AN:
Cheire – yeah I don't know why it always steals your words :D It was only a couple days. By the end of this chapter it will have been a week
Guest – Ooh poor Padme lol. I mean, she said after this year with her career going nowhere it made her wonder if she should explore this opportunity. She didn't suddenly decide she'd prefer to be there – just exploring. But yeah maybe Anakin saw it that way
Angie – Anakin did say he was a slow learner in AOTC lol
Raison D'être
The sand park was rather quiet today. It wasn't coloured with its typical riotous atmosphere on weekends. It didn't have the fruitful festivities of accomplisment. It was a fountain dripping instead of pouring, quiet drops of secluded movement. With most of the benches empty and people scarce, Anakin easily spotted Kitster and Wald.
Kitster sat there on what he had branded his bench. He sat on it like it was his velvet throne. Wald was standing before him, talking with rich agile hands that describe, negotiate, and act out how clearly passionate he was about the words that left his mouth. As Anakin trod over, his eyes scanned the perimeter. Sebulba was a few meters away, talking to someone Anakin did not recognize.
With his eyes tracking over Sebulba and his guest, Anakin unintentionally interrupted his friends' conversation. "Who's that talking to Seb?"
"New guy working for the Hutts." Wald answered before briskly returning his gaze to Kitster. "Anyway as I was saying, the most underrated movie monologue is the Smurfette monologue in Donnie Darko."
His friend's emphatic speech was more vivid in Anakin's ears now that he gave them his full attention. He sat down beside Kitster, following the trajectory of his friend's restful manners and active musings.
"It's funny," Kitster agreed. "–but it's not the most underrated. It's not even the best scene in the film."
Wald's stance firmed, his feet bolted to the sand. "What's the best scene then?"
"The fear/love lifeline."
Anakin shook his head, intercepting their chat with a calm, distant casualness. "You're both wrong. The best scene in the movie is when Drew Barrymore screams at the top of her lungs in the schoolyard. She's screaming for the death of everything. The death of storytelling, art, creativity, imagination, free thought, free will, the death of her life as she knows it."
The other two men blinked at the vigorous argument; their light-hearted debate faltered, flipped on its head. But that was Anakin. He talked with emotions and senses and feelings. He makes the impersonal personal. He turns clever observations into meaningful abstractions. What is merely interesting to others is profoundly educational to him. Objectivity is necessary to gather a rounded picture, but empathy is what immerses you in the picture and the absence of it is a loss to knowledge. This kind of connection gives you a reason for being, or a raison d'être.
It was as though he had this heightened perception at all times, always hypervigilant.
To Anakin, living without emotion was empty and lonely. Fights, sex, work, even communication without emotion are pointless, apathetic, cold. To a passionate man, a mechanical, methodical life was a prison. The day we separate from emotion is the day we lose our humanity. But Anakin could never control that passion. His unbridled ways were always on the verge of consuming him, burning him from the inside out – and even though the people around him couldn't see the flames, there were signs.
While Kit found Anakin's serious tone amusing, Wald seemed more introspective, contemplating things in his own weird way, cocking his head to one side. "...Plus she wears really nice sweaters in that movie."
Kitster laughed. "Sometimes I wonder what goes on under that hat."
"Bottom line," Wald ignored him and waved a finger in the air, like he was about to make an important announcement. "Donnie Darko is an anti-hero. Or an anti-superhero if you will."
Kitster lifted a hand to rebut. "Donnie was a schizophrenic who did whatever a six-foot tall bunny rabbit told him to because he was afraid of dying alone. He tore the world apart and watched it burn. The whole movie is a Sci-Fi psychological tragedy."
"Donnie wasn't a superhero." Anakin said bluntly, near-inaudible.
"Thank you!" Kitster exclaimed, feeling vindicated.
"He was better." Anakin continued, subverting their expectations. "Because he was human – without the bravery of a superhero. They said he was doomed. And then one day he met a girl who kissed him in a moment when he needed to be reminded of how beautiful the world can be. And that gave him strength to mend his relationship with his family. And he went back in time and sacrificed himself to save the people he loves. And the biggest fucking tragedy is by the end of the movie, they have no idea. His girlfriend and his mother wave to each other having no idea how much he loved them. Because at this point in the timeline, he never met the girl, and the last memory his mother has of him is him being a dick."
And with that declaration, Anakin stood and walked off with petulant steps. Anakin was always unruly – they'd use the term, high-spirited. The boys were used to it. They knew of Anakin's tactics that only fooled himself.
"Leave it to Anakin to rationalize the idea of Donnie Darko being a love story." Kitster allowed for a low-effort chuckle before his voice became slow, meditative. "You better go talk to him."
"Why don't you?" Wald asked.
"...Anakin doesn't talk to me anymore."
In my head I have dreams
I have visions of many things
Questions, longings in my mind
Pictures fill my head
I feel so trapped instead but
Trapped doesn't seem so bad
Cause you are here
Obi-Wan was growing a little tired of seeing the same sight on his couch every morning for the past six days. Anakin on his couch, not really living, hibernating. Hibernating until he'd be woken up with a better reality. It made Anakin more restless than usual, a sort of monotonous restlessness. Symptoms Obi-Wan knew all too well. It was only a matter of time before Anakin would implode, tire away his stress with an escapism far more dangerous than his degenerative hibernation.
"I think it's time you went home." Obi-Wan decided matter-of-factly.
Anakin sat up straight, rocking his head back onto the couch cushion behind him. "Padme doesn't want me there."
Obi-Wan sighed. He was loosening his grip on the go-to techniques as he got older. His critiques of others' weak zones, unproductivity, or unconventionality were watered down. Sometimes Anakin helped him loosen up. Other times, he was tired of Anakin being the architect of blind, brief disorder, a structureless craze.
"You want to know why I'm so hard on you? This is why." Obi-Wan joined him on the couch, crossing one leg over the other. He was centered and he hoped Anakin would follow the terrain of peace. "Your focus determines your reality. So you can sit here and believe you've failed in your marriage or you can leave this pity party you're throwing because let's face it, no one wants to come."
Anakin didn't say anything. He listened with a quiet dignity, the absence of ego. He knew there was a concrete logic to Obi-Wan's answers, and he'd even argue that there's an energy to what he's saying. It was physics. It's what every Greek myth teaches us – that all future consequences are caused by present actions. Your own flaws and failings are your downfall. And there are two main flaws that ensure this: unchecked pride and ambition.
"Look... In focusing on what could go wrong, in what you're afraid to lose, you will drive yourself toward it in your attempts to get ahead of it." Obi-Wan assured. "But by focusing on the positive, that's what'll get you from one good day in relationship to the next."
It was out of courtesy that Padme came to the diner. She situated herself in one of the booths, willing to listen to what Obi-Wan had to tell her, but part of her felt like they would be running into the same puddle on the floor, splashes of challenges, deep, old and new, boots filled with tears, drowning your footsteps, unable to move forward on dry land.
Obi-Wan joined her on the other side of the rectangular chrome-plated table.
"Thanks for coming." That voice as warm as a hug.
"How is he?" She asked subtly.
"How do you think?" Obi-Wan didn't let the words come out sharply. He talked slow, considerately. "You went on a date with an ex-boyfriend. You kicked him out of the house..."
"Obi-Wan, you're only hearing it from Anakin's side." She felt she was standing in a blank spot of an almost finished puzzle. The missing piece couldn't be replaced, not with conversation, intellect, or compromise. Even she herself was in the way.
Obi-Wan shook his head like a tired parent. The extent of Padme's discouragement made it clear she didn't have the tools she felt she needed. She was sincere in her innocence and defeat, washed away into an ocean of delirium by Anakin and now looking for a raft.
Obi-Wan placed a delicate hand on hers on the white table. "Padme... It's time to face the music and stop pointing fingers. I know Anakin can be a little eccentric. But so do you, and you married him a month in. You made those vows. So whether you decide to fight for them or walk away, you need to understand you are a part of the decisions you've made."
Padme swallowed the self-justifying response on the tip of her tongue. There was no use for it now. A more honest reply had risen up from her gut. "...I don't want to lose him. I love him. But I feel I'm in over my head. I don't know how to help him. He doesn't let me in."
The look on her face was telling, and clarity blossomed within Obi-Wan's mind. That's what she and Anakin had in common. Padme loved like he did. She loved wholeheartedly and recklessly and in wild abandonment of logic.
"Did you tell him that?"
The question was a final starburst of shattered puzzle pieces, and the guilt hung off her shoulders.
"Look, I was never on board with you two getting married so quickly. But I will admit this past year, you two defied the odds. And I've never seen Anakin happier than when he's with you. He thinks you're an angel sent down to him from heaven... He will lose himself trying to keep you."
Obi-Wan knew Anakin and Anakin knew him. Their bond was strong, unbreakable. Even though it was varnished with exterior competitiveness, roughhousing, snide remarks, they had each other's backs when they were turned. And that's what made Obi-Wan a true brother. He was hard on Anakin because he knew of his potential and his flaws – but he always defended him when he couldn't defend himself, and he knew Anakin would do the same for him.
It doesn't mean anything
Without you here with me
And I can try to justify
But I still need you here with me
It doesn't mean anything
Without you here with me
'Cause after all is said and done
I still need you here with me
After a phone call from Obi-Wan, Anakin went to the diner expecting either a lecture or a chore to be sent his way. But instead he found Padme in one of the booths.
He slid into the seat opposite her and placed his car keys on the table. It stole her gaze for a moment, while he looked at her fresh face, feminine – a journal of the personal, spiritual role a woman creates with her mind, body, cells. She plants the seeds, she stalls herself in the rituals to aid its growth. She is as explorative as nature and roots herself in it, which is why the touch of a woman reaches into the unconscious.
There was a merciless current that was not going to let them water anything down tonight. She could not edit her words, and she knew he could not rationalize his behaviour.
"Hi." He murmured, an incomparable sound that had her heart.
Something about his effort to smile wrapped humbly around her. The blindfold to his imperfections had been torn away, but it left her with acceptance and love, and gave her the courage to say "I just want you to know that me needing space does not mean that I don't love you."
He looked at her like he was struggling to hide the quiver that buckled his knees. Something was set free, something that cramped his body. He could take a breath and remember the feeling of mobility.
"It just means. . .it's a lot, you know." She said earnestly. "And I know you weren't very happy with the way I dealt with the situation. And I'm sorry about that, but you didn't make it any easier."
He nodded. Like he would betrayal himself to talk, destroy the little leeway she has given him.
"Don't think that I don't need you. My feelings for you haven't changed... I just don't know where we go from here. It feels like something was taken from us." The end of her sentence was less addressed to him and more to a cosmic higher power. Her eyes dressed down for the common climate they knew, denial. She wanted him to say something, bring back what was lost. Be the tender lover who makes the bad stuff go away.
"Anyway," She found her breath, her voice, new and cracking due to his continued silence. "I need to get going, I just. . .wanted to tell you that."
She stood, clutching onto her purse, about to walk off when Anakin grabbed her arm.
"–Meet me tomorrow."
Looking at him felt comfortable, too comfortable and risky as he spoke, "We can get away from all this, we can talk."
"Anakin, I don't–"
"–Just to talk. Public place. Promise."
His voice silken, brave, wise, and trustworthy, demanding her attention with sizzling, faithful eyes, subtracting every barrier. She knew she had to be careful because, in this moment, with locked eyes, hand on arm, she could admit it to herself. She missed him so much and the world they created, enjoyed with all his obsessions, intensities. She even liked how he abhorred reality and replaced it with pleasant fantasies – and she wanted to maintain his imagination for him.
I can't do anything without you
You give me strength to do anything
I can't be everything I try to
You saved me from the everything
I couldn't be
You save me
Here With Me - Plumb