AN:

Ivy - yessss I love that too! Xo

Guest - Thank you! Haha I don't know which chapter this review is for but I love it! I am so enjoying everyone's reactions to Anakin. Xo

Cheire - Ahhh I love that. I like George Lucas' depictions of female characters so I really appreciate that! I agree about Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon. And I LOVE what you interpreted about Anakin seeing Padme as an indication that there is still good in the world after Shmi was gone, and it's cool because this chapter sort of delves in that area.

When I'm With You

When I'm with you

I see the world in a different way

You shine so bright

When I'm close to you

I feel the way that you really are

It moves my heart

"Here." Anakin shifted in the driver's seat as he pulled out two hundred pounds from his pocket and handed it to Padme. "What I owe you."

She smiled back at him softly. With a quick glance, they communicate the humour and nobility of the act. She realized honour was important to him, even though she had to admit, getting the money back hadn't really crossed her mind.

"Watch this." He said, getting her out of her thoughts. "This is the best part about driving on this road." He prepared her by telling her to tighten her seatbelt. He then pressed down on the accelerator pedal. They sped up as they approached a bump in the road that finished with a steep slope. The slope takes them flying over the road with twirling emotions. For a good few seconds, the car is in the air. Their hearts are soaring out of their chests as they pass through the street, where everything blurs into glimmers of colourful lights, abstract, floating, twinkling like stars – until they hear the thump of the wheels returning to the ground.

"Oh my god!" She gasped, hand on heart, elated as she recovers from the adrenaline. Anakin grinned back at her, exulted, encapsulated in the mania.

Anakin parked in a secluded area. There wasn't much to see. A few mountain outlines in the distance, and not much else – just a vast abyss. The light from the moon and the stars was all that brightened the black sky. Anakin got out of the car and grabbed the pizza boxes in the back along with a giant torch and a blanket. Padme watched him from the mirror until their glances collided. He signaled for her to join him.

She stepped out of the car and her eyes skimmed over the truck bed. A soft blanket laid out, their pizza boxes set, and the torch planted in the middle as though it were a candle. He focused on her reaction. She was in awe of his handiwork.

"Wow!" Her voice was barely a whisper. The layout was so simple, so romantic, so personal.

"Is there anything better than pizza, a blanket, and a sky full of stars?" He boasted.

They climbed into the truck bed. She looked up at the stars and grinned back at him. "It must have set you back ordering all those stars."

"It did. Thanks for noticing." He smirked.

After they ate, they lied on the cozy blanket, eyes and souls up in the starry sky. They enjoyed it all, the dinner, the company, the atmosphere. Their hearts elevated, an indication of how gentle, candid and wonderful life can be.

Anakin rolled onto his side soaking up the view of Padme like she was a dose of opium.

"What was your dream as a kid?"

Padme turned on her side to gaze back with eyes like his, swelling of happiness. "...I wanted to be an artist for a while. I couldn't draw to save my life but I had crush on this boy in my school who painted the most beautiful pictures. I guess I always had a soft spot for the tortured soul... " She laughed. "I still don't know if I liked him or the drawings."

Anakin raised a suspicious eyebrow. "So where is this guy now? Do I have to kill him or...?"

Even though he was joking, the smile he cast made his intentions appear elusive, always curious, dangerous.

"I haven't seen him since I was twelve."

He could tell her tone was an indirect (yet cordial) way of saying calm down.

"Okay." She announced. "My turn to ask you a question. Where did your name come from? I've never heard of an Anakin before."

Anakin rolled back onto his back. His eyes glazed over the stars. "Well. I was two months old and my mother still hadn't named me. And uh. . .one day she read Homer's Iliad to me. And whenever she'd say the name Achilles, I'd smile – so she says. And. . .she wanted a name that sounded like that." He reflected. "–It kinda influenced the rest of my life too. My mom would say, 99 percent of Achilles' body was protected and he got hurt in the 1 percent that wasn't. And she'd say that's me. 99 things could be going my way and I'll obsess over the 1 thing that isn't."

Padme observed him earnestly. His words were heavier than he made them sound. He wants to sow seeds of new truths, always hovering outside of reality – but his soul and eyes never lie.

"Where is your mother now?" She asked and she saw Anakin's face fall, and his eyes darken, like those words washed out whatever vibrancy was there earlier.

She added, "We don't have to talk about it."

He looked back at Padme, touched with tranquility by her compassion, and he felt safe here, in how she sees him.

"...My mother and I. . .we had a bit of a tough time." He cleared his throat as though he hadn't spoken about it in so long, which was true (from a certain point of view), he hadn't uttered these words to anyone. People like Obi-Wan and Ahsoka saw fragments of his memories but he didn't like to talk about them. He believed talking made it too real, too insuperable. "My earliest memory, I was three or four and – my father left her before I was born but he'd show up when he needed something, money or... – and she didn't even have any but somehow he had even less. I remember her telling me to wait in the closet because she knew. . .she knew he was going to beat her. I knew what was going on. I just pretended I didn't for her sake. It made her feel better. But every time I was in there, I made a promise to myself. And I prayed that one day, I will be big and strong and I will protect her."

Anakin sat up now. And Padme does the same, unknowingly mirroring him. She is connected to him, clinging onto his words as she listens intently, supportive.

He continued, "When I was twelve, Ben took me to these martial arts classes. He knew a guy and they snuck me in because I couldn't afford it. And then when I was fourteen, I heard that my dad was back in town, at the local bar. And I went in there and beat the shit out of him. He had no idea who I was."

She saw his face grim with shades of buried feelings - first was anger when he thought of his father. Then, with the memory of his mother, it modifies, with the rapidity of flicking through a book, into chapters of sadness, fear, and then remorse.

"For a while, we were free. Until she met this guy. And within six months, they're engaged. She wants us to move in with him and his kid. I don't trust them – I don't trust anybody. And. . .I just didn't want to share her. It's always been just the two of us... I told her, I can take care of her. We don't need them. She didn't understand why I couldn't see this is a good thing. It definitely drove a wedge between us, and I basically told her it was them or me. She got tired of it, and one day she just flat out said that I can be a part of this family if I want to but if I want to go, she can't stop me. And the choice was mine."

His belated wisdom interfered with his words. He cannot hide the atrocities of his past on his dolorous face.

"I left. I stayed with Ben for a while. But his wife got sick, and she didn't like having me around too much. I was a lousy waiter too to be fair. I got offered a job from one of our customers, got into construction — I had some practice fixing stuff around the house for my mom. And about a year after that, I got the call from Ahsoka asking me to come home. . .saying, there's been a car crash."

He was silenced by the darkness of that night. He let it destruct and annihilate from within. He ensured it destructs and annihilates him from within.

"It wasn't just her parents in the car." He admitted eventually. "They were in the front, they died before the ambulance got there. Cliegg, my stepfather, was paralyzed from the waist down, and my mother. . .she made it to the hospital. . .but by the time I got there, she was dead."

Tears threatened his eyes, struggling with the resurgence of the pain, the hopelessness, the regret. "I didn't even get to tell her I'm sorry."

Padme's eyes shined with tears, wanting to rebuild what was shattered in him. She pulled him in for a hug. So warm and protective.

"She knows." She consoled with all the love in her heart, her voice, her hands. He buried his head in the deep curve of her neck, in what felt like a safe, sacred place.

"I ended up living with Cliegg and his son, Owen." Anakin went on as they now lied back down on the blanket, after they had given space and distance to his battles, emotional scars, discussions which are disemboweling. "And it was good for me; they were good people. And it gave me some closure to know my mother was happy. But they never felt like family. My mother was the ingredient missing to mesh us. Cliegg died about four months in. The stress on his body was too much and I don't think he could live without my mother. I stuck around, helped Owen on the farm. Then, when he got married, I knew it was time to go, give them their space... So, I took Sebulba up on his offer, and–"

"You started racing." Padme concluded.

"Racing helped me." Anakin knew it was his therapy, his empowerment, his unchaining of what arrests him, what keeps him in a nebulous paralysis. This was his chance to find distractions, drug-like escapes until he had real imagination again. To start fresh, anew, to begin again.

"You really love it." She recognized the relief it brought to his face, wiping away the frown lines and hollow eyes. A revolutionary thought breathes life back into that crystal blue colour.

He nodded. "When I'm behind the wheel, there's no intrusive thoughts. The mind can't wander – or keep you prisoner. You can't be enslaved by your fear because it forces you to be stronger than your fear. Your focus is on what's right in front of you – not behind you. Right here. Right now. You're free. For a while, you're free from your past. . .and you have some control over your future."

He looked at her now with a profoundness, forcefulness, watching her like the shrine which gives him that same state of peace. She dispels future doubts and past gloom. She ascends to a creativeness when he is pressured by a destructiveness. His world is so loud, in a dark cavern where pain is always immense. But she came and switched a light on, led a way out to a quieter path, a path where hope and possibilities can exist. She represents a life you can actually create – one you don't need to escape from. What he was looking for — a life without suffering. Together they are conjoined, fundamental, spiritual. And through creation and destruction, they hope to create a better future, destruct old sabotaging beliefs and habits, and move forward.

He shuffles an inch closer, body next to body, arm in arm. He touches her face; his fingers spread across her cheek until she feels the heat of his warm palm. He cups her face in his hands, his thumb brushes along her bottom lip, and then his lips touch hers for a second.

He pauses to really see her, losing himself in her ethereal beauty. He knows in her presence he is revived, reborn, finding a new strength. If racing was the placebo, she was the real thing, the remedy. He kisses her again. And again. With a gradation of intensity, until they lose their heads.

He crawls on top of her, their hips align, and his body melts with hers, under the stars, in the back of his truck.

They make love so passionately a fire ignites across the stars.

I think about you

And how you change everything you touch

I love you so much

You amaze me

You lift me up to a higher place

Put a smile on my face

Sarah Sadler – Beautiful