She had begged and pleaded with him many times to tell her what he saw, what led him to ask questions about his life, but all he seemed able to say before his eyes would glaze and his hand would twitch, itching to touch his hair, was how he worried about which one was the real him, as cryptic a statement as she had ever heard from him. It wounded her more than anything to know she could do nothing but attempt to pull him back to the present and try her best to assuage his fears about things she knew nothing about, but in his delicate state she didn't want to push him to places he clearly wasn't ready to talk about for fear of setting him back.
"Ani," she prompted, wanting to pull him from whatever his mind was playing for him. When he didn't respond, she squeezed his hand. "Ani?" Still nothing, and when she saw tears slowly welling in his eyes she moved to sit beside him, pressing her free hand into his back. "Anakin!"
He finally blinked slowly, then quickly as he cleared his vision as he had done so many times before, and he raised his head to meet her worried gaze. He swallowed as she began to rub his back soothingly. "Where were you?" Anakin blinked once more and suddenly began looking everywhere but her eyes. She threaded their fingers together as she waited for him to say something, anything.
"Padmé, were we happy?" She hadn't expected that.
"What? Anakin."
"Before this," he rapped his finger to his temple before finally taking a deep breath and meeting her eyes, "were we happy? Were you happy?"
"Anakin…" Speechless, she was utterly speechless. He hadn't yet asked her something so deeply profound and personal, and it was causing her to stumble. Taking a cue from him, she breathed deeply, gathering her thoughts. "Of course we were. What makes you ask me that?" she finally breathed, allowing him to see how deeply his question had affected her. He sighed, closed his eyes and dropped his head into his free hand.
"'This marriage isn't a marriage.' That's what you said to me."
It was her turn to blink and furrow her brows as she began wracking her befuddled brain to come up with something. When had she said that to him? It sounded familiar yet so unlike her to say something so hurtful to her husband whom she loved so dearly. What could he possibly have done to elicit such a proclamation from her?
Oh.
The memory of his jealousy-fueled rampage upon someone she had falsely placed her trust in came rushing back, and suddenly, Padmé wished she could tell him it wasn't true. But it had happened, it had been their life, and in one fell swoop he had become what she feared the most: someone she no longer recognized nor trusted. The anger she had felt from him as he beat Rush Clovis, even if her friend had unknowingly overstepped his bounds, had frightened her, and she now remembered her words to her virile, seething husband clearly.
"I don't know who's in there sometimes," she had said as she stepped away from his remorseful form. "I just know that I'm not happy."
Padmé glanced at her husband, her fragile, vulnerable, very different Anakin, and she realized he was holding his breath as he awaited her response. His eyes bored into her, no longer mischievously shy as they had played, confidence all but lost within the anxiety she now saw shining at her from his crystal blue eyes. Even if he wasn't himself, still quite a bit off from it, he was still Anakin, she could see it, hear it in everything he did and managed to say. Obi-Wan had told her of Palpatine's surreptitious hold over her sweet husband, and how his dark, selfish nature had festered within him due to the dark lord's sinister influence, and suddenly her statement of two years ago made perfect sense. As she looked upon the Anakin hanging on her answer, she finally felt that she knew exactly who he was through and through.
She bit her lip as his eyes fell from hers, clearly taking her silence as the answer he had longed not to hear. Untwining their fingers Padmé clasped his face in her soft, small hands and turned his gaze back to hers. She stared at him lovingly, allowing him to see all the love she held for him.
"Yes, Anakin, we were happy," she finally said, and he took a long, relieved breath, but she wasn't done. "For a while, we were as happy as we could be. We didn't see each other very much, but the time we did get to spend together was some of the happiest of my life." He brought his flesh hand up and softly touched hers that cupped his cheek as she lowered her eyes briefly. "But, things started to change after a while as the war dragged on. You became angrier, more bitter about what you were being asked to do and why, resentful that you and I couldn't be together the way we wanted, and unfortunately I didn't help much. I said what I did, Anakin, because I was angry, too. I knew what was happening to you… well, I though I knew. I thought the war was killing you, this horrible war that even everything I had in me couldn't bring to an end for you, so you could come home, be with me, and we could maybe, maybe have a semi-normal life."
Padmé felt her heart sink at the horribly guilty, anguished look that washed over Anakin's face as she took her hands away but held his that held hers close. "That night, I saw someone I didn't recognize, and it scared me. But do you know what I see now, Anakin?" He shook his head but kept his eyes downcast. A squeeze in return to hers let her know that she had his full attention, though. "I see the man I married. The man who makes me laugh more than any other, the only one who doesn't only see The Senator, but sees Padmé, the one who allows me to be myself. The man who has saved my life in more ways than one, and I know that whatever was inside you that made me say those things is gone. I love you Ani, I always have."
He finally lifted his eyes and she smiled gently, lovingly at him. Slowly, cautiously, he returned her smile and she pulled him close, burring her face in his slightly too long hair and she released a shaky breath.
"I love you, Padmé," he whispered. "And I promise I'll never do anything like that to you again."
She squeezed his shoulders tighter, sealing her understanding and belief in his promise, for now that their marriage was out in the open, she had a feeling that everything would be all right.
Anakin reluctantly pulled himself from her arms as the chirp of her comlink invaded their moment. Padmé pulled it from a hidden pocket in her flowing dress and, squeezing his hand and meeting his eyes apologetically, moved to the window to answer the call. Anakin couldn't tell if she meant for him to not hear, but he watched her movement all the same.
"Amidala," she answered, and Anakin jumped at the insistent, distressed crying he heard emanating from across the link.
"Milady, I'm so sorry to disturb you."
"Tekla, is everything all right? What's happened?" A tone Anakin had never heard from her before flooded Padmé's question, and something in his heart lurched at the emotion it projected and elicited within him.
"It's Luke, he's been crying for the last half hour…"
Anakin blinked wildly as his hearing clouded, Tekla's reply and what he now recognized as a baby's cry fading into a dull hum as his senses were affronted, that name washing over him.
Luke.
Warmth and pain filled his heart at the simple name, and Anakin brought his hand to his mouth as the feeling threatened to overwhelm him. As they hadn't for almost four days, the images of what he now knew to be a life unfulfilled violently assaulted his present, filled with the blazing blue eyes and sparkling blonde hair of a young man.
He fell back into the suit, transforming into the golden-eyed monster that he could have become, felt the mechanical breathing that haunted his dreams and fed his guilt, as he saw through red tinted lenses the boy he knew as Luke cry out in grief as Obi-Wan Kenobi fell at Anakin's hands. A glimpse is all it was, but the boy's image had been forever burned into the monster's memory, especially when he learned that this wide-eyed youth, who inexplicably destroyed the Emperor's ultimate weapon, was his son.
From the lips of a bounty hunter, the astonishing, amazing, life changing news had come, as Boba Fett returned somewhat victorious from his mission to find the destroyer of the Death Star. "Just his name" had given way to so much more than the simple addition of information the monster had been expecting as Fett spoke his own true name, and suddenly the monster remembered the happiest moment of his life. Returning home after so long, her dress big enough to swallow them both becoming clear as she looked at him with apprehension. "Ani, I'm pregnant." The monster felt his heart swell as he accepted the truth, the foreign sensation almost painful, as he realized that he had forgotten what love felt like.
"Luke," Anakin felt himself whisper as his hand fell away, falling into his lap as the images faded, his son's eyes identical to his own still staring at him through time and space, from a life Anakin vowed his true son would never know.
A slightly trembling hand on his shoulder pulled Anakin back, and he looked up at his Angel, her eyes mirroring their tentative, almost scared gleam as the day she had told him of their impending parenthood. Steadying his breath as best he could, he realized the comlink was off, her attention completely for him as she waited, and Anakin knew she had heard what he had thought was a barely audible affirmation to himself. Slowly, Anakin stood, his eyes not leaving hers until he held her at arms length. He felt her anxious stare as he looked her up and down, his eyes roaming her body before he placed his trembling flesh hand on her stomach, something her consistently flowing dresses had concealed from him.
She was smaller, Anakin felt, almost back to normal. He chided himself for not noticing before, but it seemed as though some higher power was still pulling his strings, revealing things when he needed them most. Carefully, Anakin raised his piercing eyes to hers, noticing the rim of tears building in her lower lids. With his free hand he held her cheek, the dark leather cutting a stark contrast against her creamy skin as he searched her eyes for answers. "I saw…" he stuttered. "Did you… Are they…?"
She drew in a sharp breath at his words. "You know?" she whispered. He blinked and wet his lips.
"Know?"
Padmé sighed and covered his hand on her cheek with her own, drawing his palm to her lips for a kiss as she smiled.
"There are two, Ani. We have twins."
She lost his gaze as he drew a shuddering breath, his eyes pressed closed in relief. As she pulled him into her arms again he reveled in the pure joy she had just given him. There was nothing from the unknown life that he would ever want. All the images he had been granted during his recovery had been nothing but darkness, drowning him in hate, resentment, arrogance, pain, and nothing about what he saw made him relish the power he felt flowing through the golden-eyed monster of his supposed future. Without Padmé, his life was nothing, and all the power in the galaxy wouldn't change that. The one glimmer of worth that had just been opened from the depths of his healing mind had been the knowledge that his child, his children, had survived his atrocities. He felt tears burn his eyes as the quiet memories before Sidious' reveal came rushing back: reveling in wonder as he felt his twins reach out to him from within his wife, beginning the arduous yet thrilling task of choosing names, the peace of holding her while she slept only to feel a strong kick against his hand. His children were alive, there were indeed two, and Padmé was here in his arms. He began to laugh softly in ecstasy as his joy overtook him, and he picked his wife up and spun her in his arms. He was a father.
He set Padmé on her feet and kissed her blissfully, pouring his love, his awe, and his pure excitement into the kiss. "I love you, Padmé," he said as he broke the kiss, smiling as he hadn't done in what felt like eons. His mood was infectious as she allowed a watery giggle to pass her lips.
"I love you, Anakin."
She reached up gently and placed a chaste kiss on his lips before pulling out of his arms reluctantly. "I'm sorry Ani, but I have to go. Poor Luke isn't behaving." His face fell as she slowly moved around the room, and he felt her sadness at having to leave him mixed with a sense of urgency to return to her unhappy son. Anakin felt her urgency as if it were his own, and suddenly he realized that it was indeed his own.
"Can I see them?" he called as she finished gathering her things. She glanced at him, caught off guard by his simple yet loaded request. His eyes pleaded with her and he reached out to her, willing her to feel his longing, and she felt her heart leap.
"Ani…" she whispered, about to placate him, but he strode across the room in two long steps until he held her hand in his own, begging her to grant him this one mercy.
"Please, Padmé."
She took a shaky breath and bit her lip before swallowing and squeezing his hand in reassurance. "Let me see what I can do," she said. "I'll be right back."
Anakin sighed in relief as she kissed his cheek and left the room, giving him a glance over her shoulder before closing the door. Nodding to himself, Anakin ran a hand through his hair as his mind began to race, in jeopardy of falling back into oblivion without her calming presence, overwhelmed with the fact that one piece of his horrific, almost future was real. For more than a week, Padmé had come to his bedside, and for over a week he had found himself more able to distinguish between what his mind continued to make him face and what was real. In his quest for clarity, she had been his resource for everything, a shoulder to cry on when it all became too much, his fulcrum for finding the fault line that separated his true history and his would be future, but every time she left, going back to her home without him he felt himself slipping, though he had gotten better at finding the calm within himself to survive until she returned the next day. He had tried to never allow her to see him at his worst throughout their short marriage, but she had recently witnessed him at his weakest as he recovered, and suddenly his mind began replaying the look of unease as he asked her to see his children. Did she trust him? Did he trust himself?
Anakin began pacing as remembered feelings of anger, fear, confusion, a crushing lust to be all powerful, all his yet no longer present and all consuming invaded his mind and his anxiety flew into overdrive. Could he be a good father? He could still feel that he was not himself, and he wondered if he would ever be himself again, but when his mind flashed to the abomination he had almost become, did he even want to be himself anymore? What if the monster he had seen himself becoming still brewed inside him, waiting for some unknown catalyst to breathe life into the dark presence?
"No," he groaned to himself, halting his steps with the most massive effort as he internally told himself to breathe as he had taught himself. Looking inward, stretching into his own presence, Anakin reminded himself of the separation, when his conscious decision precipitated by the voice of his son had changed his black cloaked destiny forever. Within his presence, his connection to the Living Force, effortless and stronger than he had ever felt it before, Anakin solidified in his heart the sensation at the lack of the darkness he had fought against all his life. Shutting his eyes tightly, he cleared his mind of the fear, the anguish that lingered over events that, if he remained on the path he now found himself on, would never come to be. Slowly, he realized that what was left inside was nothing more than the natural anxieties of a father about to meet his children for the first time… if Padmé allowed it yet.
The door opening pulled him back to the present, and he turned to face his wife. He breathed in her returned presence, feeling the calm he had found within himself intensify as their eyes met, and he realized that she was smiling.
"We have two hours," she said, the barely contained happiness shaking her voice, and he felt himself smile unsteadily back as she took his hand and twined their fingers together. "Are you ready?" He nodded wordlessly and wet his lips, feeling his heart flutter at her touch, the knowledge that he would be seeing beyond the walls he could trace in his sleep, and the unshielded nerves at the thought of meeting his children. He glanced around the space of his quarters as she led him out the door, and felt himself concentrate hard on the grip she had on his hand, as he entered the wider world as the new man he felt himself becoming.
She was talking softly to him as they hailed a cab and entered the speeder, but he didn't hear what she was telling him. The trip seemed interminable, regardless of the driver's proclivity for weaving and ducking through traffic as his anxiety grew, melding with his excitement as the fifteen-minute journey dragged. He clutched Padmé's hand harder as his fears once again began to get the best of him. He knew nothing about babies, he knew nothing about being a father, and his lack of faith in his abilities was daunting. He realized that he had hardly ever doubted himself before, at least not that he would ever openly admit, and the overwhelming sensation stayed his breath until he blew it out in a nervous burst.
He felt Padmé's hand begin to rub the back of his neck soothingly, and he glanced at her from under his lashes. "Are you all right, Ani?" He bit his lip and dropped his eyes, absently picking at a loose thread on the robe he realized he was still wearing, covering his favorite dark brown tunic and cotton pants she had discovered for him in the closet of his room. He suddenly felt entirely too conscious of his lack of outer wear, feeling akin to a mental patient unexpectedly sprung, something he supposed, in reality, he was.
"Am I that obvious?" he asked sullenly. He felt her lips briefly brush against his temple and he shut his eyes, soaking in the soft touch.
"Only to me," she breathed. "Will you tell me what's bothering you?"
Force, he wanted to tell her. He wanted to tell her everything. He wanted her to know his visions, his fears, the things he saw that made it hard for him to be held by her sometimes. But how could he tell her that he killed her in another life, a life that almost was, one so real it wracked him with guilt so palpable it felt as if the unfulfilled was true. He couldn't saddle her with that, so with a shaking breath to drown out her pained screams for his help as she died on the table, Anakin began playing with her fingers as he thought of a way to distract her, running his fingers up and down each of hers thoughtfully.
"What are they like, Padmé?" he asked, finally meeting her gaze again as he grew sad with the thought that he hadn't been there for the birth of his children. He knew that she knew what he was doing, but his wife smiled anyway.
"They're perfect, Anakin," she gushed softly, and a small smile began tugging his lips upward at her motherly admiration. "They're so beautiful, so happy. Luke looks just like you, and Leia is already very much your daughter." A small laugh pushed past his lips as his smile threatened to overtake him before his face fell once more and he stared beyond her out the window at Coruscant's sparkling skyline.
"I don't know if I can do this, Padmé," he whispered. He refused to meet her eyes even as she shook her head at him. "I don't… I don't know how to do this."
"No one does, Ani," she said. "I'll be there with you, and I promise you'll be fine."
"What if… what if they hate me? What if they can sense…" She ran her fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck.
"Sense what?"
He finally looked at her, read the desire in her chocolate eyes to free him of his pain, saw her silently begging him to open up to her. He bit his lip, his mind working furiously as he felt himself tear between shielding her from his pain and lightening his unbearable load. "I…" He paused, took a quivering breath, squeezed his eyes shut, and when he felt he was ready, faced her again. "I…"
He cut himself off as he felt the cab slow, and Anakin's nerves deepened as they pulled into the familiar veranda of 500 Republica. Padmé tabled his thought with a firm kiss to his temple, thanked and paid the driver before stepping out as a frazzled Tekla walked out to meet her. The two women stepped into the reception room just beyond before Anakin felt comfortable enough to exit the cab. He drank in the familiar scenery, felt himself relax as he soaked in the soft splashing of the fountains, the familiar wind whipping through his waves, and he breathed deeply as the cab pulled away back into Coruscant's traffic. Feeling his relaxed state calm his pulsing heart, Anakin stepped into the living quarters of the place he had liked to call home, and his anxiety returned in a rush.
Anakin watched cautiously as his wife leaned over a rocking bassinet and picked up a squirming, screaming, red-faced infant, and he smiled slowly as she cradled her squalling child safely against her chest. Almost instantly upon hearing her soothing, motherly voice, the child began to quiet, and as Padmé continued to coo, Anakin was awestruck at how beautiful she was as his heart pounded his love for her strongly through his veins. Stretching out into the Force, Anakin reached for the infant held so lovingly by his wife, and he felt relief, safety, and a sense of contentment as his son allowed his mother's voice to calm what had been bothering him. He had simply wanted his mother.
Looking up at her aid, who looked more than a little relieved herself, Padmé smiled. "Where's Leia?"
"Asleep, though she should be waking up soon," Tekla replied. "As soon as Luke started fussing, I brought him down here so he wouldn't wake her."
Padmé glanced toward the veranda and locked eyes with Anakin's, smiling reassuringly at her tentative husband while still addressing Tekla. "Could you bring her down please, there's someone she needs to meet."
She held his gaze lovingly as Tekla spared him a glance before smoothly leaving and heading towards the back of the apartment wordlessly. Continuing to smile widely at him, Padmé stretched out her hand to him, and sucking in a nervous breath, dropping his eyes nervously and swallowing, Anakin stepped towards her and the child slowly. The baby was no longer crying, only hiccupping softly and staring at his mother as Anakin took her hand and allowed her to lead him to sit on one of the plush couches before sitting beside him. She looked from the tiny, wriggling life in her arms to her fidgeting husband again, and Anakin lowered his eyes to take in his son for the first time.
"Hold out your arms," Padmé instructed gently, and on pure instinct he didn't even know he had, Anakin did as he was told, mirroring the position she held so effortlessly, one that felt foreign to him. The moment she shifted Luke in her arms, preparing to hand him to his father, Anakin felt himself begin to tremble, but out of excited anticipation or fearful anxiety, he couldn't tell. All he knew was that his mind was screaming one simple order: don't mess this up!
"Ani," his wife was almost in tears as she gently moved Luke from mother to father, "this is your son."
His eyes never lifted as he carefully adjusted his hold on his son, watching as his infant boy shifted his wide, blue-eyed gaze to look upon his father. Neither made a move, and Anakin slowly dispelled a breath he didn't know he had been holding as Luke quietly took in the new face and the surprisingly gentle arms that cradled him to the fluffy material of Anakin's robe that covered a strong, male chest. Anakin slowly smiled tearfully, his mind flooding with a happiness he never thought he would ever feel as Luke's gaze flit across his face. Softly, more smoothly than he had felt previously, his son's eyes pulled him into another place, a time that Anakin would treasure forever, even if he had never, and would never live it.
Luke pulled the black, terrifying mask off as gingerly as possible, Anakin feeling his son's unease and sadness at carrying out his father's last request. As the mask fell away with a deep exhale from the iron lung, Anakin momentarily lost sight of his son, but then, beautiful clarity was unveiled without a tint of red, and Anakin saw Luke as he was always meant to see him: with his own eyes. Luke set the mask aside as his face morphed from stoic resolve to pure compassion and love as the face of his father was finally revealed to him, and Anakin rejoiced at the death of the golden-eyed monster that had caused so much heartache. A shutter from the massive Death Star and unseen blaster fire brought the dying Anakin back to the reality at hand.
"Now go, my son," he tried to implore with all the strength left in him. Luke began immediately shaking his head as his father brokenly told him to leave him to burn within the evil he had helped create.
"No, you're coming with me." The assertiveness in his son's resolute statement was as firm as Anakin had ever heard it. "I'll not leave you here, I've got to save you!" A lone tear slowly tracked down Luke's tanned cheek, so much like his own in what was another lifetime ago, and Anakin wished he could brush it away and hold his son. But his weak, dying body would have none of it as he felt the strong tug of death upon him.
"You already have, Luke," he weakly affirmed, and Luke's eyes softened. "You were right about me. Tell your sister…"
"You were right," Anakin breathed as his son's tearful eyes changed once again into the soft yet inquisitive ones of the infant he held in his arms. Careful to keep Luke steady, Anakin wiped away the tear that had been prickling in the corner of his eye as he and his son continued to stare at each other. Luke suddenly squirmed in his father's arms, a small, chubby arm bursting free from the blanket that swaddled him. Grunting curiously, Luke reached out and grasped Anakin's chin, catching a small finger on his lower lip. Gasping in wonder and overwhelming joy, Anakin reverently caught Luke's flailing hand in his own, and he brought his son's tiny fingers to his lips, placing a firm kiss on the soft flesh.
He felt a soft, soothing touch at the back of his neck, and Anakin looked up into Padmé's tearful eyes as she watched him and his son. She sniffed, her face scrunched with happy tears, and she leaned forward, capturing his lips softly. Anakin inhaled deeply as he felt a wave of comfort wash over him, and everything fell into place once more as he felt the incredible love for him and her family that she poured into the sweet, chaste kiss. His body remained relaxed, contented, and whole as she pulled away to lay her forehead against his, and she sighed.
"I love you so much," she whispered, and he finally gave himself over completely to the calm and relief she offered so willingly and unconditionally.
"I watched you die," he breathed.
He felt her flinch at his unexpected words, but she didn't abruptly pull out of his reach as he had been expecting. Instead, hand still curling in his hair at the nape of his neck, lightly scraping his scalp soothingly, Padmé lifted her eyes to meet his, and he did his best to hold her intense stare as his heart began to beat out of control. "Like in your dreams?" she asked, and the look she had bore in the cab returned, the one that begged for him to open up and share his burden with her, his wife. Before he could think better of it, Anakin shook his head.
"Worse. It was more than a dream," he said. He dropped his eyes to his son, who still stared at him, and within Luke's innocent stare, Anakin found his courage. "I think… I think I was shown something real, Padmé. A vision."
"A vision of what?" she asked gently, and he began playing with Luke's fingers that the infant still allowed him to hold.
"Lots of things."
"Bad?" He nodded.
"I saw my future the night Sidious died. In it, I… I killed you." She gasped, and he felt her fingers tunnel further up his head and into his long hair. He squeezed his eyes shut against the sound as his mind threatened to abandon her into yet another memory, but he breathed deeply and concentrated on the little fingers now attempting to grasp and hold onto his own, a skill he felt was more instinct than conscious.
"I was the cause of your death, Angel, or at least I was meant to be." Anakin opened his burning eyes and lifted them to hers. He found her listening intently without a shadow of judgment veiling her face. "In my vision, I pledged myself to Sidious' teachings instead of killing him, because he had made me believe that he could teach me how to stop you from dying like my mother. So, I joined the Dark Side, and he sent me to kill the Separatist leaders." Anakin took a long breath as Padmé's eyes grew sad, and he could see a sliver of anger that she was trying very hard to mask. His heart leapt in fear, but reaching out, he felt that her anger was not directed at him, but at the black cloaked liar that could have stolen him from her, and very nearly did.
"You came after me, begged and pleaded with me to turn back, that you didn't want to be saved that way, afraid that everything Obi-Wan had told you about me was true, but I didn't listen. When he came down the ramp of your ship I thought you had betrayed me, led my old master right to me so he could kill me."
"Anakin." His name was a sob from her throat, a sound that resonated loudly in its familiarity within the vision he was all but reliving, and he ducked his head downward once more, refusing to look at her. He couldn't face her, his shame over his would-be deeds overtaking everything he had. If he looked at her now, he would simply collapse and lose himself to his guilt, and he had to get everything out, had to finish, or he never would.
"I… in rage, I used the Force to try and kill you, but Obi-Wan stopped me. He left me for dead before Sidious found me. Obi-Wan saved you, kept you alive long enough to give birth, but you died anyway."
He breathed in slowly as he felt Padmé cup the back of his head and pull him towards her, resting her head on his temple as he stared at the empty bassinet in front of him, lending support without interrupting. "That night, the Force showed me the life I could have had, Padmé. A life of darkness, and it's still hard to know it's no longer real." He sucked in a shaky breath and let a hot tear trickle down his cheek. "I failed you. I failed everyone."
Luke whimpered as Padmé kissed her husband's head, which he felt was beginning to sweat from the immense effort it took to concentrate and stay in the here and now. "There's more, so much more," he whispered, and he felt Padmé's head lift from his as she gave him her undivided attention once more. Anakin glanced down at Luke instead. "I was a monster without you, driven by anger, power, control… I did such terrible things, Padmé. But Luke," he stroked his son's cheek and felt the edges of his lips prick upwards, "Luke saved me."
"Luke?" she gasped, and he nodded.
"I saw our son, Padmé. He was grown up, Obi-Wan and Master Yoda had trained him, and he was a Jedi, the last Jedi. Even after everything I had done, to him, to the galaxy, when he found out I was his father, he loved me. He knew who I used to be, what the Dark Side had done, and he even risked his own life to bring me back to the Light. In the end, he succeeded."
Finally, Anakin lifted his eyes to his wife's, meeting her equally tear filled eyes. "I couldn't let that future happen, Padmé." Anakin took his son's hand in his again and kissed the tiny fingers, reveling in the foreign, intoxicating smell of his son as he did. "I couldn't let our children live that life, and I couldn't live without you."
"Oh Ani," she whimpered, her tears overtaking her strong voice. She kissed his forehead once more and held him to her. "I don't know what to say."
A loud bark of protest broke the young parents from their consolation, and Anakin suddenly realized that Padmé's arms were now full of another tiny bundle. He smiled widely as the darker, inquisitive eyes of his daughter drank him in skeptically, her tiny brow furrowed and her arms waving wildly as she asserted her indignity at being ignored long enough. Padmé laughed as she caught one of her daughter's hands before it could scratch the delicate skin of her face, and Leia quieted as she noticed her mother's eyes were now on her.
"See, she's your daughter," Padmé giggled, swallowing past the lump in her throat as Anakin stared in wonder at his beautiful little girl who already looked so much like his equally breathtaking wife. With his family surrounding him for the first time, Anakin's mind finally felt whole, and he sighed in content, looking down at his son and smiling as Luke had fallen asleep, tucked securely in his father's arms. He may not have been there when his children were born, to hold his wife's hand through the pain, watch through the teary eyes he was certain he would have had as his son and daughter entered the galaxy, but he vowed that he would be there for the rest of their lives.