AN:
Sun – Thank you so much for your lovely words about the flashback. I agree the slap was deserved LOL. I love everything in this review. I really like the part you mentioned about the "Nobody tells me what to do" it really shows how immaturely this is being handled. It's definitely time they talk it out! And you're right about Rush Clovis!
Cheire – I know you are always understanding towards Anakin which I like, and you're completely right about their different backgrounds having an impact. Yeah it's not going to be like TCW – I'm not a fan. I really like the point you made about Anakin being intimidating. While I don't believe Padme is ever scared, you are absolutely right about his presence. And yes exactly what can Padme do until Anakin opens up? Thank you so much for you very kind words! Don't worry, there will be some nice Ani/Padme moments again!
Guest – Oh I love this comment; you really get inside Anakin's head and speak well for him. That is a very good point as well – Anakin is revealing something very honest here about his lack of belief in himself.
Angie – I love this – it made it even more real for me too – your point about Miraj. I felt the same thing. In one of the Choices/Consequences chapters, she says he is like her, they both want power. So she likely made him feel like he had nothing to offer. Another great point was that Anakin still hadn't learned to not try to control others to alleviate his own anxieties. The "He tries to control everything himself and then melts down when he can't" is probably the most accurate description of Anakin. Thank you very much! And yes, this will be a wakeup call for both of them to open up.
Everything's Changing
Anakin's eyes snapped open when he heard the bathroom door close. He pulled himself off the couch, yanking the blanket off and being hit with regret, nausea, and a thread pulling at his throat – he had coughed up his heart. The cigarettes of yesterday had stained it, snipped the heart strings and asphyxiated it.
He tapped on the bathroom door, knowing Padme was inside, waiting for an answer.
"Padme, open the door." He leaned against a pillar, holding himself up and shielding his eyes from the glaring sunlight that this hangover certainly wasn't going to filter out. "Please."
The door creaked open. And through eyes squinting from the sun, he saw her standing in front of the mirror, dressed for work and putting in a thin silver drop earring. Her sophisticated style would never let you know that she felt as torn as a paper flower in this moment, ripped from its environment, pieces of leaves left a trail around the kitchen last night.
"I'm sorry." His eyes flew to the floor, ashamed, serious, humiliated. "I was drunk and crazy and jealous."
There was some subtle relief; she recognized that voice. He sounded like himself again. Like her husband, who was never mean to her, who never raised his voice to her. Neither of them did. Their soft-spoken tones were a melodic telepathy, for over a year and a half, combined with pheromones, matching heart pulses, connecting through the theme of their home – safeness.
But his voice last night, his voice this whole week, was not the voice of her husband. Cold and tough and hard to ignore.
Padme brushed past him, heels click for repose as she headed straight for her handbag she had left on the dining table last night.
She swung the strap over her shoulder, not looking at him. She couldn't. A huge chunk of awe was stripped away and boundaries needed to be set. He would chase after pleasure, fly by the seat of his pants, but she was done being bound to his reactions, worrying how far he would go. Consequences were no longer invisible. They were markings, like portals streaking from their chests, warning of any misstep.
There was no way to dodge these portals, no way out of them but through them.
"I think you should stay with Obi-Wan for a while." Her eyes darted around the kitchen, anywhere but on him. It was a hard choice, confusing, crushing, but courageous and necessary. They say if you love something set it free.
"What?" Feathers of fear expand in his head like a burst pillow. An unmet longing bloomed behind his eyes and sunk to his lips with a bitter aftertaste. "You're kicking me out?"
"I really need some space."
When Padme's eyes finally found his, they sent a strong message. There was no way to be loving without space, there's no way to grow without pain, and there's no way he will set them free if he's constantly afraid.
All he could do was watch her on her way out. Growing sad and stuck in this spot that locked him in from mouth to feet. Unable to speak. Unable to move.
With one hand on the doorknob and the other dangling her keys, she paused to look at him. He also looked like himself again – maybe more disheveled than usual but no longer possessed by the towering darkness of last night. The eyes, like the voice, soft again. But even with those eyes dragging across the floor, loving and remorseful, she was going to be strong, prescient. She needed to take a stand. "So, I'd like it if you were gone by the time I get back."
Pedestrians, cars, and advancing life shot by faster than the wind as Anakin practically sprinted along the pavement. He plundered through the town with thoughts of Clovis. A perturbed state of mind huddled under the hood. Under his black hoodie, Anakin's face was malicious, his eyes unpredictable, moody, anxious. Revenge kept pushing up to the forefront in the throes of this blind rage. He marched with a wrathful heart that kept in time with his thumping steps. Archaic sensations harnessed that inner monster that made his hands round into metal fists, robbing his fingers of their flexibility. All he could think about on an endless loop was Clovis meeting his stone-like punch – and how good it would feel to not hold back – feed a lust for unstinting power.
This swift strut of his, driven by his uninhibited whims, had blocked everything out – no one else's moods, actions, car horns could interfere...
–Until he turned a corner and slammed right into a stranger.
A pile of books fell at his feet as two people ricochet off each other, and the atmosphere spins with them – the people, the street lamps, bicycles are a lopsided angle. Even the the early daytime hues have been shaken. Anakin whirled around and sucked in a breath when he saw a face that jerked his spine.
Miraj Scintel's unsuspected smirk. "Boo!"
He squeezed his eyes shut and opened them, rapid and dream-like.
It wasn't her. Phew! But even the relief he felt when he found a young blonde college student in her place was stultifying. His mind was playing tricks on him. His breath wheezing, soughing through an unconscious fear.
The girl looked at him perplexed. He looked like he'd seen a ghost – a ghost that made his insides do a somersault, his own intestines kicking him; the nausea from this morning returned.
"I'm sorry." He hurriedly picked up her belongings. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah. Are you?" The girl felt she should be the one asking, given his antsy demeanor. He nodded albeit a beat behind, and handed over her textbooks.
Anakin wiped the fine sheen of sweat that broke out on his skin with the back of his hand. He rode the shock waves into the tumult of stacked-up habits as he watched the girl walk away. He lowered himself to sit on the edge of the pavement and blew a long breath. A cold moisture fixed on his hands as he turned away from the incoherent experience. It was a wakeup call. How close he was to making another hot-headed, rash decision. How quickly he would have yet again pawned his guilt onto someone else and placed his responsibilities, his obstacles anywhere else to deny that the solution required him letting go.
He could not go through with it now. If he had went to Kamino, if he had beaten up Clovis, he'd have lost Padme for good.
He scrubbed a hand over his face, staring bleakly as life passed him by. The people around him all seemed to have direction. Were they all hiding their interior emotions beneath outer events and simply counting down the days of their powerless, consumer-driven lives? Or had they already achieved the pivotal moments that make them self-reliant, self-trusting, graced by the inner peace essential to the human psyche.
Were they also lonely? Did they also become piqued by the impulses of youth, jealousy, competition? Did they also want to fight, to win? Were they privy to a better way to fight, to win?
He mulled over the obscenity of his latest actions. His mind hated everything his body has done and was about to do. He realized in trying to fight off his fears, he was making himself smaller. It was like continuing to struggle underwater instead of allowing yourself to float up in peace when you're drowning – you're ultimately strangling yourself.
Maybe it was not whether he fought, maybe it was how he fought. He could cue the violins, believe the world is against him and attack. Or he could let this street be his reflective mirror. What makes the people in this street cease to hurt? What makes a man great? Is it strength, wisdom, discipline, all of the above?
Wise men aren't born, they are created in difficult times. Some are tested to the limit, on the brink of despair. Some have to learn once, maybe twice, how to hold their ground.
Is there such a thing as a peaceful warrior? Most would disagree, but Kitster wouldn't – even though their friendship was a little frayed, never quite the same since that day Anakin asked Kitster to lie for him. Kitster knew every man had to have a little danger within him; it was what he did with that danger that determined whether he was a good man. Kitster knew that the choice to be a "lover or a fighter" was misleading. He knew you had to fight for your love, and you had to love what you defend.
A peaceful warrior fights only to defend, never to attack. A peaceful warrior knows when to lay down his weapons. A peaceful warrior knows that there is no difference between a man who loves to fight and a man who can't defend himself. A weak man, undisciplined. A strong man is one who can fight, who knows how to defend himself, and, most significantly, knows how to prevent a fight.
Hanging from the ceiling
Life's a mobile
Spinning 'round with mixed feelings
Crazy and wild
Sometimes, I wanna scream out loud
Obi-Wan meandered through his own living room, a twisting line back and forth. He stroked the ruddiness of his beard, his thumb and index finger searching for facts without frills at the ends of his hair. "She kicked you out? What did you do?"
On the couch, a recumbent Anakin pressed an icepack to his forehead. Repentance had Anakin glowering at his own actions. All he could remember was how volcanic he was last night in the heat of the moment. A burning image scorched his brain like lava, a thought he was unable to bear – Padme with another man. "I got drunk and said something stupid."
"Well that narrows it down." Obi-Wan rubbed his brow, exasperated with uprooted realism. But he didn't dwell on it. He knew it wouldn't solve anything to dredge up Anakin's traits and where it often led him. A truism of Anakin's mentality, impetuous, strong-willed, a tad annoying.
"Alright." Obi-Wan faced him. "Well, while you're here, just – help out around here, and try not to get into any trouble."
Everything's changing when I turn around
All out of my control, I'm a mobile
Everything's changing out of what I know
Everywhere I go, I'm a mobile
I'm a mobile
Avril Lavigne - Mobile
