A/N: It is canon that for some nonhumanoids, their biology prevents their lightsaber wounds from cauterizing— AKA, there's blood. An onscreen movie example would be the very visible red spray when Darth Maul is cut in half.

I have been respectfully terrified of this scene more than any other since Day 1. I can only hope I did it justice.

Reviews are always read and very much appreciated... especially after a chapter like this one.

Chapter 30. The Garage

In the night of death, hope sees a star,
and listening love can hear the rustle of a wing.

– Robert Green Ingersoll

While the universe had already begun to share its deck with others, there were two cards being withheld from me when I stepped foot in the Lars garage. These were the missing slides in my naive hand. When finally shown to me, they'd arrived far too late for my heart to turn around… or to even want to.

Let us start with the first card. Unlike almost every other person in Anakin's life, I lacked the Force ability to truly sense— in the literal term— fear, aggression, and the potential gate to a valley of darkness behind a handsome smile. This skill was a gift honed by Jedi Masters who possessed such supernatural capabilities, who could depend on more than eyes and personal intuition to inform their world.

The second card? I had not watched the progress and digress of Anakin over the course of ten years. The memory book-ending his arrival on my apartment floor was of a celebrated, sweet little boy. While it was jarring getting adjusted to the exciting and tender man he'd become, I was not present for the growing pains and little warnings his mentors tracked along the way. No one pulled me aside and shared their concerns over Anakin before he and I left Coruscant. Why would they? And yet, what possible signal would their solo assignment of him send to me other than complete and utter faith in him?

Only the Council can testify as to how sharp their pins and needles were when they worried about Anakin's future, but my claim stands— to whatever degree, they pitched us together and hoped for the best. I love my husband; cosmic destiny was our ultimate matchmaker. But I cannot help but feel like an experimental piece of meat the Jedi threw to the wolves. The wolf.

What the Jedi's teachings prescribed in detachment my own feelings made up for in spades. I knew he was not perfect, but I had, nevertheless, idealized him. Given what our time together had been up to that point, how could I not? Minus blips of arrogance, which growing attraction easily swept under the rug as pitfalls of youth, he had been perfect. Charming and disarming. Attentive and respectful. His only crime was to cherish me so deeply that he felt bidden to voice it. To deny this idealism of him would be to deny the truth, and while the truth and I have gone from best of friends to awkward strangers over recent years, I will not bury this lie from the light like I have all the others. The gravestones in my field of untruths have begun to crowd. Soon, they will be stacked like a tower as they claw over each other, gasping for air in the sky.

Truth? I was privy to the card of the little boy who exuded innocence, selflessness, and warmth.

Truth? I was privy to the card of the shy and bold young man, who held the depth of the galaxy in his stare.

Truth? I was shown the card of the courtier who was as forthright as he was an alluring mystery.

Truth?

There were darker parts of himself Ani didn't have the chance to reveal on that fireside couch, though, only he knows how conscious of them he already was.

Truth.

Houses made of cards always come through on their one, singular promise.

They fall.

"The death toll is catastrophic. We must bow to their wishes. You must contact me!"

Behind closed doors, I'd been advised by Sabé and Panaka that the transmission was a trap, but that didn't make it any easier to see the distressed anguish broadcast in Governor Bibble's face. As the message flickered out, my peace of mind went with it.

A catastrophic death toll… how much truth lay in that gut-wrenching description? How much of it was our adversary trying to bait my emotions? That there was a very real chance the Trade Federation had gone so far, perhaps in retaliation to my escape, that Sio Bibble wasn't exaggerating the scale of the dead made my stomach turn over. My fear stretched as I thought of my mother, my father, of Sola. I dared not wonder if the Viceroy would seek out the monarch's family for his own vile purposes. Never before had I been so thankful for the cloak of my adopted Amidala persona.

I knew Jar Jar Binks was asleep in a nearby chair in the nook due to his snoring, but as I tried to process the wild anxiety churning away within me, I could feel the weight of other eyes. Despite the fact he was sitting several feet away, I found the blue pools immediately. They were almost hidden by a low curtain of bangs the same color as Tatooine's abrasive sand, though I knew this hair was incomparably softer.

Ani.

He looked so small, so alone. So different from the animated child who was pumping his arms in the air after his astonishing podrace victory. He peered at me from the edge of the curved booth.

"Are you alright?"

The little boy shivered. "It's very cold."

Then he fumbled his hands together clumsily, as if his palms had never needed to perform the self-warming gesture before. Given where he was from, it was possible they never had.

A stampede of shoe leather hit the ground in matted slaps. Owen raced towards the landing in front, beating me to the bottom step seconds before I reached it. "How could he be back already?" he semi-rhetorically questioned, sounding utterly bewildered.

"Already?" my heart repeated, incredulous at this description of the past thirty-five hours. It's felt like weeks. I clutched and pulled at the blue hem of my skirt as I sped up the staircase. At my heels, I heard the mechanized hum of Cliegg's hover chair.

"Maybe he's circled back for supplies," Beru panted from behind Cliegg. She'd run to alert me of the perimeter alarm, and now she was rushing to keep up after I'd flown past her in the hallway outside my guestroom. "He might be out of water."

"That's not it," I responded with a knowing grin, though no one could see it as we charged into the dark tunnel. I couldn't believe I'd ever entertained the idea that he'd be gone for days. What a ludicrous underestimation of Anakin Skywalker— son of the twin suns and Jedi pupil for a decade. I overflowed with a tidal wave of confidence. "He's found her."

"Maybe he has," Owen quickly replied. There was an obvious, feverous octave of hope in his voice I'd not heard before. "Maybe she's— Oh!" Owen's soft, pained gasp as he broke out into the sunlight ahead made it sound as if he'd been sucker-punched. Stricken with anxiety, I flew even faster up the stairs until I finally breached the surface myself.

For the shortest moment, I thought one of the golden suns had abandoned its sibling in the eastern sky and moved to the other side of the dome.

Anakin.

There! Standing! Moving! Alive! For one more split-second, my heart felt the pure elation of relief. Gravity returned to my inner universe. My eyes ravaged like they had not feasted on him in years. Anakin was even taller than I remembered. Blonder. Tanner. Irrationally handsome. Every cell in my body celebrated at the sight of him.

And then I took in the hardened expression.

And I saw the petite, human-shaped form tied to the rear of the speeder. It was securely swaddled in a gray wrap by brown bands at the neck, knees, and feet. The bundle's only movement came when Anakin made to retrieve her.

Oh, no, no, Shmi.

The son labored to lift the dead weight of his mother. My heart cried out when Shmi's head rolled onto Anakin's shoulder like she was nestling herself against him. Just as I imagine she had for her Ani almost twenty years ago, he cradled her in a hold so gentle one would've thought she was asleep.

Still wordless, though his face spoke volumes, he stalked forward towards the home. Anakin's eyes bore straight ahead into the lowering binary suns, as if demanding with his glare that they make one final salute to his mother before he took her below. In his first acknowledgment that any of us were present, he turned and stopped in front of the newly widowed spouse. For a brief but poignant moment a shared loss was honored. Cliegg's chin bowed into his chest, yet he retained his composure.

Anakin's tight stare moved to Owen and Beru as his feet continued to walk for two bodies' sake. I cannot tell you their reactions, for my eyes were still glued to Anakin's face. This was an expression I'd never seen him wear before. It looked like… rage? Rage and pain, barely held in check by a wet curtain of unshed tears.

Oh, Ani. What happened out there?

It was when he was walking right past me towards the hovel opening that I realized not once— not a single time since I emerged from the tunnel— had Anakin's eyes come anywhere near meeting mine. As much as his pointed look had sought the others, he'd acted like I wasn't even there.

I turned to watch as Anakin began his careful descent down the stairs with his beloved cargo. It was only then that I noticed C-3PO had joined us up top. Beginning a makeshift processional line behind the leads, I went first to follow into the dome. "Oh, my," Threepio exclaimed softly behind me. "This is just terrible. Terrible."

"That's enough. Go find a corner out of our sight and power down." The gruff words laced with unmistakable ire came from Owen. I almost turned in the dark to challenge his order, and its tone. Threepio had been by Shmi's side since the very first day of his creation. She'd been the most constant element of his daily life for a decade, as he had been to hers. Although it was built of wires and metal, there was a heart somewhere in the droid, and his mourning as a sentient creature should be respected as much as anyone else's.

But the urge to preach about this died as quickly as it rose. My attention was on Anakin, who was descending the steps in front of me at a solemnly pace. Threepio's sadness would have to wait where it was— at the back of the line.

I stood in the center of the crater near Beru and Owen, all of us aimless in our grief. Cliegg had gone on with Ani to show him a cold storage room where Shmi's body could be kept until a burial.

Dry heat infiltrated the blue fabric of my clothes, eliciting a slick creek of sweat down my back.

His clothing was perfect for the climate he came from, but poor for a starship. For all the options in the ample royal wardrobe onboard, I regretted we had nothing that would suffice to garb a child.

Luckily, I was aware of a collection of thick blankets stored just a few steps away. I grabbed one— red, with white pattern around the edge— and unfolded it as I walked around Jar Jar's reclined head and sat by the trembling passenger.

I tucked the cover over his knees, up to his shoulders, and under his chin. I kept my voice casual. "You come from a warm planet, Ani. A little too warm for my taste." Not like mine, not like home… "Space is cold."

"You seem sad."

The boy who'd already memorized every centimeter of my face saw through my feeble attempt to appear nonchalant. "The Queen is worried. Her people are suffering— dying." I reigned in the strain of my tone, remembering that I was speaking to a nine-year-old. "She must convince the Senate to intervene or… I'm not sure what will happen."

Both Ani and I were hurtling towards the capital planet in the heart of the Core Worlds. Both of our homes were behind us; indiscernible dots upon which we had respectively worked, laughed, learned, slept, grown, lived. Both planets reduced to numerical coordinates on a grid— not at all representative of the massive weight one feels when they've had to leave their loved ones behind.

Beru had quietly begun to release the valve on her sorrow, crying softly into Owen's shoulder. For his part, Shmi's adopted son stood stunned and immobile, one arm draped limply around Beru's back as he stared unfocused across the distance of the crater. I somberly wondered if he was even cognizant of her cries. Though being a well-built man with facial hair and the woman he loved under his arm, he looked like a lost little boy.

I folded one arm across my middle and rested the elbow of the other upon it. I bit down on my thumb's knuckle as my eyes remained steadfast on the doorway Anakin and Cliegg would be returning through.

Even though I knew Ani was back inside the compound, Time once again felt like my torturer. The only constants were Beru's crying, the crumbs of sand I felt underneath every time I leaned on my heels, and the suffocation of the hot air. It felt like I was standing inside of a furnace. Waiting. Analyzing.

I could not stop questioning why Anakin hadn't looked at me up on the ridge.

Was it only my imagination?

I knew it wasn't. As impossible as it sounded, he seemed like he had been making a point not to look at me.

Finally, Anakin and Cliegg emerged from the dark archway. The younger man appeared as stony as he had in the first seconds of his arrival. My arms dropped and I searched his face, desperate for eye contact. I needed to ask and see the answer to the question we could silently communicate across the space, using that wordless language he and I so often employed.

Are you alright?

Tense cobalt pools took in Beru, and Owen's comfort of her. They looked at the staircase we'd descended to enter this living pit. They raked up and down the tall machine in the middle of the turf. They searched the beige sand at our feet, as if the answer to his own question could be found there.

They looked everywhere but in my direction.

Ani turned suddenly to Cliegg, who hovered not far from his left side. He suddenly looked urgent, even manic. "I need—" He swallowed and shook his head. I expected him to ask for water or food and was about to make a direct line for the kitchen to aid him. Then he blurted, "Soap. Antiseptic." His eyes— still never meeting mine— jumped from Cliegg's to Owen's. "Where?"

It was then I saw that his hands were shaking.

"The kitchen," Cliegg answered brokenly. Despite his assistance, he had the look of a kicked animal in his gaze. His restrained grief wasn't going to hold much longer. "Nearest spot you'll find it."

Anakin avoided my eye as he hurried past me towards the dining room. On feeling more than thought, I turned to follow. His long legs carried him far more swiftly than mine. He was already standing by one of the counters when I finished the final steps of the curved staircase.

My mouth opened, but no sound came out as I watched him scrub his hands with the bronze suds. Seconds passed. Under the soap, I could see the skin turning an angry red. There was a desperate, animalistic approach to his wash, as if he was trying to rub his skin and tissue layers down to the very bone. He pumped hard from the bottle again and again, pushing sleeves up and moving to attack his forearms with the suds.

I didn't understand what was going on. All I knew was it made me feel the urge to cry.

"There's a good shower on the ship, Ani."

He stilled at my small voice. Suddenly, he turned and made his way towards where I stood on the bottom step. He came to a stop before me, and, for a second, I thought he was finally going to look at or say something to me. Blue eyes hid under their hoods as he stared pointedly where the staircase met the wall. His cheeks twitched and his dimpled chin trembled. Reddish-brown soap dripped off his fingers like fermented blood, creating dark spots on the kitchen floor.

"Ani," I breathed, before halting. Something was wrong.

Anakin radiated tension. It wasn't until his jaw clenched repeatedly that I realized he was waiting impatiently for me to step aside.

The passageway was wide, I was not standing directly in the center of it, and so I would've thought he had ample space to get by. Nevertheless, stunned by the awareness of what was wanted, I slowly moved against the wall to give him even more room to get past unobstructed than he'd already had. Once his path was broad enough, he rushed up the steps like he was running from his own shadow.

I placed a hand on the wall, supporting myself as continued shock, confusion, and growing hurt rattled my breath. I'd longed for Anakin's presence so viscerally while he was gone. Now he was here, and in the moment when he'd finally lived and breathed within glorious reach, it was as if he was enduring physical pain to be near me.

Why? What could have caused such a change?

When I returned to the atrium, it was just in time to see the tip of his brown cloak disappear into the tunnel leading up towards the surface. In the sandy ground between where I was walking and the bottom of the exit stairs, scattered dots made a haphazard line where the lather had fallen from his hands.

"He's gone—" I cleared my throat in an effort to make my voice stronger. "He's gone to take a shower on the ship."

Threepio, who had yet to heed the command to make himself scarce, made his opinion on his maker's behavior known. "Well, this is rather odd conduct, if I may say."

"What's odd about it? Of course he'd want a shower." Coming to life, Owen stepped away from Beru and started walking inside. "He's been traveling with a dead body behind him. Wouldn't expect a droid to understand." The young man stomped up the five steps it required to enter an elevated doorway, disappearing into the dwelling.

Threepio flailed his arms a little as he apologized, "Oh, dear. I am so sorry— I meant no offense."

Beru looked between the three of us, her gaze lingering on the father. "Forgive him. I know he gave the impression he didn't think she was coming back alive, but," her breath hitched and eyes swelled with tears. "It didn't mean he didn't secretly, very much want to be wrong."

"Go," Cliegg urged her, but already she was turning to follow her love.

I started to go up the main steps after Anakin.

"Give him time, Padmé," Cliegg cautioned.

His words held me back for only a moment before I continued up the stairs.

Perhaps Cliegg was right. Perhaps I shouldn't have been chasing Anakin around the homestead. But it was as if I didn't have control over my own body. It knew, with colorful awareness, that Anakin was back. It and my heart were on the same page— they were not content to note his suffering from afar and be parted from him, not when the only thing separating us now was a distance my own legs could cross. My rational mind was at the mercy of the addiction spiraling under my skin. There was a chance yet that I could get to the ship before he disrobed and stepped into the shower. I wouldn't need long before I'd leave him to his privacy— just a few words exchanged would hold me over till he returned to the homestead.

He was a brown speck in the distance when I emerged from the dome. I watched him ascend the ship's ramp and, thankfully, it stayed down, which would save me time on my own approach.

The thin orchard of vaporators lining the path witnessed my hurried trek to the cruiser. My imagination gave life to these inanimate objects, which were far less sentient than Threepio, but I could not decide whether their envisioned calls were advising me to turn around or press on. Ultimately, it didn't matter. My feet weren't listening either way.

The sweat at my back chilled once I stood amongst the air ducts inside the ship. As I walked through a hallway on the lower level, Artoo came around the corner, but I put an authoritative hand up before his beeps got very far.

"Not now, Artoo. Later." My eyes were fixed on a large, dark puddle of fabric in the middle of the floor. Anakin's Jedi robe.

As I moved closer to the stateroom in the rear of the cruiser, I could hear the gushing sound of running water flow through pipes behind the walls. I'd been too late— Anakin had already begun his shower. My feet continued into the suite regardless, and I cringed as I saw the mess of my own wardrobe still scattered around the bed and floor where I'd left it hours ago. It was a ridiculously silly thing to worry about given the circumstances, but it wasn't like me to leave my things in such a state, and I regretted that Anakin had seen the disarray.

As I stepped past a mound of my own garments, I noticed a heap of material off to the side, nearer to the closed bathroom door. Anakin's clothing. His boots were tipped on their sides a meter beyond the pile.

I stared down at the tunics, tabbard, belt, and pants like they could answer my question of what had happened out there beyond the horizon line. Yet I cannot explain what prompted me to bend over and tenderly scoop them up in my arms, even as my feet started moving out of the room on autopilot like this had been the plan all along. There was a definite element of sweat odor to them, as well as some other scent more… foreign, but they were still warm from their owner's heat and the suns he'd traveled under.

There was a washing cylinder onboard in the utility room. It wasn't designed to carry large loads at a single time, but it would be enough to handle Anakin's primary outfit; his robe would have to be washed separately. As I walked under the bright luminescence of the utility room, I noticed strange, black dots faintly distributed on part of Anakin's tabbard. Releasing the majority of the bundle, I held up the outer garment to inspect it more clinically. The tiny, runny marks coated the synthetic leather like scatter plot matrices. Some were more potent in their quantity than others. Turning the material over, I realized the spray was contained solely to the front of the tabbard and not the back. I might have thought it was residual soap, but these dots were dry to the touch and far more cohesive than the foamy antiseptic.

Some part of me— a knowing voice I wasn't ready to acknowledge on a conscious level— knew what those caked droplets were, which is why I imagine I stopped grazing them with my fingers and mustered them into the wash cylinder with sudden agency.

After pressing buttons to add detergent and initiate the laundry, I returned to the stateroom. I was abruptly adamant that I should put away the wardrobe before Anakin had a chance to see it. Again, unreasonable and nonsensical. I was midway through putting a stash of dresses into a suitcase when I heard the water shut off behind the bathroom door.

"Don't come out," I called, freezing where I stood. "I've put your clothes in the wash cycle in the utility room." I paused, in case there was anything he wanted to say to this. Silence. Although it was hard to discern, it didn't even sound like he was moving in the stall. After a few tensely quiet seconds, I added, "I'm leaving now."

I waited anxiously for a reply that didn't seem to be coming.

I nodded to no one, resigned, and turned to take my leave. Just as I was several steps down the hallway beyond the stateroom's door, I heard a faint voice croak out, "Thank you."

The broken tone behind those two, short words made my soul weep.

"I made this for you." As he spoke, he pulled an object out from under the red blanket. A hand— soft in parts like a child's should be, but calloused on the pads in the way a laborer's became— placed the item in my palm. "So you'd remember me." It was an amulet of some kind, attached at the top to a braided leather cord. The engraved design was simple yet elegant, Padmé's— my— preferred style, not Amidala's. I moved it in the light, genuinely admiring the craftsmanship. "I carved it out of a japor snippet. It will bring you good fortune."

I passed the abandoned speeder at the end of my return journey to the dome. Just before I put my foot on the first grainy step, I stopped and turned.

Once more a silent investigator looking for hidden clues, I approached the dormant bike. Though the machine was old, rusted, and scratched, it was obvious there was no evidence of the black droplets I'd seen on Anakin's clothing. Tied to the back of the speeder was the bag Beru and I had prepped for him. I unfastened and opened it warily.

Half the food had been eaten. The second half remained untouched.

When I came round the tunnel corner and the inside of the crater came into view, my eyes were drawn by the sound coming from the bottom right of my path. Still softly— only her sniffles giving her away— Beru sat crying at the end of the steps. She twisted at the waist and looked up when she heard me descend. "Cliegg's in his bedroom. His shock wore off… Owen is in there trying to comfort him." She paused. "They're trying to comfort each other." She wiped under her glistening nose with her sleeve and forced a wry laugh. "I didn't think I was helping very much."

I sat on the landing beside her... and then Beru and I continued the vigil for Shmi we'd begun on top of the ridge near this same time the previous night. Partners in silence, partners in grief, though it would be inaccurate and dishonest to say our hearts were breaking in tandem measure for the son and the mother. It wasn't that I did not mourn the tragically lost woman, but her son's current despair hoarded my thoughts' attention. Likewise, as would be natural, I imagine Beru's focus was more on the woman she'd known and loved, rather than on the son she'd only known sparingly or through stories.

After a long while, Owen appeared in one of the home's archways and came to us at the bottom of the main stairs. I studied his face as he ambled nearer. The anger which dominated his features prior had receded for the moment. He seemed both calmer yet more distraught, like he was knowingly passing through the eye of a storm and was resigned to its impermanent reprieve. Seeming tired, he looked at me. "Where is Ani?"

"Right here."

Surprised, we turned to see him towering at the top of the stairs just a step beyond the tunnel. His hair was slightly blonder after the cleansing shower, and his clothes were laundered and dry. Whether in the wash cycle or still on the ship's floor, his Jedi robe hadn't come back with him. I hadn't realized how much the sweat and dirt of his mission cast an extra shadow on his face until they'd been washed away.

Though I peered up at him hopefully, he still didn't meet my eye.

Owen made a sound in the back of his throat. "I have a question I'd like to ask you, if it's alright." His undemanding voice shook as he stared up at his stepbrother.

"Go ahead."

"How long did it look like she'd been…" Owen abruptly looked at the ground between his feet. Teeth bit down into his bottom lip like he was in danger of gnawing it off. He tried again. "Was she still…" His chest swelled and dropped as a great sigh exercised his lungs. He inhaled quickly and forced the words out, I imagine afraid to hear either answer to his question. "Was she still alive when you found her?"

"Not for very long."

Owen nodded, seeming to accept this information on a level he would unpack later, in privacy. He mustered a ghost of a smile as he asked, "Then you got to say goodbye?"

Anakin's face contorted. "I barely had time to say hello."

I almost leaped to my feet and rushed up the steps to wrap my arms around him. Only his continued ignorance of my stare stalled me.

"How did you get her out of there without the Tuskens stopping you?"

I turned and eyed Owen pleadingly. There would be time for questions, and he had a right to them, but I wasn't sure now was that moment.

"The Tuskens won't be a problem for you anymore." My head swiveled once more as I examined Ani's face. That unfamiliar, rageful look brewed his skin again and set his eyes on fire.

Owen stole a look at me like I could translate Ani's words the same way an interpreter droid might reveal an alien language. "What does that mean? Did you threaten them?"

In a blind wave of optimism rooted in a pacifist's background, I prompted, "Were you able to negotiate a truce?"

Anakin visibly flinched at my question, but otherwise gazed at Owen as if I hadn't spoken. "The Tuskens won't be a problem for you anymore."

Unlike his initial decree, this time, his voice split on the repetition.

All heads turned as a loud clang! came from the direction of the distant garage. Something mechanical had just gone very wrong.

"I better check that out," Owen started with a heavy sigh.

"Let me," Anakin commanded more than asked, moving towards Beru and I to descend the final steps. Though there was plenty more space on my side of the staircase, he seemed to exert extra effort to maneuver himself around Beru's side, even though she was sitting closer to the wall.

His continued avoidance of me was beginning to feel like a lightsaber burn.

After he marched away, Beru and Owen both eyed me pensively. I no longer thought Anakin's standoffish behavior towards me was a self-centered figment of my imagination, but to see the awareness of it in the faces of others made the ache sting that much more grievously.

A voice within, one I chose to trust, told me Anakin wasn't going to open up in the company of multiple others. Not yet. He had not spent long hours amongst Beru and the Lars men like I had. Whatever happened out there was too personal and painful to be released to an audience of people who, though they'd earned his early verdict of being good, were still relative strangers in every meaning of the term.

I, however, had a secure home somewhere in his soul. Or, at least, I did as of two nights ago. My intention to talk to him alone on the cruiser had been correct in theory, but poorly timed. The garage, unlike the kitchen, would give us far more privacy to talk.

Admittedly, it was a nicer theory to assume he wasn't looking at me because to do so would be his composure's undoing than to think, sometime since we'd last seen each other, Anakin had developed a sudden and visceral hatred of me.

After a long pause, I stood, decision made. "I should take him something to eat." As eager as I was to aid Anakin, I didn't want to go sifting through someone else's pantry. "Can one of you help me?"

"I will," Beru answered, coming to stand. She placed a hand on Owen's shoulder as she passed by him. "Go to your father."

We walked side-by-side towards the dining alcove. The dying heat of the day had nearly erased the path of Anakin's soap suds in the sand— all that was left were faint black traces in front of the bottom step on the kitchen floor.

Beru was mumbling something to me about bread and cutlery while I stared at the fading marks on the ground. I couldn't stop remembering the tension, almost disgust, emanating off Anakin when I'd last been in this room. And then my nicer theory fell apart.

Realization caused an involuntary gasp to escape my mouth. If I'd been holding the milk pitcher Beru currently gripped, I might have dropped it.

"He resents me," I whispered. "It's my fault."

Beru stopped moving things onto a tray and regarded me with a confused stare. "What could you mean?"

{Recently, I've been seeing her in my dreams. Vivid dreams… scary dreams. I worry about her.}

{I'm sure they're just dreams.}

"We were traveling to Naboo. I woke him from one of his nightmares about his mother. He told me how scary they were— that he was having them on a reoccurring basis." I shook my head, recalling the words and the way I'd held his hand in certain reassurance across the table. "I dismissed them immediately as just being dreams. Maybe if I had listened more, offered to talk about them, he would have come to me about them again sooner, we would've left sooner for Tatooine." The point of this ramble spilled out of my lips, "Maybe he would've gotten to her in time."

I locked eyes with Beru. Jaw slack, she was blinking fast, and whatever response she wanted to offer seemed to be alluding her. "No," she finally replied. "No, Padmé, I'm sure it's not that." But the way she was looking at me when she said it, we both knew she couldn't be sure.

I smiled at the boy for his gift even as I saw the blatant idealization beaming from his eyes. "It's beautiful. But I don't need this to remember you by."

I didn't share the romantic crush on Ani that I knew he harbored for me, but I felt an unusual pull towards him which I'd never experienced with another being before. I always wanted to be near Ani, and to know he was alright. I felt braver, lighter, and more acutely alive in any moment I spent in his presence, though I could not point to any particular reasons to explain this. He was not someone I would soon, if ever, forget. All this would be true even if he hadn't won us hyperdrive.

I allowed the sincerity of my feelings to influence my voice. "Many things will change when we reach the capital, Ani, but my caring for you will remain."

Those water-blue eyes, so abundant with adoration, filled with something else. Pain. "I care for you too, only I…"

"Miss your mother."

And there it was. For all our similarities as we sped further away from our home planets— our loneliness, our sadness, our fear— there was one agonizing difference between us.

I yet carried the hope that I would soon see the faces of my loved ones. Ani's future, at least his near future, did not circle back to Tatooine in the way mine would to Naboo; it lay at the mercy of whatever the Jedi would decide for him. Even the Galactic Senate did not have such power over me.

Ani adjusted in the booth and nestled closer into me, and I tucked him into my side warmly. Tenderly, I brushed my fingers down his suns-kissed hair and soothed him as the liquid in his eyes crested and finally began to fall. "I know," I assured, rocking him slightly from side to side. "It hurts. But it will be alright. It will be alright." I wanted him to feel safe to express however he felt, even if the only way he could speak was through the release of tears. I would not minimize his longing for his mother under the effort of wanting to make him feel better, nor even could I— not when my fear for my own mother's well-being formed my bridging empathy for Ani so immediately.

What began as a low hum in the top of my mouth fell out my lips as the lyrics from lullabies my mother had sung to me. Ani's head rested on my chest, directly over my heart. He reached out a hand and took my left one in it, interlocking his fingers with mine in my lap. It was as if he sensed my distress and still wanted to comfort me even through his own pain. I forested my ardent anthology of prayers and offered one for Ani, asking whatever higher powers were out there to watch over him, to guide him towards happiness and fulfillment— pleading that his and his mother's sacrifice not be in vain.

And then I entreated one more ardent prayer. For Shmi. I asked that, wherever she was, she could somehow be told her son was in the arms of someone who cared for and loved him.

For a short time, he hiccupped as his tears dried on his cheeks. I could feel his rib cage spread and shrink under my arm as his breaths became deeper and more spaced out. His body gradually went limp, but our hands remained intertwined. Resting my cheek on his hair, I stayed there with him till I joined him in sleep.

I crossed the narrow causeway into the garage with the white tray in my hands. I balanced it carefully as I walked, mindful not to let the blue milk trespass beyond the sides of its cup. Anakin stood ahead of me; the innards of a large, cylindrical piece were revealed on the counter before him. His normally surgical precision and enthusiasm for his work was noticeably absent. He moved a wrench up and down like the hand operating it was separate from his body.

Still holding out hope, I gambled that he would look up first before I said anything. So, I waited. But the silent treatment continued even as I stepped down the shallow stoop and halted a few feet from him.

"I brought you something," I ventured, encouragingly. No acknowledgment. I gripped the tray like my own heart was perched on its center plate. "Are you hungry?"

Are you alright?

Talk to me, Ani.

"The shifter broke." The words came out strangled, as if the rebellious muscles in his throat refused to help him speak. "Life seems so much simpler when you're fixing things."

The idealistic truth of his words hung between us. Quietly, I moved to set the tray down on top of a nearby barrel.

"I'm good at fixing things," he declared, the helpful if somewhat boastful mechanic I knew coming through. "Always was… But I couldn't…" At last, his eyes met mine. The agony they were burdened with was as raw as it was unending. Our bridge finally established, a dam broke on his side, and I watched those eyes succumb to a storm surge. "Why'd she have to die?" He stared at me expectantly. For one long, terrifying moment, I think he craved an authentic answer from me, as if I spoke for the universe. I wanted nothing more than to give him a reason that would mollify his pain, but I knew such a statement did not exist. "Why couldn't I save her? I know I could have!"

Bottled emotion in his chest rose up till it corked further words in Anakin's throat. He released me from his challenging questioning when he turned his back to me. Heavy feet dragged themselves to the opposite side of the garage, supporting a swaying man drunk in his misery. But it was a half-second to late— I'd already seen the torture deepening across his face.

"Sometimes there are things no one can fix." I reweighed his last words and the emphatic delivery of them. Was he alluding to the Jedi's prophecy? "You're not all-powerful, Ani—"

"Well, I should be." He cut me off without a breath's intermission like he'd known my words were coming. I listened, stunned by the entitlement in his tone. "Someday I will be. Someday, I will be the most powerful Jedi ever." He shifted to face me suddenly, and with an urgency I'd never wanted, he vowed, "I promise you." I had excused everything up to that point as a son lost in his grief. But then he declared with ceremonial conviction, the kind born when a man digs a dagger to and up his bone and uses the marrow for collateral, "I will even learn how to stop people from dying!"

This was too much. "Anakin," I breathed, warning him away from a ledge too forbidden, too unholy to climb.

Emotions I'd never seen on Anakin's face twisted his lips and brow into tormented designs. Vitriol and fury hijacked a voice I'd only ever known to be kind, gentle, humorous, or loving. "It's all Obi-Wan's fault. He's jealous!" His storm grew until his hand snatched an instrument off the worktable and flung it across the garage while he thundered, "He's holding me back!" The metal object hit the opposing wall with a clattering complaint that did not match its thrower's madness.

He turned his distorted features from me again. Taunt shoulders quivered as he raised first his right hand and then his left. Anakin stared at them like they were someone else's palms. Unnatural. Inhuman.

Then I realized he had not so much turned from me as hid— hid himself, just like he'd been hiding his eyes, his mourning, his very vulnerability from me. Something was happening here that went far beyond a son's grief for his mother, even one who'd been told he was a savior of prophecy. "What's wrong, Ani?" I took an instinctive step closer, his throaty cries and woeful tears drawing me to him. Even if I'd had any inkling that the quicksand of Anakin's sin was about to consume us, I couldn't have brought myself to part from him and save myself.

"I…" He continued to stare at his open palms, his breath coming in short gasps. When he finally lowered his hands, he clenched them into tight fists, owning them once again. "I killed them."

Although I did not truly acknowledge it to myself until that moment, I'd suspected the Tusken Raiders directly involved in Shmi Skywalker's death had met with avenging execution delivered by her son. On some level, I'd been preparing for this confession. I steeled myself. I thought I knew the limits of Anakin's rage.

I was wrong.

"I killed them all. They're dead. Every single one of them." He turned abruptly. Eyes I'd always known as blue and kind, gentle, humorous, or loving were threatening and black. "And not just the men." He shook his head and elevated his chin proudly, never taking his eyes off mine as he bragged of his mass murder. "But the women, and the children too."

Two black holes formed in the dual basements of my lungs, each sucking in air, time, and meaning. Only one thought escaped their crushing gravitational pull.

But I love you.

No.

NO.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no!

The room was spinning up. Up was down, the black holes in my chest were exploding, and dear Gods this wasn't happening! Not like this!

It is a contortionist's act of unfathomable feat when a heart both swells and shatters inward at the same time; to finally bask in divine recognition even when it collapses from disaster. I wanted to reject the voice that had implored from somewhere deep within, but the second her soft words echoed through my mind like seismic chargers reverberating through a canyon, the hopeless gate could not be shut. She was the one who told me to wait and keep listening on the terrace before Anakin put his lips to mine. She was the one who screamed in pain the night I rejected his admission by the fire. She was the one who promised me I'd already found a man worth orienting my life around. I'd smothered and ignored her for days, and she'd retaliated by bringing me to my knees at the worst possible moment.

Then the man I loved used his lips, which I'd only ever known as sweet, honest, and the keys to the most exhilarating high I'd ever briefly known, to curse the existence of his murdered victims.

"They're like animals! And I slaughtered them like animals!"

I wanted to fall to my knees and beg the higher powers not to begin our love story like this— not with these lyrics as the prose to our opening ballad. Not when Anakin was a raging stranger in front of me, a fire-breathing dragon I did not recognize.

Flames burned through the twin oceans. I was shocked the walls did not shake while he roared in my face, "I hate them!"

Truth? I was shown the card of a man who held the death of a galaxy in his stare.

For a monumental moment, a battle for Anakin's soul played out in the Lars garage on a forsaken world. And I could do nothing but watch.

Watch as— this time— Darkness lost.

A tear born from his enduring humanity fell down Anakin's right cheek. Guilt added to the quivering weight of his anger and grief, becoming too much for a mortal being to bear, and I watched a broken man fall apart in front of me.

In that moment I did what I had done my entire life— I shoved my inner turbulence into a drawer and put another's needs first. I couldn't process my own emotions just yet, but I could channel all my energy into steadying his. I fell into the aftermath of the dark pit with him, crouching down by his side. "To be angry is to be human."

"I'm a Jedi," he countered emphatically. "I know I'm better than this!"

Let the courtroom of the universe remember, with this rebuttal, my Ani proved he was not yet lost. The raging dragon traded in boasts and a deficiency of regret, but with that single admission, shame from a good man cracked through the scales. My hand reached out to touch him at the neck. He was warm and soft— undeniably human. Anakin broke anew under my fingers' caresses, and I ran them through his downy hair as I leaned closer in.

"Shhh, shhhh," I comforted, my voice weaving through his embers. "It will be alright, Ani."

"I couldn't—I," he stuttered and gasped for air like a man still drowning in smoke. "I couldn't control myself!"

I don't know who reached for who first; it might've happened simultaneously. But the fingers from my free left hand and his trembling right one found each other and interlocked into a knot. They balanced together on my right hip, tying us each to sanity.

And then I did something which further saved him from the darkness that night even as it sealed both our jointed, tragic fates. Unknowingly, I was about to endear myself that much more profoundly to Anakin. It was a crucial service deprived in large part to him for ten years. It was one of his biggest complaints against Obi-Wan Kenobi, the Jedi Order as a whole, and the galaxy which had turned a blind eye to his upbringing in slavery.

I listened to him.

Withholding judgment, I listened as he recounted the hunt for the Tusken camp. I waited patiently through his whimpers and cries as he repeated the last words exchanged between mother and son. I silently bore what few details he gave of the terrorizing revenge. I only interjected when his unloading started to turn self-destructive once more, reminding him of the man he was underneath his anger while careful not to negate his pain. I held him to me as he shook and sobbed with horror at what he'd done, and during his confession that he could not look at me when he returned out of eviscerating shame. With his only parent's death, the essence of his childhood had gone up in flames overnight, but it must be said it was Anakin— not me— who stopped himself from adding his own humanity to the pyre. There was no smoke or pile of ashes here, only the flood of an imperfect man's remorse.

I learned in my family's household long before I faced it in the Senate that willful listening is a sign of respect. As a young Queen after the invasion— visiting injured Naboo in the hospitals, consoling widows and bereft families— it was only reinforced to me that the greatest service a monarch or common citizen can offer is to take off their title and perspective, and do what we may find is the most difficult when we see someone we care about in pain— hold their hand and be with them through it.

I waited as every feeling he needed to express leaked out of him like a heart pumping out the last of its blood. By the middle of his testimony, Anakin had begun to lean on my right shoulder. I lifted my arm to encircle it around his upper back, tucking him into my side as much as his torso would fit. His cheek collapsed onto my collarbone, and soon, wetness from his tears dampened the top of my dress. For time incalculable, I rocked him slightly side to side, a low hum beginning in the top of my mouth that turned into Nabooian lullabies.

Only when I was sure he was asleep did my own tears fall. I wept silently for our doomed love story, for Shmi, for the sizable loss of Anakin's innocence. I didn't wipe the streams away; I let them run down my cheeks and moisten the hair of the man who'd won a love I was too terrified to award. As we sat on the dusty garage floor, a battle-worn mess of limbs, I could not foresee a road for us that would not end in heartbreak. I prayed for the insurmountable strength it would take to withstand it.

And then I entreated one more ardent prayer. For Shmi. I asked that, wherever she was, she could somehow be told her son was in the arms of someone who cared for and loved him.

In hindsight, you might think I would've asked to see the cards others had in their hold. You might even think I would've wanted someone to pull me aside before I boarded the Jendirian Valley and give me their honest opinion, one formed over many years of constant observation, as to the young man I was leaving with.

You would be wrong.

Informed though they were, care for him as they did, the Jedi who had their concerns about Anakin laced their awareness with judgment. I know I stand in the face of thousands of years of Order precedent when I say this, as I know I am as biased in this particular matter as they come, but I choose to think it was my un-warned, open mind and heart that kept those blinders off. Perhaps my idealism of him was naive and blinding in its own way, but my very attachment to him provided a safe place for Anakin to be heard— to find empathy. In the end, it is a basic need we all require. It is part of what makes us... human.

Tragically, I was not the only one who perceived this. In the absence of the Jedi's understanding, they created a void for yet another— one with far more manipulative and evil intentions— to drape his listening arm across Ani's shoulders.

I may have been an experiment on the part of the Jedi, Anakin may have been a wolf who nuzzled to my palm, yet cosmic destiny was still writing the show. The cards folded, fell, and continue to gather their embers' dusty ash. But when the time of this galaxy is over, it is my and Anakin's love which will form the ink for its end credits.