AN:

Ivy – You'll have to wait and see. Maybe it'll be better than you think ;)

Cheire – Aww thank you so much! Yeah I agree with you, Anakin is very emotionally driven. I always think about how Anakin must've hated being reliant on a machine, robbed of his humanity. It's the perfect punishment for a passionate person. I haven't properly watched the Ahsoka TV show. I saw Hayden's scenes and I'm very happy for him but I don't know about this God speculation :D Movie Anakin is my Anakin. As for Anakin and Padme's conflict in this, you'll get your answer :D

Angie – Yeah I love Obi-Wan!

Sun – Wow! Thank you so much for taking the time to leave a review for all 3 chapters. I really appreciate that, most people would just skip to the end chapter so it has been such a joy for me to get one notification after another! I also appreciate you noticing the Vallorum/Padme conflict. With Vallorum in TPM, it wasn't that he didn't care but he was bought and owned (like most politicians) and controlled by bureaucrats – that's why he sent the Jedi to Naboo in secret. It seems like he was once a man who did share democratic values and then got sucked into the corruption.

Guest 1 – I agree with you completely. To me, Obi-Wan is the ideal Jedi of his time and Luke is the ideal jedi of his time. They embody the Jedi philosophy well. Anakin was the strongest Jedi but talent isn't everything (as is made clear in AOTC). I also agree with you about Obi-Wan and Anakin's relationship. They act like real brothers. They tease you, they are hard on you, they challenge you and get competitive but once you become an adult, you become true friends. In the end Obi-Wan wants Anakin to succeed, they just needed to grow up together, which they do as you see in the first half of ROTS.

Cheire12 – Thank you for coming on again to defend Padme. I also LOVE the comment section and the passion everyone has but when it comes to Padme, I completely agree with you. I understand her reaction to his, as you said before, very intimidating emotions. I think Padme was reasonable until the "date", until Anakin implies she'd given him no reason to trust her. She calls Clovis' gift "used up apologies" she rejects it and him. She doesn't fall for it. She doesn't give him the time of day until she sees a sincere side. She is firm but not aggressive. Anakin should've trusted her to handle it and if she can't, she should go to him.

Guest 2 – I agree I think Padme likes the wildness of Anakin. They remind me of Napoleon's letters to Josephine with their old fashioned romance.

Guest 3 – I agree with you Padme does not criticize Anakin's character (and she is much more gentler with her feedback than Obi and Mace) but I think saying "you're being ridiculous" refers to behaviour, no? Rather than saying "you are ridiculous." :D

The Theory Of Everything

Padme stood in front of the bricks that connect Vallorum and Ben's Diner. She had crossed the property line, and more than one boundary by waiting here for Anakin. She was wearing a white poncho and carrying a mixture of feelings, the sky's terrors, earth's mysteries, and sea's storms – each give birth to life and insanity, making her wonder if it was impossible to feel alive and not crazy at the same time.

She came here not knowing what to expect. A dash of wishful thinking and prismatic ideas smeared across the multilayered skies, whirring in the last of the sunset's rose glow. She was nervous but an excitement whirled around her. It was a natural way to feel around Anakin.

Then she saw an outline, blunt shards of memories and tremors molding the street. Anakin was strutting over, and her doubts became artificial once she saw him haloed by golden hair. Her greeting was vague, shy. Her hands smacked her thighs as she shrugged, "Hi."

Anakin offered a fine smile. His typical impatience didn't cling to him. He was whimsical, centered in a black sweater and denim jeans. He was somewhere between a mandala, the layers of a creature with the power to possess; he could use this to attack or he might just end up purring in your ear.

"So... Where do we start?" She asked, trying not to reciprocate a smile. "The job? Clovis? The fighting?"

"No." Anakin shook his head as he drew nearer, at which Padme's brows had drawn together. Her face seemed to favour the look of peace, prosperity even though her words came aching with an itch to scratch.

"You said you wanted to talk."

"I know, but–" Anakin shoved away the concerns, resolving them with a better investment, an ease, a hand waving away what hinders his manifestations. Talking wasn't all it's cracked up to be; sometimes it erases a heart's raw actions. "Let's put a pin in all that for a second. Let's just forget about Anakin and Padme and all their problems and just go back to basics, when we met and there were no fights, no drama. There wasn't this war between us... We're just a guy and a girl who bumped into each other on the street."

The red shadow that clogged their hearts seemed to have lifted with every word he spoke. The air seemed fresher, and they both felt lighter. Eyes began to glisten, fears began to evaporate, and stars appeared in the sleek purple haze the sun was leaving behind.

Anakin extended an arm like a tree bark of devotion. "Hi, I'm. . .Luke."

"...Anakin–" She turned from his ridiculous hand, reluctant to realize a dream, a resurrection, but his voice pulled her back in.

"–No, no." He corrected. "Luke."

Relaxed shoulders and impractical eyes that made her dizzy – that's what stood in front of her. Danger zones... especially when his insanity is calm like this, preparing her for the unknown, an unfinished chapter.

There were the first signs of white moonlight and his face brightened. It touched her, almost won her over. Almost.

Padme folded her arms and dragged a breath. It was getting harder and harder to ignore the refueled twinkle that had so obviously returned in his eyes. It had been missing for a while. "...Alright, fine. I'll play along. Who am I?"

Anakin smirked and walked around her deftly and gracefully. "You are. . .Leia. You're beautiful, passionate. . .and as crazy as I am."

One final long stride brought him back in front of her, and she recalled it all. How easy it was to love like crazy, how liberating it was when he showed her how to leap with their hearts. Anakin can be swept away by his ideas – and she'd ride right alongside him, embracing it all like he did, embracing what is youthful and old in one soul.

"So what do you say?" He held out his hand invitingly again. "Wanna go on an adventure with me?"

She glanced at the hand ready to take her and suddenly it felt like everything had come full circle, alive, sacred... and she knew this would be a walk down the two most personal subjects: history and psychology.

When she placed her hand in his, it felt like a force was pulling them out of their bodies as he dragged her down the street. A light was leading the way and Anakin was going to make sure they caught up with it. From Vallorum's Firm, past Ben's Diner, all the way around the corner to Watto's Motors, they ran and leapt with racing hearts and hard breaths.

Anakin was fast and his voice raspy, strong and bubbly with excitement as he urged her to keep up. "Come on!"

Their feet vibrated as they hit the pavement. They are more powerful than thunder, a brighter spectacle than lightning. In the mania of abundant energy they felt they were in complete solitude. The now clear night silences the rowdy rhythms of people walking, blocks out the roads dotted with cars. The heat from their movements had them speckled with moonlight, their clothes billowing like capes... invincible. They cross the street without looking, making drivers angry. At one point a car had to stop abruptly and the driver had some choice words. Anakin pulled Padme away and slammed a hand on the hood. Obstacles were not real. No one was going to get in their way of them getting lost and unified. Even if the cars, people, the wind, the world conspired against them, they are anchored by their beating hearts and personal mantras.

And he kept them running. She didn't know where he was taking her or if he even had a plan at all. She yelled at him to slow down for her feet to keep up. But he flew them through the town with vigor and spontaneity.

Her chest was almost aching and so much laughter leaked life back into her. Her legs were about to fall off. Luckily, he started to slow down as he approached big iron gates. She looked up at the towering, old, intimidating metal. It was artistic, historic, pretty. The ends of the tall black lines propped up grand rusty letters, worn and cursive.

The Old Green Park.

This was it. Anakin's idea of perfect imperfection. Like him, it was a tale of intricate patterns, a labyrinth. The same romantic story told over and over again with a newfound appreciation or wisdom or misery. Darkness has a history...

And as John Steinbeck once wrote, 'Now you don't have to be perfect, you can be good.'

The cold and closed enormous ornamental gate did not detain Anakin's ambition. Instead it had him throwing a mischievous look Padme's way. He started climbing over the fence, encouraging her to do the same. She followed but not without hesitation. Gripping onto the iron grills that had pointy spikes at the top and stretched up into the blackening night sky, she was almost afraid to look down and see just how high up she was. But when she did look down, she was led to Anakin with open arms on the other side of the gate.

"Jump! I got you."

She saw the adrenaline working his face. All addictions are bad, she thought. Even the good ones. And yet he made it look easy, healthy. She was curious to know where the cobbled path winding through green grass would lead to, and that helped her fear temporarily scoot to the side.

She just had to jump. Another risk, another payoff. And then she could breathe again.

A slight stumble and swaying of the feet didn't stop him from catching her. He grabbed her hand and again they were galloping. This time on the earthy trails carpeted with moss, galloping with wonders, with clear heads, pounding heartbeats, past the trees dancing and singing with the wind.

The park was even more beautiful than in the pictures. Even at night when the only light is the gleam of street lamps on the main road. It makes you want to walk barefoot in the grass. Let it tickle your feet, and settle in the cool, relaxing glow the ring around the moon casts over a pitch black sky.

She moved forward almost crouching as if it would give her feet momentum. She couldn't run anymore. Her body was screaming for relief, and it seemed so was his. They collapsed onto the green tender canvas of the forgotten forrest – where one agrees to lose their mind in exchange for finding their soul.

Lying there, out of breath, still aflame from the run, surrounded by nature, a garden of madness and heart hammering senses felt like a luxuriant sheet under them.

"I can't." She said breathlessly, resting on her back, not knowing what to finish the sentence with — move, speak, breathe?

But when she was quiet, she could hear the cycle of his breathing, stranger, harsher. She looked over, his chest rose and fell, waiting for that steady rhythm to find him.

"This is what it feels like." Anakin rasped, eventually. "Everyday—in my head. My mind keeps running, spinning fast. And I just keep trying to reach out, grabbing for something to slow it down. Anything, racing or. . .any other temporary high... Until you. You came along and everything felt safe. You made everything okay."

Padme's eyes shone with awe, pain. She could see inside his mind. She saw the war he fought alone for a very long time. And he knew from her empathic response that he had put her through the wringer, just to feel this. He craves her comfort, her hair, her laugh, her voice. It is what security feels like. It is this feeling that she is giving him now with soft eyes and an open heart. And he realized he should have just asked for it. Asked for her help and actually appreciate a helping hand along the way, break the habit of thinking you had to do everything alone and simultaneously push away the one person you didn't want to. She wanted to give him this feeling. The feeling of home. For him, she was home. And he worried that his anxieties had taken hers away, if he'd stopped being home for her too.

"You did that for me too." She said, looking at him with fresh eyes. "My world was the opposite. It didn't move at all. You healed things I didn't even know needed healing."

Reassurance came strong by her hand warm with compassion that found his. A kind of prayer fulfilled as her small slim fingers slipped in between his with such a capacity for compassion. A compassion he has milked, greedily.

He looked down at their hands clasped together. "...My mother used to say if you can love, you can heal." He did not want their fingers to separate. Turmoil would take the place of her flesh. And it clicked. The fear of love is the fear of separation – and it made him instinctively want to tighten the hold. And he sees where he went wrong.

Suddenly it hurt to talk.

"I know I can be difficult." He admitted, thoughtful and remote as he stared up into the distant sky, and she felt his fingers loosen their grip on hers. "And I know sometimes I hold on too tight. It's just... I let go once, and I lost my mother for good. So it's hard for me not to believe that something's gonna take you away, another man, a job, or even death itself."

She could hear the years of loss behind his voice. But she smiled through the tears that rolled down her cheek. And he understood why Josephine's tears robbed Napoleon of reason and inflamed his blood. Passionate love has a way of unleashing both the tyranny and servility in a person, forever in debt to whom they adore.

She held onto him tighter, realizing that's what he needed – her... to not let go. "I'm not going anywhere... Just don't push me away. Don't shut me out."

She came closer, her body snuggled up to his, oozing with a new mission. And he was grateful he didn't feel so alone anymore. The constant pressure was expensive, mentally taxing. Trying to keep up with who he imagined himself to be, stronger, more powerful, to hold off the past in order to survive.

Now he could relax. In this circle of vocation and sustenance, he found a land where he could inhabit both versions of himself, the protector and the protected. She could rescue him right back, from all of it.

"Jack Kerouac said 'my fault, my failure, is not the passions I have but my lack of control of them'."

"Yeah." She rolled onto her side and propped her chin on her hand. "It's not a bad thing to be passionate, Anakin. Your passion is one of the things I love about you." A warm, honest vulnerability chimed in her heart. She wanted to be as open as he was. To be as brave in sharing what was so deep, so consuming. Because when he spun too fast, she'd lose balance. And she wasn't used to it. She knows what to expect from men like Clovis. She knew their tactics, the tricks, so she could handle whatever they threw her way. But Anakin was unpredictable. You never knew what you were going to get from one day to the next. "I love you. I love you so much that sometimes it scares me. And I'm sorry for this whole week, I don't want to lose you, I just – I need you to help me. We can help each other."

The care in her voice made everything hurt less. He didn't want to hurt anymore and he didn't want to hurt her. She was still willing with absolution to give him her trust, even when their emotions didn't feel safe – but she worried for him more than herself.

His lips compressed into a fine line. "I'll try – I mean, I want to be that guy for you. The one who makes you feel safe."

She saw the guilt in his face and laved a hand along the line of his jaw, letting him know that she believed in him and she needed him to believe in himself. She wasn't going to let his fear sabotage them.

"You already are. . .when you believe it. When you don't doubt me."

He nodded sadly. "I'll do better."

"Me too." She promised. Her fingertips raked his cheek. He was safe now in this beautiful flow, nourishing, strengthening... It felt like their first date in his truck – the feelings keep you on your toes yet you feel like this is where you should've been all along.

Her fingers entangled in the ends of his hair. She touched him so lightly as if he were suede. This touch was a promise, a soulmate traveling across oceans, swimming delicately, following the fragrance of their significant other. The arms take long, easy strokes in the water, the body of art, vowing to never wrinkle what inspires and opens the spirit.

It was the easiest and hardest thing to love him. But now as he leaned up on his elbow and gave her full view of his noble features, it felt way too damn easy. He looked at her the way every woman yearns to be looked at.

"Make love to me." She pleaded softly, wanting to soothe him, to soothe herself with calm, creative confidence.

His lips parted slightly like he was choosing to be slow to respond – and fully aware that he could arouse in her an impulsive subservience, a willingness to let the hands that look like they could hurt her give her pleasure. It made his voice even gentler, sensitive in its seduction. "Here? On the grass?"

She nodded and rested her head back on the cushioning grass, her glorious coils of silken brown hair fanned out around her head, her ivory cheeks now a cherry pink blush, as he came to her slowly with an arm over her chest. He sought her sweet lips and she answered his kisses, surrendering to the gradation of force from his mouth. And his tongue flicked hers, tasting her affection, incessantly living for it. His hand caressed down her body and raised the waistband of her trousers and her underwear with two fingers, then followed the downward curve and disappeared in her svelte folds. She felt the heat, the suddenness of the intrusion as he quite literally had her wrapped around his finger.

With each swirl, the forefinger would rub against the roof of her sex slowly unlocking a fierce love. Her walls pulsate and enclose on his finger, fearing the loss of the stimulant if he deserted her. She felt like Venus reborn of the sea of violent excitement, oceanic curtains parting to reveal a Goddess before his eyes.

She had grown wings of desire, his patient touch had levitated her convulsive body with a movement intended to make her legs part the distance to fit his body. Her hips lurched with his wrist bending to her, hidden between her faithful thighs. But the dissolving feeling only tormented her further with the need for him to take the place of his finger so she jerked him toward her with nervous hands, pulling him like pulling down the last of hanging fruit into this necessary moment that made her shiny silky liquid cover his finger.

He crawled on top of her, held up by his elbows, and around his body were her shaking legs, begging for his ferity. His hips instantly became heavy and fell to hers like a magnet, wanting to infuse their flesh through the fabric of their clothes.

He unzipped his trousers, lowered hers to her ankles, and she covered his behind with her white poncho, riveted by their reserved sensuality for each other.

He entered her and his full weight finally sunk down to hers. A low sound escaped his throat as their lips and hips pressed together. Their whole bodies were smouldering with an overflowing passion, smoking and swelling, sticking to each other, reckless and hopeful and infinite.

Her legs began to curl in the grass from the way he moved inside her, agile, a gentle savagery, and she flung her hips upward, beckoning for this stylized masterpiece.

They groan and shake with movements wavelike as he lapped her. He loved like a man, urgent, possessive, protective and complementing how she loves, like a woman, with the sensualities, subtleties of her sultry power. She felt him hot inside her, yielding to her, burning and churning. Lightning struck them together and shot from their groins to their heads, making them lightheaded until lust ripped out of them. And they were voracious and panting, freeing the wild man and the wild woman with the delivery of a wild orgasm. And most of all, they were safe.

The Cinematic Orchestra - Arrival of the birds & transformation

AN – I cannot take credit for the line "Beautiful, passionate, and as crazy as I am."

It's a line from the movie Blow.