InsaneJournal

Who: Padmé and Anakin
What: Padmé and Anakin talk about what’s been bothering him
When: (Backdated) Sunday, October 14th, 2012 - late night
Where: Their rooms
Rating/Warnings: Angst, sap, fluff, brief mention of future deaths/torture - PG-13 overall
Status: Complete / Closed

Padmé wanted Anakin to be happy, as anyone wanted those they cared about to be happy. Of course, she also wanted him to be sad, worried, excited, and any other healthy emotion that hit him. She wanted him to be able to feel the freedom that most were able to without the fear that they were innately giving into a dark nature that could doom those they loved. Love. She wanted Anakin to feel free to love with every fiber of his being, like she felt, and the safety and warming comfort that it brought.

However, right then, she knew he wasn't feeling happy. She knew he had been morose for a time, now, and something had to be weighing on his mind to be causing such a reaction. Padmé didn’t know if it was Obi-Wan or not, but she knew to leave the topic be for a time. She wanted to give him time to work through his emotions on his own, but that didn't mean she was going to avoid approaching what was bothering him in the long run.

The younger Anakin Skywalker had long since turned in, leaving Padmé's attention only needing to go toward checking in on the elder. She changed into her nightgown, then went to the doorway of his workroom and knocked gently on the door.

After he was certain he wasn’t needed for the evening Anakin had retreated to his workroom to lose himself in the fabrication of some new mechanical thing. His direction was aimless, he had no end goal in sight for this current project, he just needed something to divert his cares and worries towards so they didn’t overwhelm him.

He had told Padmé about the shared dream and his ‘talk’ with Obi-Wan down by the lake, he wouldn’t hide something like that with her. He was trying for as much open honesty with Padmé as he could manage. Sometimes he was better at that than at others. And while the shared dream had been an emotionally draining experience, one worthy of the time he’d taken to process it, it was not what was weighing most on his mind just then. Perhaps it had confounded his present concerns, or had been the impetus to make them rise to the forefront of his mind where he couldn’t ignore them anymore.

But no, something else was troubling him.

He knew it was Padmé at the door before she knocked, he could feel her presence in the Force telling him who had arrived. He did not hesitate to stretch out with the Force to turn the knob and draw the door back, he wouldn’t deny her anything.

His hands paused on their work and he turned towards the door when she was visible in the frame. He looked, and felt tired. Too little sleep this last week for fear he would unintentionally draw some unfortunate soul into the darker corners of his mind – what if it was Padmé the next time? He knew he had no control over it, but he wouldn’t be able to forgive himself if he did that to her.

“Did you need me?” he asked quietly.

"Always."

Padmé leaned against the doorframe, not moving into Anakin's territory but staying back and watching him thoughtfully. She knew he found a mental freedom in what he did while tinkering away and, truthfully, she found the habit endearing. Still, the fact that he had immersed himself in a project amidst this mood left her wondering what mental prison he was trying to put behind him through the focus on the various shiny metal pieces.

"Though, I suppose, most would wish me to go with a stricter definition between 'want' and 'need.'" Padmé smiled a little, hoping she could lighten Anakin's mood a little. It wasn't about manipulation or desire to soften things before going in as to what was bothering him but, rather, her being honest. She truly, deeply, loved him. Thus, she needed him.

Anakin gave his wife a small smile. It was genuine and expressed how much he loved Padmé, but it wasn’t engaging. To do that seemed insurmountable, and he knew she hardly required he fake enthusiasm, even when in any other moment he would have drawn out this particular part of the conversation.

“I know,” he said. “I meant, did you need me back in your rooms?”

As much as he loved talking with Padmé, if she needed something from him he preferred, right then, to address that as quickly as possible. As while he tried to exercise all the patience she deserved, he knew he was short tempered as of late and the sooner they resolved what she needed the less opportunity his emotions had to get the better of him.

Padmé couldn't help but feel a sense of ache at the lack of engagement from Anakin. The barrier between him and the outside world was one that she didn't blame him for, but she didn't like existing; Not when she was on the outside, too.

"Our rooms." She quietly corrected, her smile fading as she took on an appropriately more serious demeanor for the topic at hand. She could see how bad things were and, despite no regret for the small little expression of love and attempt at lightening banter, she knew she needed to focus on the more serious aspects now.

"I wanted to know if you would talk about what it is weighing on your mind, Anakin." Padmé out and said it, "But it's your choice. Just know I'm willing to listen, if you're willing to talk?"

Padmé had corrected that a hundred times before, and yet Anakin still struggled to claim ownership of the quarters they shared. Too many years he’d been required to think in terms of no personal possessions outside of a very few things – his clothes, his lightsaber. He couldn’t switch that way of thinking off without effort, and it was especially worse when he was emotionally distraught.

He stood straight and tall for a few blinks of an eye more before something within him seemed to fold in on itself. He slumped back to lean against the table and crossed his arms over his chest.

“What’s the point, Padmé?” he said when he finally looked back up at her shaking his head. He looked utterly defeated. “We all go back eventually. What good is it talking about it?”

Padmé felt an undeniable sadness at what Anakin was saying, suddenly much more clued in as to what might be weighing on his mind. She was quiet for a moment as she thought through her answer, wanting to be honest with Anakin. Her tone was serious, though she tried to avoid it being imploring despite a certain desire to try to coax it out of him. She knew that if he wanted to talk about his feelings, in this case, it needed to be of his own free will. She had no desire to try and wheedle it out of him. "I think about it too."

"How can it be avoided, at times? But-" Padmé stated, honestly, "While we're here, what we feel and do here, matters. What will happen later after here - affects our mood and our minds as we go about our lives. So it matters."

"Besides, Anakin," Padmé smiled a little, though she didn't do anything to hide the sadness she was still feeling as far as her expression and body language went. "What you're thinking, what you feel, matters to me. It doesn't matter if it's ‘relevant’ or not."

“I know, Padmé,” He said, shaking his head. She said it just about every time they talked about his feelings as if he’d clam up without that prompting. His problem wasn’t his unwillingness to share, but his inability to self-analyze and know the root of his problems. He’d known something was wrong those month leading up to the moment Palpatine revealed his true identity, Anakin had tried seeking help from any number of different places, but in the end, his confusion so complete, and his skills at recognizing and communicating what he was feeling so inadequate he’d stumbled blindly into the palm of Palpatine’s outstretched hand.

He knew she wanted to know what he was feeling, but expressing himself correctly was another thing altogether.

“I don’t want to go- I can’t go back-”

He knew he shouldn’t say such things, or try to follow that train of thought to the conclusion that was habitual for him to make – there was always a way, there was always hope, he would not rest until he found a way achieve his goals no matter how impossible they seemed to everyone else. That desperate way of thinking was what brought him to Palpatine’s feet in the first place.

But baring that course of action, what was he left with doing?

“When I – we – go back, what’s waiting for us?” As he was talking tears stung his eyes, and though he tried to press his eyes closed against them they didn’t stop there. It was as if someone had pulled loose the pin keeping him all together. He slid down the solid oak leg of the table to floor, and pressed his hands to his eyes.

“I don’t want to become that.” He sounded like he was a boy again, asking someone stronger than him to make it all better again.

Padmé nodded in confirmation, affirming that she had heard him, but her verbal response was stopped by seeing Anakin slide down to the floor. Worry and instinct took over and all plans and calculated thoughts about how to approach this without potentially inhibiting his ability to think through things on his own were forgotten.

She rushed in the door and took caution where she stepped, even if she had slippers on, but making her way over to where Anakin was and crouching down next to him.

"Anakin," Padmé's right hand reached to put her hand on one of his, her eyes focused on him. "I know. And I know that isn't you. You will triumph over that -"

“Not before I hurt you.” Or Obi-Wan, or the Jedi, or my children, or… He continued the thought privately.

Only when Padmé’s hand touched his did Anakin look at her. His fingers only loosely gripping hers, he was so intensely focused on some other thought. His hands now removed from his face tears ran freely down his cheeks.

“Everything was so… confusing, nothing made sense-” he shook his head, as what he’d just said felt off, “No, that’s wrong. When I was with you, or Master Obi-Wan, I knew you loved me and I could trust you both, and sometimes I could see what Palpatine was… Like everything seemed off and sinister around him, but then, I’d go back near him and he’d start talking and it’s like nothing I knew to be true made sense anymore. Only what he said. I couldn’t- couldn’t argue with him. And I just wanted so badly to save you.”

“I never wanted to turn into that- to Vader… I was so close to becoming that before I came here, I would have done it- I will when I go back and I can’t change it! … I can’t, Padmé.” He ended in defeat, those last words sounding uncharacteristically pitiful and so bereft of hope.

Padmé brought her free hand up to cup Anakin's face, an expression of affection amidst his lament over what Darth Vader would do to her and to Luke and Leia. The future was undeniably ominous and bleak, for a rather large gap, and the happy ending to it all only came about when Vader ceased to exist and shortly after, Anakin would die... The knowledge of what was going to happen took all of the limitless numbers of unknown out of life; it made everything so concrete. The only area when it became unknown was after Anakin's ghost-like form went on to whatever existed after physical death...

"If I could change things, fix things so you never have to know that moment, I would. Even if we can't, Anakin, then know one thing. After all of it ends, after you come back and - Luke and Leia move on to live their lives, I'll be waiting. Whatever there is afterward... you won't be spending it just sitting in a circle with Obi-Wan, Yoda, and Master Jinn. Okay?" Padmé kept her eyes locked on him, hoping that he would see how serious she was about this. Never mind if she couldn't control the situation in the Republic as it crumbled and turned into an Empire, she would get the reunions in the afterlife that she wanted.

Anakin didn’t have anything to say to Padmé promise. His eyes searched her face for sincerity; he wanted it so desperately to be true. The idea that everything would be lost when they left here, was simply too much to bear thinking about. The knowledge she would be waiting for him to come back to her simply needed to be true.

A fleeting, sad smile flickered across his mouth at the thought of Padmé ‘rescuing’ him from an eternity of instruction from Obi-Wan and Yoda. Certainly, Anakin knew, when he returned to their world and after he’d had come back from the Dark Side he would look forward to seeing Obi-Wan again, but surely there would be a reprieve from endless tutelage.

The levity of Padmé’s words didn’t lift the somber mood for more than a second. He nodded, accepting Padmé’s convictions and then moved to pull her closer so he could wrap her in an embrace. They would be a long time breaking free from one another.