A/N: Happy 4 month anniversary to Suppression! And happy— oh my goodness— 200 reviews?! Thank you thank you for the comments on that last chapter. They just... *falls over like a tree* stunned me beyond words. I can't say enough how much I appreciated them. But I can say that even with family visiting and a multitude of things happening, those reviews are 100% what encouraged me to find the time to write as often as possible over the past two weeks. Without y'all, this chapter would've taken even longer to go up. So, in direct thanks to the best reviewers in the galaxy, without further delay...

Chapter 31. Conversations in the Dark

There is no refuge from memory and remorse in this world.
The spirits of our foolish deeds haunt us, with or without repentance.

— Gilbert Parker

The slopes of my cheeks felt chilled. I ran my tongue along my lips and tasted salt— the unique brand that can only be manufactured by human tears. It was all at once familiar and foreign. I'd gone so many years without crying; I was still getting reacquainted with the flavor of it.

There was a metallic instrument on the opposite side of the garage from where I sat. Dumbly hypnotized, I watched red, green, and yellow lights from the machine high behind me bounce off the corners of… whatever reflective object I was looking at. My spine ached from the constant forward lean— the only way I could keep my head from being scraped by the corner of the open shifter above my brown curls. I'd learned too late that the weight on my limbs anchored me to this harbor on the floor, preventing me from moving. But, as dutiful as a sentry protecting the Supreme Chancellor, I dared not adjust myself even for my own greater ease. I tuned out my discomfort like I was changing a channel.

What an odd comparison, I internally mused. When was the last time I, of all people, sat down and allowed myself to be entertained by holovid shows?

There was a mainstream holodrama Cordé and Dormé adored. They were always quoting and swooning over characters I'd never heard of. The young women would huddle together in a booth during intergalactic flights and catch up on whatever episodes they'd missed. Cordé had never failed to encourage me to join them, but something work-related always kept me away.

What was that holodrama called?

The baritone readings coming in from the vaporators were a sporadic but strangely pacifying resonance. Absentmindedly, I noted that I was surrounded by artificiality everywhere I looked. No plants were stored in the dark garage. They wouldn't survive down here.

Destiny's Edge? No… it was something with 'Love' in the title.

The human, broken boy in my cradle of arms stirred. Fingers imprisoning mine twitched.

Anakin hadn't been out for very long before what sleep he seemed to have touched retreated from him. More signs that he was waking came from small movements in his torso turning into stretches, yet the crown of his damp head lingered under my chin.

I don't know the exact moment he woke, but in the seconds after he did, I felt him remember.

I felt his shoulders tense under my arm. I heard his breath hitch as his lungs seized in his chest. Then I felt the way his body sank, as if Tatooine's gravity had suddenly concentrated in the singular spot Anakin sought refuge in. I gripped him tightly as a wave of grief crushed his spirit all over again. It was as if my arms knew they were holding him back from a swallowing abyss.

As Anakin's breath hissed passed his teeth in stuttered inhales, a memory arose from that first morning after the cruiser attack. I remembered the amber glow of the sunrise shimmering off Coruscant's skyscrapers and filling my living room; the routine normality of Dormé passing me a cup of caf on the couch. Then the shiver down my back from a breeze let in by the shattered bedroom window, a cold vibration which splintered sleep's forgetful fog. How naively precious those seconds are, when the awareness of a loss suffered has been hidden behind the dreamy veil, yet how brutal when reality exposes the heart to it a second time.

I squeezed again the arm I had around Ani, trying to convey whatever sanctuary I could from my body into his.

After a few seconds, he pulled out of my grip and released our fingers. I flexed mine painfully to loosen them. They'd been interlocked with his for some time now across our laps, and they relinquished themselves from their cramp uncomfortably.

My eyes watched Anakin carefully. He peeked at me while he timidly wiped away fresh highways of tears with the pads of his fingers. Finally, he gave up on subtlety and ran the inside of his sleeved elbow down the front of his face in one pressing movement. Having successfully stemmed the flow, he adjusted himself into a proper sit, far enough away from me that no parts touched— not even the fabric of our clothing. He pressed his back up against the base behind us and straightened his legs directly in front of him, his feet drooping outward on either side. From what I could see in profile, his eyes were red, and his body was limp in the way only bone-deep exhaustion can wring it. I remained cautiously on guard, for his sake. I did not know whether this was an end to the storm or simply a pause in it.

"You need proper sleep, Ani, in a bed."

He swallowed and gave his head a tiny shake. "I promised Owen I would fix the shifter tonight."

I knew for a fact he had done no such thing.

"It can wait."

Anakin looked around the garage from his low vantage point of it. Without vigor— like a puppet whose hand had been pulled up by a string— he extended his arm up straight until it hit the counter. I heard his heavy palm pat around the top. "Can't say I remember where I put the wrench." He let his empty hand drop back into his lap, the marionette string cut.

"I can wait, Ani."

"Do you think Cliegg's still my stepfather?" He frowned as he stared across the space, the tilt of his head too casually perplexed for such a startling question. "The only person connecting us is dead." A hollow look came into his eyes. "I only met the man yesterday."

My voice was quiet. "Anakin—"

He continued gazing across the garage, his eyes unfocused. "I suppose my mom would want me to fix the shifter for him, at least. For them. Fix it for the family she loved…" His chin trembled while a troubled frown pinched his features together. "A family who are strangers to me."

"Ani, that's not true." I put my earnest hand on his forearm. He winced at my touch. "I've spent time with them. They've learned you through Shmi. They've grown to love you through her." I bit down on my bottom lip, wishing I could effectively communicate the expressions I'd witnessed on Owen and Cliegg's faces when they'd talked about Anakin. Even Beru's. It was clear they were never solely consumed with worry about Shmi after he'd set off on the speeder. "They are your family."

He seemed to fight back against the emotions for a few tumultuous seconds, as if trying to barricade himself behind his numbness. Then tears collected in his eyes. He blinked them back furiously and pulled himself to a stand as he declared, "All the more reason for me to fix this."

I watched him as he walked around the garage in search of his missing tool. "They'll understand if you delay until morning," I tried, one last time. "The vaporators won't harvest much, if any, water at night. You need sleep."

"What I need…" I heard more than saw him squat and bend to look under an open-air landspeeder. It was dormant in a nearby alcove of the garage. Within seconds, he stalked across the floor again, wrench in hand. "Is to not fail at one thing this week. I couldn't catch your assassin. Then I couldn't…" Whatever self-flagellation Anakin was going to say died in his throat as he threw me a pained look. He stared down at the tool in his hand for a long moment, before he lifted and gestured with it. "This shifter. This I can fix."

I quit the urge to usher him to rest, eat, or do anything for himself as somber awareness dawned on me. Anakin couldn't revive his mother or put the limbs of the Tuscan children back together. The broken shifter was the only thing within reach that he could repair.

As he approached the counter, I began to rise from my own sit. I accepted the hand he offered and came to a stand beside him. "Then, I will stay and help you." I ventured to smile at him, desperate to see one of any size mirrored in return. Instead, as he regarded me gratefully, his eyes only filled with tears once more. At last, he nodded and began to explain the mechanical malfunction to me in a low voice, all while water fell in fat droplets off his lashes. Their wetness created dark circles in the counter's dust. Even as the tears ran down his cheeks before dripping off his chin, he did not acknowledge them.

With a subdued but determined countenance, Anakin showed me how to fix a shifter. To be honest, I do not recall much of what he said in his instruction, but, vividly, I can still see the streams from his eyes which never ceased— even as he talked academically about bolts and sensors. I remember how those tears pooled like lakes in my own heart.

By the time we finished our sacred labor, Tatooine's twin suns had long drowned below the horizon line. The Lars homestead was eerily quiet as I led us through it. Whichever members of the family who were still awake had withdrawn to their interior rooms. There was a haunting solemnity to the air which I instinctively dared not speak above.

Anakin carried the tray of food in his grip— only because I'd started to as we left the garage. He still hadn't eaten anything and hadn't made any promises that he was going to, but he took issue with me continuing to be "bothered" with the responsibility and weight of a platter meant for him.

As we passed into the atrium, my eyes were drawn to the same ceiling of stars I'd stood under with Cliegg the night before. Each of us had prayed for the safe return of the respective man and woman we loved. I dearly hoped the bereaved spouse was currently finding escape in his sleep, or else solace in his memories.

"Wait."

I came to a stop at Anakin's soft command. Turning over my shoulder to look at him, I found his face too shrouded in the shadows to read.

He slowly made his way to where I stood next to the central structure, halting just in front of me. He held the tray of food out to his side with expert balance. An exterior light above a nearby door cast a faint, yellow hue across his contours. I watched as Anakin studied my face with unexpected seriousness. "I…" His small smile— a sight I celebrated witnessing no matter its miniature size— rose, then wavered. "I want to show you something."

He tilted his head to the right and began to walk again. Taking the cue to follow, I copied his path as he led us round to the main staircase leading up to the surface. He set the food on top of a row of level, white piping less than a meter away before advancing first up the stairs. After we ascended only a few steps, Anakin puzzled me by guiding me to stop behind him before the tunnel entrance. We paused on separate ledges, the floor of the crater spread out below our feet beyond the edge of the stairs.

Standing low on his right, I watched his chin lift while his eyes scanned the nocturnal heavens. He looked at them in the way one reads their native language written on a page. "There it is," he murmured, just loud enough for me to hear. My eyes altered their focus between Anakin's profile and the shimmering backdrop outlining it. He looked at me briefly. "Do you see it?"

I mimicked his stance and followed his eye line, but all I could see were an incalculable number of brilliant stars. Beautiful, yes, but indistinguishable. The celestial collections were sharing their secrets with Anakin alone. I stared at him quizzically. "What are you looking at?"

"Come." He moved himself backward until he was practically pressing himself up against the crater wall. "Stand on my step. See what I see."

He'd given me an unnecessarily wide berth, and I stepped up one ledge as I'd been instructed to. I placed myself where he'd been, then I restrained a smile. "I think this would be more accurate to your height," I admitted, while taking yet another step up. I repositioned and scanned the view again. The largest object in it drew my attention, and I stole a glance at Anakin over my shoulder. "Is it the moon there?" I pointed at the gray-blue orb low in the sky, one of three belonging to Tatooine. The other two moons were not visible from inside the crater, if they were presently on our side of the planet at all.

Anakin was still watching me from against the wall. His hands were pressed, almost tensely, onto the smooth gradient on either side of his hips. After a moment of seeming hesitation, he used his palms to push his weight up and take a small step forward.

"No. About 5 degrees northwest of it. The yellow star."

"Oh, that one," I replied, a little wryly. I looked again at the sea of white, red, blue, and predominantly yellow gems but saw none of note.

Anakin sighed quietly but came closer. "It's right…" He stalled just behind my back, then he reached around to take my left hand in his own. The back of my hand curling against his warm palm, he molded my fingers with his. Gently, he pushed all mine down save for the index finger. Together as one, he pointed our pair of extended, tandem fingers outward. "…there."

I squinted slightly, sincerely trying to discover whatever star he was trying to showcase. It was obviously important to him or else we would not have stopped. But there were just too many. "I'm sorry, Ani. I don't know which one you want me to make out."

I tried not to go rigid with surprise when I felt Anakin's chest at my back. He leaned down and placed his right cheek low against the left side of my head, just behind my ear. My entire world of sense and focus became our immediate huddle. I wanted to step away from it all in fear. I wanted to melt into him in righteous instinct. I forgot all about the stars above until he pointed our fingers more directly. "See it? Look closely, Padmé." The air of his breath moved against my cheek.

As if released from a pin, his Padawan braid slid across the region of neck in front of my hair. I could not resist boldly, if slightly, applying exquisite pressure against his face, matching our eye lines even more as I followed the aim of our fingers. It was the sudden realization of possible options more than anything as I peered at a twinkling light with growing understanding. "Is that…?"

"Yes—"

"—Naboo," I breathed, reverently breathing the name the same time he did.

It wasn't the planet, of course. We were much too far away to discern the individual globe made of water and rock that was my origin world. But the healthy, yellow star in the Naboo system shares its name with the most prominent planet in its realm. Given the relative distances, to look at the star from our landing on the stairs was almost the same thing as knowing I was looking at home itself.

I felt a pang in my heart as my eyes lingered on the yellow dot winking at me. It hadn't been all that long at all, really, since I'd been on Naboo— breathing her floral air, active under her single sun. But to see my planet from so far and know my family, friends, and past lived within sight if not within tangible reach made me incredibly homesick for a prolonged moment.

"Home," I whispered, though my attention was quickly returning to my direct surroundings. The warmth of Anakin's body heat enveloped me, making it much harder to resist the urge to fall back against him— to mold my back to his front torso completely, the same way he'd sculpted the skin of our left hands into one jointed piece.

In the end, the temptation removed itself. His objective accomplished, Anakin let go and stepped back towards the wall. I was encircled by chilled air on all sides again. Instantly, I missed the warmth.

I took one last look at my home planet before turning to regard my astronomer. "When did you decipher which star is Naboo?"

"The speeder," Anakin mumbled, frowning a little. He said it like he was naming a culprit. "It overheated last night during my search. Pushed it too hard for too long. I had to stop for almost an hour to give it time to cool down." His eyes looked away from mine to absorb the night sky. I could only imagine what that hour of wait must've been like for him. "I tried to make good use of my time."

The light from the moon and stars cast an ashen luminescence over his features. His eyes looked silver and glassy under their ghostly rays. Shadows cut his already strong jaw into an almost fantastical outline. He looked both strikingly tragic and unbearably handsome. Anakin personified the myths of ill-fated, heroic, dashing young men illuminated in great-grandmother Leia's fables.

No fictional character in my handmaidens' holodramas could ever live up to this magnetic captivation. I ordered my heart not to dwell too much on the fact that, of all things, Anakin had distracted himself during his interrupted search by trying to find my own home planet in the busy canvas above.

When his piercing eyes dropped to meet mine, I could only hold the stare for mere seconds before my pounding heart reminded me it had a will of its own.

Triggered by the impulse to step closer to him, I spoke quickly to subvert my wishes. "Let's go inside," I encouraged, descending the stairs without waiting for his answer. Anakin retrieved the food, and I proceeded to steer us into the underground dwelling's passageways. In the quiet, every sound was magnified. Anakin's boots on the sandy floor behind me. The barely perceptible lapping of the blue milk in its cup. Our breathing.

"It's in here," I whispered, though I assumed we were safe from sleeping ears as we came to the door in the hallway. He followed me into the room, setting down the tray on a tall crate near the door. I felt my way to a small lamp by the bed and switched it on. Its modest light bathed the room and its occupants in a warm, sunset-orange glow. Turning, I watched Anakin's eyes take in every inch of the compact area. However briefly, genuine curiosity became the governing emotion on his face. "You slept here? While I was gone?"

I only nodded. I chose not to share that I didn't get very much sleep, nor good quality of it. That might lead to me having to explain why.

Silently, I reviewed once again how little he had eaten since we'd left Naboo. "Can I convince you to eat something before you rest?"

He sighed lethargically and lumbered past me towards the bed. My heart reached for him as his shoulder almost— yet not enough to touch— grazed mine. "I don't have an appetite, Padmé."

That's what concerns me.

Anakin sunk on to the edge of the low mattress, his hands resting on his spread knees. He looked around the room again before his eyes landed on mine. "Where will you sleep?"

"I'm not tired," I lied. "I feel like stretching my legs." In truth, I didn't want to overstep. Apart from his shower earlier, for better or worse, Anakin had not received much space from me since his arrival. He had a right to privacy in his grief, and I knew he was too much of a gentleman to ever ask me to go if he felt the need for it.

What's more, I was still rattling with the aftershocks of my internal admission of love, and our moments under the stars had not helped. Irrational or not, a rising panic was growing in me. Despite the quiet of the room and our stationary positions in it, I felt awkward and nervous around him, which I detested. We'd been on-and-off with clumsy footing ever since our conversation by the fireplace, but now I grappled with how to conduct myself. I was in love with a man I wasn't supposed to be in love with— a man going through his own emotional anguish completely separate from our relationship. I feared my own self; my instincts were scattered in disarray. I neither wanted to inadvertently cross any lines in the name of comfort, nor pull disastrously away from him— out of concern of revealing myself— and thereby risk hurting him even more.

Ani looked up at me with eyes full of fracturing vulnerability. I saw his pain, his confusion, his loss. Yet aloud, he only uttered a weak, "Alright."

He relieved himself of his boots and placed them by the end of the bed. As he leaned over to lay his cheek on the pillow, I stepped towards the lamp and dutifully switched it off. I was battling every cell in me commanding me to stay. I did not trust such motivation anymore. It was too difficult to discern if it stemmed from my own selfish desires to be near him.

Give him space. Give him time.

The room was transported back into dimness with the deactivation of the lamp. Barely, I could decipher the outline of Anakin's body on the mattress. So far, he wasn't bothering to get under the sheets. I made my feet turn and begin a walk towards the door.

I was under the archway when a small, hopeless voice called out to me.

"Don't go." My legs halted. "Your presence is… is sooth—" That small voice broke. "I'm sorry," he declared through an agonized gasp, emotions clearly swelling. "I have no right to ask you—"

I was already moving. The pull to Anakin directed me swiftly across the room even in the absence of guiding light. I sat down on the edge of the mattress, twisted at the waist, and my fingers found his hair. "Shhh. I'll stay. I'll stay." My nails lightly skimmed his scalp as I gently rubbed and caressed above his brow. My eyes gradually adjusted to the dark, aided by the humble, circular window in the ceiling. It cast a faint moonbeam on the wall above the bed.

"Seconds, Padmé," he choked out, his breath ragged. "I ha-had seconds with her. Ten years they held me back from my mom, then-then I-I, couldn't even, she couldn't even finish telling me—" his lungs gasped for air behind his barrage of tears.

"Shh, Ani," I soothed. "I know you brought her tremendous peace in her last moments."

Bristles of his hair moved against the cushioning as he shook his head emphatically. "They shouldn't have been her last." His voice grew strained. "I'm just so—" his breath hissed a tense inhale past his clenched jaw. "I'm so angry. I can't— I can't turn it off." He turned and buried half his face into the pillow. "Just when I think I've calmed down, I-I see her tied to that rack again. Beaten. Bloody. And it all comes rushing back." A sound— half-growl, half-wail— ejected into the cushion behind gritted teeth.

A long moment fell between us as he took shuddering breaths and I prepared to speak.

"Anakin." Retrieving my hand from his hair, I folded my palms into my lap. "I'm sorry. I can't tell you how sorry I am that I didn't listen better, before."

A brief pause. "What are you talking about?" Confusion seemed to have arrested his tears and his ire.

"On the freighter, after I woke you," I exhaled slowly. "You told me about your nightmares about your mother, and I dismissed—"

"No." The word was loud in the space as it broke out from his lips. "No. Nothing about this is your fault."

"Ani," I started again, not as quick to let me off the hook as graciously as he had. "If I at all made you feel like you couldn't come to me about the nightmares any sooner than you did that morning—"

"Padmé," Anakin cut in. His voice was decisive, his position on the matter unmistakable. "Don't. Don't do that." He shook his head once more. I felt him touch the cloth on my thigh before he quickly pulled back. "I don't hold this against you; don't hold it against yourself."

In the lingering silence, my fingers found their way back to their home in his hair. The gesture relaxed me as much as it seemed to be relaxing him. Unfortunately, it did not last.

"Back on the beach," he whispered, breaking the quiet after several moments. "I asked if you would see the ones who killed Cordé and the others put to death. You said no." My hand stilled in his short strands. "You said you couldn't wish death on anyone like that."

I tried to preempt the question I somehow knew was coming. "Anakin, I—"

"Would it have changed your answer if we'd been talking about your mom?"

Details Anakin had shared with me of Shmi's state when he found her embellished a hypothetical too painful to fully conceive. Instead of granting a reprieve, my mind next envisioned my mother on the landing platform in Cordé's place, her brown hair matted by ash.

"Yes."

It was several seconds before he spoke. I felt his eyes as they burned a tribunal examination across my face. "No. It wouldn't have. I know you. You're too good."

My fingers resumed their path through his hair. Although I believed in my prior answer, I amended, "I don't think any of us know what we would do unless we found ourselves in that kind of position."

He rolled away from my touch.

"I know what I would do. I don't get to theorize anymore."

Patiently, I waited for Anakin to ride his inner wave, trusting he would return to his calm while I sat beside him on the shore. Grief could not be rushed, nor abated by platitudes. Its demanded currency to buy peace was to let it be felt. Such a process would take Anakin far longer than one night, but I could be here for him through the crucial onset as best I could. Yet, it was as if the lunar pulls above us were afflicting his waves of grief in place of the water the desert planet could not offer. At present, Anakin's emotional riptides were taking him farther out to sea.

"How?" he asked between gulps for air. "How can I be the Chosen One if my own mother is dying in my arms and I can do nothing?" Tears of anger stormed alongside his rising voice. "They're holding me back! There must be something I could have learned, something I could've known… I could have saved her. I was supposed to save her!"

The red wave crested again, slamming into the jagged reef of his misery, and he openly wept once more. It was too much for my body to sit by and observe passively any longer.

We moved in tandem— yet another instance where his Jedi precognition or our wordless communication allowed us act in perfect sync. Either way, he was shifting further up against the wall and making space for me on the bed as I maneuvered my way into it. Only our slightly bent knees touched as we faced each other on our sides.

I tucked my hands flat under my cheek and waited for his cries to slow before I whispered, "You wisely told me I have a tendency to take responsibility for matters beyond my control."

He swallowed. His voice was nasal as he countered, "This is different."

"How?"

He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. "You did not have nightmares warning you about Cordé's death before it happened. You didn't have a voice in your head telling you to get to her and protect her weeks in advance."

I remained silent, at a genuine loss for argument. It wasn't that I thought this difference condemned Anakin in any way, but I struggled with how to make him see he was punishing himself with gross unfairness. Consoling a clairvoyant Jedi who'd wiped out a village was a scenario nothing in my personal or professional life had ever prepared me for.

But I knew, with excruciating familiarity, how it felt to see the light leave a beloved innocent's eyes and believe it to be your fault.

I sought the path of raw honesty to guide me. "Ani… I know… what it's like to watch someone you care," my whispered voice caught as I remembered my friend's bloodied face, "someone you care about die in your arms. For them to be taken from you, violently. Murdered." The dark word hung in the air above us like a succubus. "I know what it's like when you can only hold them and do nothing but… watch as they take their last breaths."

As if it were the most beautiful music I'd ever desperately heard, I listened to Anakin's continued breath as it lived inches from my face. It grew steadier as it passed in and out his mouth. Never stopping. Never stopping. Grief mixed with gratitude, manifesting as more of that human-made liquid salt, and hot tears swelled and surrendered to gravity. They ran down skin creeks towards my ear. Sorrow sprung from cruiser attack memories pulled apart days-old emotional stitches. Like counter-intuitive pain pills, I swallowed barbed questions dipped in regret— the kind which arise only after one realizes the time they've taken for granted and lost.

Why didn't I watch her holoshow with her, even one time? Was everything always so fatally important that I could never have pulled myself away for a few minutes?

Something shifted in the cosmos above us; gradually, there became just enough light from the ceiling gap to behold a sliver of the blue in Anakin's eyes. I locked onto it— familiar blue in a world otherwise cast in foreboding gray and black.

He closed his lips as he swallowed, and then he drew in an unstable breath. "I know you do."

With obvious hesitance, one of Anakin's hands detached from the solitary cave under his chin. Knuckles pushed his underlying palm across the top bed sheet, crossing the distance centimeter by centimeter. He stopped the movement halfway between our shoulders. His hand trembled nervously, as if at any moment he might retreat.

How I wish I could say I immediately jutted my fingers out to intertwine with his. I even long to relay that I mimicked my behavior on the hut floor, where I slowly but surely trespassed my hand across the small distance after no more than a second's thought.

But this moment felt so much more consequential than even the fateful night on our private island. In comparison, I'd merely dipped my toes in the waters of acknowledging my feelings for Anakin. Now, I knew I loved him. I hadn't yet had the time to unpack this revelation, but here he was, reaching out to me, frail hope in his eyes.

Only, this hand… oh, this beautiful hand. I'd held it in mine as a tether for us both in the garage, yet in this moment, I re-saw the flawless attachment as the wielder of death. Sentient creatures had fallen to its vengeance barely a day ago. To take the hand felt like taking a place beside him in his defendant's box, absorbing Anakin's sin as my own.

My eyes drifted downwards to the lightsaber still clipped to his belt.

I couldn't stomach it. This couldn't have been the same instrument which swung a breath above my skin, saving my life from the Kouhuns. Nor could it be the same saber that lit the fuse on Cordé's remembrance lantern; we'd giggled over it almost singeing my hair. How could it be the same weapon which had saved the day in so many of the tales Anakin regaled me with as we'd strolled along the beach?

Suddenly, it took everything in me not to recoil. Not from him— from the metallic cylinder that had fixed itself to him like a parasite. Ani didn't do this. Not my Ani. His lightsaber did. The Force had turned this inanimate object evil, and he'd merely been holding on to it.

Such a lightning-fast defense lasted only until rational thought thundered it out. As time stretched perilously on, I tried to recall every description of the Tuskens Owen, Cliegg, and Beru had shared. None of it had been remotely positive or redeeming. The sheer act of the abduction of a defenseless woman, harmlessly picking mushrooms in her own yard, was indictment enough of these people of the desert.

But, try as I might, "women" and "children" just didn't sound synonymous with "mindless monsters" and "animals".

I finally met Anakin's eyes. He was watching me with an intensity which put his stare on the hut floor to shame. Yet while there had been unmistakable desire in his gaze that night, this was the look of a man drowning. He didn't seem to be holding my hesitation against me, though his hand trembled on the bed with growing unease. His eyes bespoke of a plea from which I could not look away. Anakin was asking me to save him from himself.

I wasn't sure what contract I was signing with the universe; I only knew I wasn't just referencing my physical presence beside him in the bed as I avowed, "I'm here." I swallowed, then— stronger, "I'm right here."

It was not my place to offer Anakin absolution, but perhaps I could navigate him to a landing in between it and hell. Without any more time wasted, I reached out and took his shaking hand in mine. He gripped it like it was a life raft, and I returned the clasp with strength in kind to communicate my resolve. Barely perceptibly, I felt tiny grains of sand roll under our skin— encroaching remnants on the linen.

"I'm here," I repeated, to Anakin and whatever higher powers were bearing witness.

Fingers did not dance and meld and caress. There were no tantalizing brushes of knuckles and wrists. This was a solid and static embrace, one carrying the identical weight of a full-bodied throw of my arms around his neck. Yet even through the stillness, the familiar feeling returned tenfold— I'd known this man in another life. In all lives. I recognized in his eyes a soul I would perceive if his hair were white, his skin blue, his eyes orange, or a collection of it all. I would sooner forget my own name in my current life than forget the feelings he'd elicited in a previous existence.

"Padmé." Beseeching eyes searched mine. "I've never… felt anger and hatred like that before. What I did… Don't you see?" His brow furrowed together as he begged me to understand, to see his point— just like he'd imparted on me to locate Naboo in the night sky, but now with so much more significance. "It went against every teaching the Jedi have on peace. Justice." His cobalt eyes glazed over, and he suddenly felt so very far away. "A Jedi's goal is to defend life, not take it."

I pulled myself an inch closer to our anchoring fingers. There were so many layers to Anakin's grief and guilt, and for a moment, I felt lost in the minefield. Seeking retribution on the Tusken Raiders hadn't just gone against the tenants of his morality, as if that wasn't arduous enough— it went against the doctrine of his Order's very code. A connection to an institution embedded within Anakin's core was swaying precariously.

"Ani." I paused, cautiously. I knew I had to be extremely careful with what I was about to profess. It could not come across as if I was condoning his actions, for I wasn't. "I also know what it's like when you must… reign in how you feel all the time. When you must shove your feelings down because it's what you're 'supposed to do'." My voice became mournful as I compared the similarities in our suppressed lives through an unfiltered lens. "…When you must… pull on a mask for your duty so often that it becomes how you live your daily life. I know what it is like to hold in and hide your happiness, your joy, your irritation, and—" I couldn't lie to him. "Your anger."

He made an ugly noise in the back of his throat. It almost sounded like a chuckle but was too abrasive to fit the description. "You? Angry?"

Like a shadow poking our intimate pocket for weaknesses, I could feel the dark cloud encircling us. It was hungry for its next victim. Yet, sometimes, the best way to defeat the dark is to drag its existence into the light. "I've worked in politics for over ten years," I declared with a voice devoid of pageantry. "I've seen self-serving back-dealing done over relief packages. I've heard of Senators taking advantage of natural disasters to line their pockets. Abuses of trust. Misappropriations of funds. Bribery. Blackmail." My jaw clenched as I remembered particular offenses accomplished by the most corrupt. Many of them still walked the Senate halls, the general public who celebrated them none the wiser. "I would have to be made of chrome not to care, to never get angry at dealings I've witnessed. And I do care. I do get angry." I took a steadying breath, and I stared back into the eyes that were excavating mine for salvation. "I've had to shove that anger down more times than I can count. I can…" Careful, Padmé. "I can understand a catalyst which might cause someone who lives like we do to… erupt."

The muscles in Anakin's face twitched. "Are you saying it was only a matter of time before I slaughtered a village?"

"I'm saying," I squeezed his hand, refusing to let him withdraw from me. Then I attempted to keep my voice even as I pushed back on tears threatening to cloud my eyes. I failed on both counts. "She was your mother."

I watched and felt as Anakin's fury seeped out of his body, leaving nothing but a grieving husk behind. He did not sound like a perpetrator of mass murder, nor a proud Jedi pupil— not when his young voice broke as he whimpered, "I want to go home, Padmé."

My exhausted heart broke anew for him.

{I never really had a home. Home was always where my mom was.}

"Oh, Ani, I'm so sorry." My free hand rose to cup his soft cheek. Before long, my thumb grew wet.

His flood of mourning was increasing, as was my feeling of helplessness. I sensibly knew this was part of the grieving process, but my heart did not know of a separation between us anymore. Anakin's anguish was my own.

"When can we go home?"

I blinked back tears. When that didn't work, I wiped them away manually. Then I did the same with the hand on his cheek. "To Coruscant?" I assumed he now deemed Home to be the Jedi Temple— a building located on the one planet in the galaxy we couldn't go to on account of his protection assignment.

He gripped my fingers more tightly and pulled them into his upper chest, above his heart. He rubbed the back of my hand against the folds of his tunics— my knuckles grazed bare skin where the fabrics parted. I followed my hand, moving my hips to lift my torso and shuffle closer towards him. Adjusting to my new proximity, the hand which had been wiping away tears on his cheek fell down to his shoulder. I felt his chin brush against my hair as he shook his head from side to side. "Home."

My hand departed his shoulder to encircled under his arm, rising to press the continent of his back nearer.

Help me, Ani. Help me find this new star in your sky you want me to see.

He buried his nose in my hair, openly crying into the coils. His chest reverberated with the forlorn, broken hymn of grief. "Home," he whispered again through his woeful tears. "The lake." The words seemed to act as another dam breaking, and Anakin's body shook with the severity of his sobs.

For the first time in my life, I understood the urge to kiss to soothe. To connect. To build a bridge from me to the person falling apart in my arms. It would be as if by applying pressure in such a personal way, I could be the grounding immovability that prevented Anakin's shakes from shattering him. A part of me was wise enough to warn such act was not permissible, but not enough knew to stop before I erased the required inch to press my lips against the heated column of Anakin's throat.

He froze immediately.

Everything stopped. The sobs. The shaking. The air moving in and out of our lungs. The night was thick with silence around us. Slowly, his previously choked gasps turned into short, stunned breaths by my ear.

"I'm sorry," I whispered into dark the cavern between his Adam's apple and his collarbone. I felt my own hot breath ricochet off his skin and back to my face. "I didn't mean to— I wasn't— I shouldn't have done that."

Anakin tensed at my last words. With enormous regret, I realized I'd echoed myself on the terrace after our kiss.

I did not realize how much I had been pressing him against me until the hand still at his back relaxed. I pulled round to my side. Anakin waited for what I would do next.

As did I.

This scenario was exactly what I'd been hoping to avoid when I'd made to leave the room before. Shame filled me as I realized Anakin hadn't done much besides make room for me on the bed and pull my hand into his chest. I had nestled closer. I was the reason why my head was tucked under his chin and most of our bodies were pressed up against each other.

I could retreat to the other side of the bed. I could get up and leave the room.

But I'd sworn an oath, and the ink was not yet dry. I looked over the precipice and lifted a first foot.

And I squeezed his hand.

I'll deal with the ramifications of this decision later.

"Sleep, Anakin." I shut my eyes and prayed with all my might that this time, this one time, he would listen to me. "I'm here. I'm not going anywhere. Sleep."

Several seconds passed. Finally, I felt his body relax against mine. My words seemed to be enough for him, or everything to him, for now. I hadn't taken a normal breath through the wait, and once let go of Anakin's pause, I found myself trying to recuperate the lack of oxygen as quietly as I could.

Our joined hands remained pinned together under my breast. In time, I felt his chest move in the rhythm of sleep.

Did I forfeit some of my soul to save Anakin's that night?

If I did, I do not regret it.

Once upon a time, a troubled young man confessed his crimes to me in a dark garage. He felt anger, he felt hatred— but grief and alarm at what they'd driven him to do were enough to trigger remorse, and he fell to the ground and wept at my feet. I held him as his body shook with cries. He turned to me as a lifeline for salvation, for he knew better than I that he was in desperate need of it.

Three years later, I prepared to face that same man on a world surrounded by fire. I had greater awareness, then, over the awesome scope of this man's love for me, the stakes at hand, and his capabilities. In the most honest of folds in my heart, I knew there were no boundaries to what he would do protect me. I ruefully acknowledged this the moment Obi-Wan Kenobi relayed the accusations. Before I confronted my husband, I took necessary moments to prepare myself for what I might hear confessed.

If I had been able to get Anakin off Mustafar, implored him to see what he'd done, I like to tell myself I could've made him see the light again. If I was to lose everything in being the only person by his side with an entire galaxy against us, so be it. It would have tested every moral law within me, but my love for him was unconditional enough to carry him through the avalanche of remorse I was sure was only a reflective moment away. I steeled myself to be sufficiently strong to carry his guilt and self-loathing over his murder spree.

I embraced him, but he was not shaking. I touched his soft hair, but he did not shy away in presumed unworthiness. I waited for him to collapse at my feet in horror at what he'd done.

But where the younger man had shame in his eyes, this time, my husband calmly smiled.