6There's a little bit of explanation required for this one. I'm imagining an alternate universe, in which Anakin is around seventeen when Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon, and Padmé find him on Tatooine.
Enjoy!
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Stretched out –
Stretched out on the grass
A boy – and a girl
Savoring their oranges
Giving their kisses
Like waves exchanging foam
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It was a shift in the air – like the drop in pressure that brings the storm.
Padmé's eyes opened to the blackness of her unadorned cabin. Even though she had only slept here a handful of times, she knew exactly where she was. The hyperdrive hummed steadily in the background, but otherwise everything was quiet. Padmé swallowed to wet her dry throat and put a hand to her forehead, every awakening, as always, immediately assaulting her with pain. The dark figure disappearing into the desert storm; a soulless army moving through the beautiful streets of Theed like a clattering poison-
She shook her head, batting the thoughts away. What had woken her?
She frowned and sat up, her silken sheets flowing down off her upper body to collect in her lap. Everything was as she had left it when she had turned off the light. Her black suitcase full of her handmaiden disguise sitting in the corner, the room otherwise empty aside from a centuries-old tapestry of the palace hanging on the wall opposite her. No one had changed the climate control – it was still cool, like a pleasant spring day in the lake country. And yet something was different, a sense she couldn't identify.
She brushed her sheets aside, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. As she rose, goose bumps racing up her calves as her feet touched the cold metal floor, she grasped her red and orange handmaiden's robe and threw it loosely over her shoulders, then quietly stepped out of her room.
The hum of the hyperdrive grew louder as she stepped into the common room in the center of the ship. Shadows slept in the corners of the room, where cushioned benches formed private enclaves, and a simple table with elegant, curved chairs stood in the center of the space. The only light came from the communications kiosk across the room from her. Its screen shone like the pale shimmer from an aquarium.
Were it not for the kiosk screen she would never have seen him. Its light traced the left edge of his figure like a painter stroking a white silhouette on a black canvas. But even if it hadn't been on she would have known he was there. In any room, the unguarded strength of his presence could never go unfelt.
Anakin Skywalker.
His back was to her, the lines of his powerful muscles visible under his thin sackcloth tunic and trousers. Even from across the room she had to look up slightly at him, he was so tall. He was immobile and still as a column of granite. It looked as though he wasn't even breathing.
She turned to leave.
"I'm selfish," his deep voice shuddered through the room, as low as a whisper. Padmé's breath caught in her chest.
"What?"
Anakin didn't move. It was as though he hadn't spoken.
"I left her in a cave. Look… look at this."
Padmé walked towards him, her steps gentle, her robe rustling as it trailed behind her on the durasteel floor. As she grew closer to him she couldn't help but feel a bit of awe. The top of her head only came to his shoulder, and every inch of him was powerful muscle, thick and toned from his fighting in the rings, his skin honey brown from long days under the Tatooine suns. But now his back was hunched, his arms pulled close and one fist pressed into his stomach.
Padmé stopped just behind him. He shivered.
"Are you cold?" she asked. Anakin was silent. She immediately took off her robe, reached up and threw it about his massive shoulders. His position didn't change for a long time. The robe swayed like a curtain, then became still. His head turned slightly, then with a short intake of breath he grasped the cloak and pulled it tighter around him.
Without looking at her, he reached back and took her hand, wrapping his large grip around her fingers and palm. It was a simple, childlike motion, without thought. Padmé was surprised for a moment, but eventually squeezed back. He held her hand gently, as though she was made of glass, his warm skin tough with calluses. She stepped closer to his side, touching her shoulder to his bicep.
"How did you know I was here?" she asked.
"You're like the sunrise," he answered. He was silent for a long moment, his head down.
"I made this for you," he murmured, his voice low and warm as glowing embers. He reached into his tunic and pulled something from inside. "So you'd remember me." He turned to face her, gently lifted her hand in his and placed what he was holding into her palm. His eyes were bright against the color of his skin, like sapphires. Padmé looked down and opened her fingers.
It was a necklace. A simple pendant of finely sanded wood strung on a worn leather cord. It was shaped like an hourglass, thin, perfectly symmetrical lines delicately etched into its front. For a moment Padmé couldn't answer. Anakin had surprised her with his every move the moment they had met. It amazed her that such a powerful and strong man could be so sweet and gentle.
'This is beautiful," she said softly, looking back up at him. She moved to tie the necklace about her neck, but Anakin stepped close to her and took the cord from her hands. He reached over her shoulders, brushing her hair back, and deftly tied the cord in place as he watched is settle against her chest. The corners of Padmé's mouth lifted as his open, vulnerable eyes raised to hers again. She took his hand, softly rubbing the back of it with her thumb. He stood very still, his eyes becoming downcast and hooded. His mouth trembled.
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Stretched out –
Stretched out on the beach
A boy – and a girl
Savoring their limes
Giving their kisses
Like clouds exchanging foam
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"There's nothing more I can do for him."
"Is he - ?"
"He is strong. I am not worried."
Padmé couldn't relax, couldn't look away. Her arms were pulled close to her chest, her fingers digging into her skin. The twi-lek healer nodded brusquely, then stepped out of the tent, ducking under the flap and into the barren sunlight. Anakin lay in a cot in front of Padmé, his eyes closed and his face pale. Intravenous tubes were stuck into his arms, steadily supplying him with blood. Outside hundreds of troops shuffled about their duties, their noise only slightly muffled by the private tent's fabric. The Jedi healers had offered her their medical skills for the wounds on her back, but she had refused. How could she sit by while Anakin-
Padmé swallowed.
The healer had removed Anakin's blackened and seared tunic, leaving his chest bare. Ten years of being a Jedi had made him even stronger than when she had first met him, his every muscle toned, flexible, and surging with power. A physique now marred with the twisting lines of burn scars that a bacta bath had not been able to erase. A circle of stitching and bandages covered the thin, circular wound through his stomach, hiding the reconstructive prosthesis that the healer had just spent an hour inserting.
And his right arm was missing from his elbow down.
Padmé couldn't move from the foot of the bed. The tent was bleak and grey. Silence reigned inside, save for the beep of the heart monitor coming for the small readout hovering at the side of the bed close to Anakin's head. The beat was slow and powerful; the monitor's soft chirp only sounded once every two seconds. The stench of sterile chemicals bit at her nose every time she breathed.
Padmé sucked in a sharp gasp, desperately fighting to hold her silence. She could not hold her tears.
Anakin's deep and even breathing stopped the moment the tears touched her skin. She swallowed, her eyes wide, staring down at him.
"Padmé."
Padmé choked and put a hand to her mouth, more tears spilling into her fingers. Anakin's eyes drifted open and found her. He lifted his left hand. "Please."
She swept to his side, leaning over him as he wrapped his strong left hand behind her neck, staring up into her eyes.
"Don't cry for me," he whispered, sliding his hand to her cheek and wiping away her tears. When he used the same hand to brush her other cheek she couldn't hold her sobs back any longer. "I'm never going anywhere."
She fell forwards, everything forgotten but the scream of her heart, and pressed her lips to his. He showed no surprise as they touched, instead wrapping her into himself, leaning up and curling his fingers around her neck as his lips moved against hers. They had never said a word of love. There would never be a need.
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The flames raced across his skin with every breath, every touch, every millisecond, enjoying the torture they brought. His jaw tightened, his dim and ruined eyes pressed closed, flakes of skin gathered where his tear ducts used to be.
Under a canopy of glimmering stars, the hovering casket shaped like a teardrop, silver and sparkling with the sky's reflection, emerged from the house by the lake. An immortal, unbreakable silence pressed down on the lungs of the thousands of men, women, and children gathered, a single way through the throng leading to a dome of marble with no windows and a single door.
He screamed as his nerves were rekindled in his arms and legs, as each fiber of fabric scraped against his bleeding muscles – no sound escaped his lips. In and out, as his seared irises tried to focus, he glimpsed the cold, faceless visages of his tormentors. He struck out against them, a dry rasp flying from his mouth and blood coating his throat as his vocal cords tore.
The casket bore a woman frozen in time, her flowing auburn hair spread about her head like a shimmering halo, her skin fair and radiant, a dress of blue shimmersilk wrapping around her shoulders and a shroud of ebony lace covering her legs. Not a breath of wind stirred the gathered trees.
Black armor was fitted about his chest. A shining ebony collar clamped around his throat. Gloves slid over hands that were not his. The terrible light from above was eclipsed by a black object that descended towards his face, its shadow growing until only blackness remained.
There were no words spoken. No eulogies, no audible tears. Only silence as the shining casket bearing the young beauty floated into the house with no windows, where only shadows lay. A necklace was clasped in her fingers, made of fine, sanded wood, with peculiar carvings across its face. No one knew who had given it to her.
The last trace of moonlight disappeared as the single door was closed forever.
Only in shadow did he stand. Only in darkness and silence. A black helmet with a face of death was now the only face any man would see. A cloak of night hung from his shoulders. The armor of a warrior adorned his body. And a powerful, machine-driven breath was the only sound.
His eyes were now mechanical – red as blood, the weakness, the heart of all he saw glowing like beating hearts. He could not breathe unless the machine willed. He could not speak unless the machine analyzed his vocal chords and the shape of his charred lips. His speech was the voice of a deadly lord. And the unbearable, unquenchable fire searing over his skin never ceased to scream.
He was dead. As dead as his wife. Padmé, whose throat he had squeezed. Whose life, in horror, he had felt breathe into him and leave her an empty shell, only a fragment of lifeblood remaining in her heart. He would forever watch her fall to the ground; forever feel the icy sear of the blue blade; forever deserve the flames tearing through his skin and the heat scorching his lungs.
Forever unable to move without agony.
Without his love – without the life that his own hands had taken - he was without love, without life.
He would never allow either to creep inside his corpse until it, too, ceased to be made to breathe.
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Stretched out –
Stretched out underground
A boy – and a girl
Saying nothing
Never kissing
Giving silence for silence
-Translation of 'Los Novios' by Octavio Paz
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I hope you enjoyed it. Please review! I always personally answer every one!
This fic was inspired by Eric Whitacre's composition of 'A Boy and a Girl.' It is absolutely gorgeous – a song with seven melodies, and yet no melody at all. And yet it expresses what words cannot. You MUST listen to it to get the full feel of this piece. If you type in 'Eric Whitacre a boy and a girl' on Youtube, you'll find it. The one with the spaceship has the best quality – just minimize the window so it doesn't distract you.
Thanks for reading!
-Adin