fh_alumni | Naboo [dawn, galaxy, far, far away]

In the moments before the sun rose above the lake, Anakin walked onto the porch, closed his eyes and stretched out into the Force, desperate for a last few moments of peace before he and Padmé returned to Coruscant.

He had a feeling that as insane as the last few weeks had been, things were going to be getting a lot worse. He hoped that it was what Obi-Wan referred to as his natural pessimism rather than a nudging from the Force, but he had a sinking suspicion it wasn’t.

So he’d taken the opportunity to grab as much happiness as he could now and to hell with the Jedi Code. He’d lost his mother, most of his right arm, and his belief that the Jedi could defeat anything they came up against. Anakin was the Chosen One—even if he still had no idea what he was supposed to do to stop this madness—surely he could have just one moment when things went his way.

After the month he’d had, he thought as he clenched his prosthetic hand into a fist, he’d earned that right. Even if the Council still saw him as a child—he gripped the Padawan braid and gave it an irritated yank—he’d seen enough to know that certain impossible dreams of his would never come true. He hadn’t been able to rescue his mother…and he’d never be able to get back to Fandom. So when Padmé had looked up at him on the ship on their way back to Naboo with tears in her deep brown eyes and asked him to give a piece of himself to her forever, Anakin couldn’t bear to tell her no.

The sun’s rays reflected off of the metal of his new hand as he reached into a pouch on his belt and pulled out a mixture of sand and glitter that would mean absolutely nothing to anyone who wasn’t him. For Anakin, they were the symbols of the other two women he’d loved most in the universe. The ones he’d never see again. He looked down at it, blinking back tears, and then tossed the handful into the lake and smiled. In some small way, Rory and Shmi were now a part of Naboo, a planet that Anakin still believed was the most beautiful place he would ever see.

Anakin cocked his head, listening, and then his smile broadened. His wife—even if no one else would ever know about that—was waking up. And this time, he vowed to himself, nothing would happen to a woman he loved.