InsaneJournal

Who: Padmé Amidala-Skywalker, Anakin Amidala-Skywalker
What: Anakin has a bad nightmare - or is it just a nightmare?
When: (backdated) Thursday, February 14th, 2013 - night
Where: Padmé and Anakin's rooms
Rating/Warnings: Low, but scary force visions of ominous nature
Status: Closed / Complete

Padmé woke from a sound sleep to a jostling sensation. It took a few blinks in the midst of the darkness for her eyes to adjust enough to let her see her husband's form in the bed next to her. He was moving, his head and it seemed his mind was in the grips of a bad dream.

"Ani," Padmé's voice was soft the first time she tried to rouse him. She sat up in the bed, looking down at him. After a moment, she put a gentle hand on his upper arm. She repeated his name again, more forcefully, using his full name this time instead of her nickname, "Anakin."

She knew that, in his case, nightmares could be significantly different. Force visions would help be his, and her, unraveling in their home galaxy. However, in that moment, all that filled her mind was the immediate and worry of waking her husband to a more pleasant state of mind. It had been a lovely Valentine's (though Padmé didn't quite understand the appeal of it as much as Christmas, though perhaps because she liked nearly every day to be like what she understood Valentine Day's to be like.) and she was still in a slight haze from the otherwise pleasant day.

From all around Anakin voices screamed and moaned. They seemed permanent features of the icky darkness that enveloped him. The overwhelming majority shrieked with hate and anger, reverberating like metal clashing against metal. They thrummed in time with the beating of his heart, pounding at the cracks of his mental defenses and seeping down to entice awake that coiled dragon of his own darkness resting there. Try as Anakin might he couldn’t block the yelling.

There were other voices, too, mostly drowned by the cacophony of bellowing emotions, but between those moments when hatred switched to rage, fear echoed plaintively, begging for reprieve from something Anakin could only imagine. These supplicating words were indistinguishable from each other, but their collective intent was as clear as that of a child’s before a monster. Like a pleading whimper being smothered by the night.

He wasn’t aware of his own position in all this madness; it was around him and in him all at the same time. He was listening to it and the one screaming. And in all that somewhere Anakin forgot how to breathe, or his lungs did.

He didn’t hear his name; Padmé’s soft request couldn’t compete with all that noise. But he could feel something pulling him through the miasmas, and he moved both like he had an anchor tied to his feet fixing him fast to something unseen and as if he was crossing the galaxy in an instant.

His eyes snapped open, his lungs remembered how to function and he took a great choking gulp of air, and out of panicked reflex his hand reached up and snapped a hold of the arm trying to wake him. His chest heaved as he tried to make himself understand what was going on. Wide and overly alert, his eyes focused on Padmé, and he looked at her with entreating terror.

“Padmé– what– ?” he croaked when he could do more than just grasp for oxygen.

He realized then his grip was far too tight and he released her arm, pulling back his hand in revolution for doing that to her, even if it was unconsciously done. “I’m sorry! Are you alright?”

"It's okay." She tried to say in a soothing manner, though there was a moment when her breath catched in her throat out of surprise. Padmé pulled her hand into her lap and rubbed at the spot Anakin had grabbed with her other hand. No permanent damage done, and she knew it was accidental, though it still startled her. She stared at Anakin for a few beats, letting him catch his breath, before asking, "Are you alright?"

"I'll be fine. You - seemed to be having a nightmare. I-" The thoughts of a Force Vision finally hit her; she knew the future wasn't set in stone, not with the Land of Make Believe, and despite a sense of rationality she did feel some level of fear gnawing at her as she tried to tell herself that things would be fine. She didn't want any harm to come to those she loved, or to their future child. Whatever he had seen didn't seem to be a good thing. "I tried waking you up."

She reached out amidst the darkened room, reaching to run her hand through Anakin's hair and push it back away from his face. She admittedly did like his hair a little longer than his Padawan hairstyle, though she wasn't particularly fussy in regard to it.

Anakin wanted to reach out and sooth away the pain he’d caused her but remorse for hurting her stilled his hand. Instead he leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees and rubbed at his eyes. He sat their trying to calm his agitated nerves.

He could still hear that screaming and feel that hate boiling his blood, pounding a rhythm against the insides of his temples. It wasn’t his emotion, he knew it wasn’t, but it lingered and mixed with his own until he couldn’t distill out what was purely his and what wasn’t. With each deep breath the sensations lessened, but they eked out of him agonizingly slowly.

Padmé’s hands were blessedly cool on his hot forehead and he appreciated that, he leaned into her touch.

He turned his head to look at her. “It wasn’t a nightmare.” He knew the moment she tried to label what he’d just experienced it was incorrect. He just knew. “It was a vision.”

Padmé felt an icy sensation shoot through her at Anakin's statement. She knew she couldn't argue with him, but she wished it was just a nightmare. She twisted the way she was seated around, pulling her legs to her side and placing herself directly facing Anakin. She had tucked her legs on the side opposite of Anakin, which afforded her a closer proximity to her husband. The soft trickle of the tabletop fountains she had in the room provided something that calmed her, on some level, but she knew the noise didn't do anything for Anakin. Rather, she hoped she could do something to help comfort him.

"Ani," Her voice was soft, low, but still firm as she spoke, "Tell me what was in the vision?"

She reached for his forehead with her hand again, having noticed his reaction. She wanted that touch, a way to reach out with the present and pull him back to her and away from whatever horrors he had seen. Even if it wasn't a nightmare, she knew a comforting presence or touch could do wonders after such a thing. She went off what related thing she did know.

“I-” he started to say but then stopped.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to tell Padmé. Ever since she had been complicit in helping him break orders and leave Naboo without express permission from Obi-Wan or the Council when he’d told her about the visions he was having of his mother he had trusted her with the things he saw, always. But it was that he couldn’t quite describe what it had been about.

“I don’t know, exactly.”

He reached for her hand and held it between his own, still. He closed his eyes and rested his forehead against their coupled hands and started working through calming techniques. They started clearing out the fog hanging heavy over his mind, and he hoped they would grant him some clarity. But after a few minutes he was only marginally more certain what he had experienced.

“Nothing was clear. Everything was… I couldn’t see anything, actually. But I could hear people screaming. And-” He swallowed, running through an easy, brief technique before continuing. “I felt nothing but hatred and fear. It wasn’t me; I know it wasn’t, but… I haven’t felt anything like that since Tatooine- when we were on Tatooine.”

He looked at Padmé again. “Something terrible is going to happen. That’s all I know.”

Padmé waited patiently, her focus on Anakin amidst some sense of worry at the back of her mind. Generally, Anakin having a force vision seemed to proceed some form of death. Usually it was someone close to him. She was hoping that, whatever this was, it would break the pattern.

But once he finally came out of what she assumed to be a meditative state, perhaps shuffling through the information, there weren't any definite answers. Head tilted at a slight angle, she watched him silently for a moment before creating any sort of response. "We can be careful and prepare in for an emergency in any way we think of, even if we don't know what is going to happen. We can handle it. We know something is going to happen. I can't help but think we, or I, should tell Leia - at least."

Anakin knew Padmé was searching for the right words to ease away his fears. But uncertainty was a powerful hindrance, and all the comforting reassurances in the world couldn’t chip away at the dread sinking in Anakin’s chest. It wasn’t Padmé’s fault, this time the vision wasn’t even directly about her, but he knew it meant something terrible was going to happen. And terrible meant maybe Padmé would be included in that.

His mind couldn’t not travel down those thoughts to that conclusion. Padmé was his everything.

“I always try,” he whispered. “And it’s never enough.”

It was pessimistic to say, but when had his visions ever resulted in something good for him?

“You should tell her,” he said more loudly with a nod. “She should know, and…” He and Leia were still not on firm speaking terms yet. Leia should know about this, but the message shouldn’t be lost in all those feelings about the messenger. “You should tell her.”

Padmé, even as she was listening carefully to Anakin, found her mind was racing. She was worried about him and worried about what was going to happen. She wanted all of those she loved and cared for to be safe. Anakin, Leia, even Han. She wanted their future child to be safe as well. There was always a level of uncertainty to the future, but the force visions left an ominous cloud over the near future.

"We will try. You aren't alone, Ani. There isn't just me, but there's a number of people around this castle who would help." Padmé nodded in confirmation that she would tell Leia. There wasn't any question about the fact she would tell Leia.

"Can you feel anything happening now? We can check the network, too, and see if anything is going on. We should try to get some rest, if not, and tackle this starting tomorrow."

“No,” he shook his head after reaching out in the Force for any warning. He found none. “There’s no immediate threat. But I know whatever it is will happen soon.”

Padmé was right, this time he was not isolated from help and grasping blind for whatever answer he could find. He had Padmé, and Helena. And Leia was here as well, they may not be on good terms, but he knew she wouldn’t leave everyone to a dark fate if she could help it. And that was something.

But the unshakable inevitability of that vision chilled him to his core.

“I can’t sleep now, Padmé. Not even if I wanted to.”

Padmé may have been able to breathe a sigh of relief that they were safe in the moment, but she knew that there wouldn't be a true sense of peace again until whatever it was did happen.

"Lie here with me for awhile - don't sleep, just rest? Or you can go to your workroom if you want." She knew that, despite the fact she would've preferred him next to her. She always did sleep a little more soundly when he was next to her and, even if Anakin could get by not sleeping for a while, Padmé did need to sleep. It was selfish, but she felt instinctively safer with him there. Nevertheless, she wouldn't fault him for going to his workroom if he chose it.

Anakin was torn. He wanted to be doing something, something to figure out and prevent whatever it was he saw. He could feel his anxiety welling in his gut, making it so he couldn’t rest. But there were no answers to this puzzle right now, not without more pieces. And there would be no forthcoming in the near future. At least not before dawn.

He looked at Padmé for a solid minute, his face etched with worry and a longing to make this time not end with the destruction of the galaxy. Or at least not end with Padmé’s death.

At last he nodded and moved to lay back down next to her. He pulled her close because he needed to feel her body pressed next to his. He needed something solid to ground him.