thisavrou_log | [closed;] shall fall and fall upon us all

[closed;] shall fall and fall upon us all

Who: Anakin Skywalker (

forcechoke) & Padmé Amidala (

democratically)
When: Dec. Event, Week 4
Where: Midway Hub
What: Feelings, kids, general Skywalker family nonsense.
Warnings: N/A.

[He isn't initially sure how to bring this up. Isn't sure enough of what the situation is, or how he even feels about it, let alone how Padmé will respond to it. The awkwardness shows, every inch of it, in how he's folded into himself, the quiet grab of her attention and the motioning of them both away from the group as they've now split in half trying to find this gate (and hopefully a step closer toward normalcy).

He continues on in the same general direction, though even at a slight lag, it would be difficult to lose anyone in this whole lot of nothing. Waiting until Padmé breaks off with him, he gives her one of those characteristic awkward shrugs, the sort that leaves his hands with nothing to do with fidget as he rolls his shoulders, rubbing at the back of his neck or playing with the hem of a sleeve unseen.]

We need to talk.

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[There has been a change since the Force left. Not within Padmé, as she has never had any abilities in its use, but within her husband. She cannot truly understand what it is that he is going through, and not only because she does not have the Force. She can equate it to the loss of a limb or a sense, but even then, those are not losses that she knows. Her own losses are of a different nature, information that she has held dearly to herself, within herself, a ball coiled tightly within her chest.

She has kept an eye on him when possible, especially as the time dragged on. From what she can tell, there has been no change in any, that all have lost their abilities. Yet today she can tell that there is something on his mind, something different, and Padmé doesn't fail to have her attention caught. As the moments pass, she works her way towards him until they are off to the side and giving him a concerned look, she nods, eyes searching is own out, as if trying to perceive what it is that has been troubling him.]

What is it? Are you alright?

[He nods quietly at first, making sure to adjust his pace to hers. Both tired and wounded in different ways, it doesn't take much effort, just conscientious effort. Realizing that the lead was perhaps not the best way to start this when it sounds too ominous--though his mood is still sour from his argument with Obi-Wan a few days prior--he clears his throad and shakes his head.]

It's--I'm fine, it's not that.

[Knowing, of course, what they both mean. Nothing on the front of anyone's powers seems to have changed, though some have adjusted better to the loss than others. He still finds it a little harder to breathe, and certainly much more difficult to think, but that insufferable status of silence has only remained that. Silence.

They both know he isn't "fine," not in the strictest sense of the word. But it hasn't gotten worse. He's not sure he really wants to consider how worse even works.]

It's...I'm not really sure where to...

[He takes a deep breath and forces himself to focus. It's not the kind of clarity he's used to, and nowhere near the kind of reassurance he needs, but it's better than rambling on endlessly until he eventually finds the point.]

It's about us.

[Fine may well have that ulterior definition when it comes to them, a go to word that the other realizes doesn't exactly mean what it typically means. He is strong, in many ways, yet not invulnerable, as much as he might wish it so. It is not that then, although something chews upon him. That much Padmé can readily see, something beyond the current situation that affects those with powers.

It doesn't alleviate anything though, and rather, that concern deepens as he starts to speak, before cutting off. Some days she needs but a glance to know what is going on through his head, and other days she cannot piece his puzzle together. It is one of those days, and if she is caught by surprise, it is hardly surprising.]

Us?

[It is clear that of all the things that Padmé might have thought for Anakin to say, such had never crossed her mind. Her mouth opens for a moment, before closing, and that earlier outward display of calmness might have started to crack a little. Of course he can't sense the way her heart beat quickens or feel the shifting emotions within her anymore, which may well be a good thing in this moment.]

What about us?

Well not...us-us, it's--

[He's just making this worse, isn't he? He can tell from that tone of concern that he's not alleviating it, just shifting the concern from one place to another that shouldn't have given her cause to worry at all.

He sighs, and runs a hand through his still-growing, messy hair.]

Just us when we--it's Luke. Luke's here.

[And thus, with little fanfare, he both meanders in the way he hadn't wanted to, and blessedly eventually gets to the point. Though he's not sure that's come out with the explanation it needs either.]

[To say that Padmé is having a hard time trying to follow Anakin's wayward thoughts would have been an understatement. It is clear that there is something weighing on his mind, and it is clear that he is trying to talk about it, but what isn't clear is what it is. Them, but not them, and while an answer would be appreciated, she waits, as patiently as she can, even though she is finding it hard.

Would that she could simply wrap him in a hug and disburse all those worries from his mind. Her own fingers reach out, to gently touch that other arm. No matter what it is, she would be there for him, as always, as ever, offering whatever is in her power to offer.

How he jumps is beyond her, from seemingly one thought to another, or perhaps merely placing half-formed thoughts together that might otherwise have had a logical sequence, had it been fully formed.

She nods softly, having only ever laid eyes once upon her son. The day he was born.] He looks a lot like you did, when I first met you on Tatooine.

Padmé, he's older than Obi-Wan.

[That, at least, is pushed forth with certainty. It's where the crux of his problem sits, when it doesn't take any continued meandering logic to reach that point. There's a small bit of comfort in the fact that she already knows, that his not saying something about it isn't a point of negligence when she's approached it first.

But he's still unsure of where that leaves them. She, he knows, has had those children, seen them, if only for a too-short period, where back home he'd likely still be none the wiser in that department, or still expectant and eager and ...would he be scared of something he knows he wants? What would be, he supposes, doesn't matter much when that's no longer the case. He's expectant and yet he's been given an opportunity to try to get to know those children he should still be waiting for, and he's already screwed that up once.]

That's not...weird?

[It's very weird. Very weird, and while an opportunity, he still feels like he's being robbed of...something. Years he should have had. Years his supposedly still-inevitable other self will inevitably squander.

How is she so calm about this?]

Is he?

[It does take her back for a moment. Padmé knows that Luke had said that the body he has it not his own, yet she hadn't thought to question just how old he actually is. She had simply been surprised and delighted to finally be able to meet her son, and they had talked, but not about that.

Yet is that what is bothering him? Padmé finds herself watching him, trying to fathom where it is that Anakin is going with this. Leia had been older as well. Clearly not as old as Luke apparently it, but she had not been a child, let alone a baby or still within Padmé's womb.]

It- it is. Yet, there is a lot about this galaxy that is strange, Anakin. It seems every few weeks something happens. I just- I've met Leia, Ani, but to be able to meet Luke...

[Something. The ship's floors becoming mushy. People changing forms. Strange planets with foreign species.

But it has to be more than just that.]

Is... that what is bothering you?

Fifty-two. Fifty-two.

[He gets caught up in that for a moment, as if the sound coming out of his mouth is just as baffling as the concept itself, his son twice his age. Yes, it had been just as weird to meet them the first time, to have his daughter as a peer and then worse.

But that, at least, he's used to in some capacity. The Temple prepared him for that, Ahsoka prepared him for that. He doesn't love it, but it had been something he could latch onto with some kind of footing and familiarity, when his family has largely been a found-and-made one for a majority of his lifetime.

He doesn't know how to connect with this. He isn't even quite sure how to vocalize it properly, to find the explanation he wants. It's like being a Padawan all over again, introduced to this larger world, having a more intense connection with it than anyone around him knew how to fathom, and him being at an untrained and overwhelmed loss to try and explain how he'd felt.

His hands move to words he isn't saying for a moment, as if he could conjure up the shape of his emotions and illustrate them so plainly. Finally, they drop with a sigh, and his shoulders with them.]

Sort of. I don't--I don't know what to do with this.

[After a pause, he reaches out and pulls her to a stop with him as he halts in place. His hands find purchase on her shoulders, and he squeezes, gently.]

I wanted this. Want this. Padmé, you have to know that.

[And indeed he has. He's dreamed of a family since before they'd even met. Complete and happy in a way that's always made him question how the Order could ever find fault in it. The vision of that future is tarnished now, darkened and haunted by possibilities he can't shake, and all he wants is the simplicity back.]

But like this? I--how do you parent when there's nothing you can...when they don't need it?

[Fifty two... There is a part of Padmé that had thought he would be like Leia. Close in age, not quite understanding that Luke would be closer to her own father's age. Yet it does still her. Fifty two. Almost double the age of Padmé when she passed. Oh, there is so much there then, so much to learn, to know, to realize.

Her own breath is drawn quickly in as she blinks. Padmé has already accepted that she would not be there for first giggles or laughs, first sobs, first words or steps, or birthdays... So many firsts. Yet fifty two years of them? Of course it also means that in fifty two years Luke knows her not. It is a selfish thought, and she has come to understand some of the reasonings behind keeping the identify of her children secret, but for so long?

Her own gaze drops, brows furrowing, staring at nothing for a moment, merely listening to Anakin. That he didn't know what to do with this... Padmé hasn't thought further than that, further than the wonder and joy of that moment, of seeing Luke so much like his father. Of being able to talk to him, in reality, and not just imagining what their son would grow up to be. Yet his hands on her bring her eyes back up, her mind back to this moment, no longer wandering.

But all of it doesn't change the fact that Luke is here.

A hand raising, her fingers brush against his cheek. Neither of them would be there for their children. Padmé can only guess at what long path that Anakin will have, and it is something that breaks her heart.]

And who says that they don't need it, Anakin? It- it is different, yes, but, he is still our son.

I know that.

[He has the ability to sound at least somewhat chastised. It sounds, as he thinks back on it, and then overthinks after that, like he's trying to distance himself, or disown the man that calls himself their son.

But what hits him then is just how much they've both missed. Their own age, his mind could at least wrap around the concept of his children as friends, even if it hadn't been ideal. But all those things beyond the Rebellion that Luke had alluded to--a family, a wife--are just as bad as all those traditional firsts. They haven't just missed a childhood, they've missed a lifetime.

His gaze and hands both drop.]

I know you're right. We've just...missed everything.

[She'd known as she had drawn those last breaths that she would never be around for either of them. She would not comfort or chastise. She would not see them grow, from babies, to children, to teenagers, to young adults, to adults... It hadn't been her own life that has flashed before her eyes, but the lives of those she would be leaving behind.

Her hands cup his cheeks even as his own hands drop, and she moves to tilt his face back up to her own. There is understanding there in her own eyes, as she knows full well the levity of it all. Yet, as always, there is still hope within her, a hope that might flicker and diminish, but that never truly goes out.]

I know, my love, I know. Truly.

[Her thumbs brush against his cheeks lightly as she lets a soft breath out.]

But it is an opportunity, one we otherwise would not get. We might not have been able to be there for him as he grew up, Ani, but we can be there for him now.

I know. I know. [The admission is adamant, but quiet. He knows what he wants here. What should be. What the idea of "family" dictates. He knows she's right, but there's still something here that rings so uncomfortably, he can't wrap his mind around how to approach it.

What is does is keep bringing him back to Tatooine. It comes in short flashes, and thankfully stays away from the grimmest parts of those memories. It's his mother at first, all smiles in the midst of one sacrifice after another that even at such a young age, he'd understood was an unfair balance that never should have rested on those shoulders. But it shifts every now and again to the family she'd chosen, those who had stayed when he couldn't. When he should have. And it's here that he finds some kind of clarity where the Force cannot provide it.

Time and again, it comes back to this. A family tangentially connected through the collision of stars. One that will never properly be his, and yet it has been given to him all the same. He'd never spared Owen Lars a second thought after Geonosis--not one that hadn't been wrapped up in some sort of grief-soaked bitterness and resentment for the boy's having so easily replaced him--and yet, it seems, Owen Lars is determined to stay connected to his life regardless. And he resents it. Maybe he always will.

This is the way Luke feels, so grown up and distant and connected to him wholly anyway: like something he's forgotten, or left behind, and maybe can't ever fix. Will he always resent this too?

Anakin finally sighs and buries his head in his wife's collar. The only question left now comes out as a quiet mumble:]

How did you know where to start?

[Arguably nothing about their marriage has been what can be considered normal, right down to only having two droids in attendance. Were she to allow it, she knew her mind could go down paths of what might have been. What might have been had Anakin said yes on Mustafar, had they gone off to raise their child- children. Yet, Padmé knows that neither of them had been the type to stick their head in the sand, and the world would still have existed around them, with Palpatine as Emperor of his new Empire.

It has simply been one of those things that has come so naturally to Padmé. Like breathing, she hadn't needed to think about it and had only acted on instinct. It isn't as if there is a guide book on what to do when you have died and met your aged son in a child's body. It is precious, that much Padmé knows, for it is something she would never have otherwise been granted, and she views the whole thing with gratitude.

Yet her fingers play at the nape of his neck, stroking those fine locks. Even as a child, Luke looks so much like that boy that she met on Tatooine all those years ago. Yet... Padmé can see little touches of herself within him too.]

I didn't. [Lying isn't something that she does with Anakin, and while she might not have told every single event that had transpired between what he knows and what she does, she has never not told the truth. It is true though. She didn't know where to start.] I just- I know I'll never see him, Anakin, that I'll never be there for him. He- [And there is a soft breath taken there.] He didn't even know who I was, but... But he is still ours. Our son. You and I. And I am greedy. I want to know everything, both good and bad, what makes him who he is.

[He frowns slightly as he works through all of that, his expression setting into a firm line that speaks volumes of doubt he doesn't have to vocalize. He knows he should feel the same, he wants to feel the same. But when he knows that this distance is his own fault, and seems to always be his fault, compounding that on the poor, strained note he'd left his son on previously...]

I have to fix this.

[The admittance is muttered, quiet, and not really a present part of the conversation, but it does always seem to come back down to this. Fixing things that haven't happened in the hopes they never will.

He lets his shoulders drop as his gaze fixes back on her presently.]

I--we just have so much to make up for, that's all.

[~~And he has a universe worth of amends to make.~~]

[She can see the play of emotions on his face, watching as they move, as his mind runs over the thoughts within. Sometimes... Sometimes things simply do not go as one has planned. Sometimes, no matter how hard one tries, it all crumbles. It is about what one does after those moments, in the heart beats between, about how they approach it.

She wouldn't say that it is something that he needs to fix, something that he needs to put on his shoulders. Whatever his future holds, it is not his yet. Leaning forward, Padmé presses up on to her tippy toes, to plant a light kiss on his forehead.]

Just be the man I fell in love with, the man that I love. Everything else will come, Ani.

[It doesn't feel like enough. Like it ever can be. Has he been wrong all this time, and love...just isn't enough?

She's good at warmth and comfort. She always has been, and he's always loved her for it. At least to his recollection, and there's certainly enough between their meeting, the waiting, and now, to reference. Even if she hadn't known, her imagined presence had been a comfort too.

But the comfort now doesn't reach where it used to. Isn't as warm as he remembers it. All he can feel is her touch and the concern roiling in his stomach. This isn't the time to break down, no matter how easy it would be and how much he wants to give into it. He sighs and forces a small smile.]

I hope you're right.

[Padmé is well aware that sometimes simply saying something will not drive the point home. It might put the idea there, but time will be what it will take to truly have it sink in. She doesn't know what the future holds, but she never has either. Luke is here though and they have been given a unique opportunity.

Yet she knows that his smile doesn't reach quite as deep as it once used to, or come as easily. It is a feeling that she knows well enough. They have changed since Naboo, since Tatooine, since the war. But, for all the changes, some things have remained the same.]

I am. I will be.

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[closed;] shall fall and fall upon us all

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