Disclaimer: The Star Wars Universe is the sole
property of George 'The Visionary' Lucas; a gifted
soul whose deft perceptions have never dimmed
throughout his many inventive years.

Sudden Comfort

"...Ani...Ani..." Softly, she said his name
several more times with her face so close to his
gloomy one that was streaked with defeatist
tears. Nothing she said seemed to make the
slightest difference to him. Her heart, filled
with sadness for him, went out to him, as she
tenderly stroked the side of his head.

For all the world that they were presently on,
she wished she could say something, anything
that would really help. Something, anything
he could latch onto, even if the lifeline
she threw to him was flimsy. What manner of
words were there to say in the solemn face of
acute grief?

"Easy, there. Easy, now. It will be all right.
It just will. Somehow, it will."

Again, he asked the same question with a choked
swallow of profuse tears and his unwillingness
to look into her face. "Why'd she have to die?"

This time, Padme was slower to answer, as she'd
realized the words she'd chosen to reply the
first time, though true, in no way served as any
comfort to him. She bit her lip, and gently
replied, "You're not to blame, Ani." Her lips
were very close so she kissed the outer middle
portion of the crescent of his left ear. It
wasn't her imagination making it so when she saw
his sullen-looking face brighten a fraction, and
reluctantly, he dragged his eyes cautiously to
hers.

"I...I feel like I am," he informed her, staring
down his own resentment. "Like it's *all* my
fault. I shouldn't have left her here all alone.
I should've stayed with her instead of going off
to be a dumb Jedi. I was selfish. Only thinking
of myself, as usual, and what I wanted my future
to be."

She shook her head, not the least bit in agreement.
"You were an amazing young boy who wanted to
better himself, and in time, the lot of others."

"If I had stayed, I could have protected her,
and she'd still be alive." Anakin shut his
eyes, inhaled sharply, and held his breath, as
though if he held it indefinitely, he might wake
up from this awful dream. On a personal level,
all would be right with this world, once again.
"I don't know what to be anymore," he lamented,
and dropped his head into his hands. His sobs
filled the stuffy work area with its oily aroma,
and echos of mourning.

"You know it's what Shmi wanted for you, Ani..."

"Now she has a mass-murderer for a son. The
name of Skywalker will be linked with infamy
in these parts."

"You reacted out of anger, Ani. You didn't know
what you were doing..."

His head sailed up, and he gawked at her, as it
gradually, incredibly, dawned on him that,
amazingly, she wasn't condemning him. He wasn't
a blood-lusting monster in her eyes; an animal
himself, to be eschewed.

On the other hand, if Obi-Wan learned of this
misdeed, he would ream him out, and then
systematically go about enumerating every single
one of his past failures when it came to
controlling his volatile temper.

"They're all dead, and instead of it making me
feel better, I feel worse. The sum total of
their deaths can't bring mom back."

It had been cathartic killing them, cleansing,
purgative, but now his mounting feelings of
recrimination and revulsion turned against him.

Anger welled up inside of him again, as what he
had said about hating the Tuskens he'd branded
as animals replayed in his head. The inhuman,
yet terror-stricken faces of the children he'd
remorselessly struck down, their piercing
screams, and fearful cries, reappeared and
blared in his sorrowful mind's eye and ear,
haunting him like omnipresent spectres.

Padme inched even closer to him, and somehow
coaxed him to rest his heavy head upon her
sturdy shoulder. Both of them remained quiet
for a time with him in her arms. Their
breathing patterns settled into a curious,
intangible symmetry.

"You know what she said to me before I left,
all those years ago?" Anakin posed in a
tremulous voice. He still felt terrible, but
being this near to Padme felt nice. She was
soft, warm, a balm, and inviting. He smiled
a little in spite of his pain when her hand
blanketed his, closing over it.

"You never told me," Padme mindfully replied,
twirling and twisting his braid of the acolyte
around her delicate index finger.

Anakin sighed heavily, and when he finally
spoke, his use of words was blunt and stinging.
"She said that her 'future was here.'" His
voice seized within his throat, and he made
a choking sound. "I wish I could have seen
the future back then as well as Master Yoda
does." He raised his head and looked Padme
squarely in the eyes. "Someday, I WILL see the
future as clearly as Master Yoda; maybe I'll
see it even better than he does, and I'll never
make any mistakes. *No mistakes* ever."

Telling him that he wasn't all-powerful hadn't
gone over very well the first time she'd said
so, so prudently, she kept that opinion to
herself. Wisely instead, Padme said with a
lilt of appeasement, "Allow yourself enough
time to grieve, Ani. Embrace the sorrow and
hurt. The hurt may never fully go away, but,
in time, it may not be as keen as you feel it
now." She eased her face full of concern and
compassion a hairsbreadth from his. "Being the
determined, confident man you are, this sad
occurrence will only make you stronger. I
believe in you, Ani, and I'm here for you."

His heart swelled for the love he felt for her,
near to bursting. Wondering if she would mind,
then deciding she wouldn't, he commandingly
took her around the waist, but squeezed gently.
"I thank the Force that you're here with me,
Padme. If not for you, there's no telling what
crazier things I'd be doing right now." His
eyes held hers in a death grip. Eight out of
ten planets in the galaxy could be slipping from
their gravitational silhouettes at this very
moment, Tatooine included, and he wouldn't have
cared less. Being with Padme like this was all
that mattered; all that would ever really matter.

Impulsively, he cupped her hands, bringing them
to his moist, seemingly tumescent lips, and
lovingly caressed both sets of fingers with
them. With the Force, he reached out to her,
wanting her to embrace the scope of his gratitude.
"Stay with me tonight, Padme? ...Please?"

Starkly, her face clouded with a firm resolution
of turning that brand of forwardness down quickly,
but by the same token, aiding and abetting the
desire of not wanting to injure his feelings any
more than they already were. Tactfully, with
diffidence, she responded, "Ani--Anakin...under
the circumstances...I don't think that would be
such a good--"

Seeing the latent look of shock suffused with
disappointment, stamped upon her face, Anakin
blinked rapidly several times, and recoiled to
counter, "No--no. I don't mean it like *that*."
His cheeks burned over his innocent request
being misinterpreted. The corners of his mouth
quivered. How could she think for even one
moment that he would blunt the jagged edges of
his hurt and make the most of his needy
situation by suggesting a carnal remedy?

And suddenly, there it was. That naive,
boyish heartbreaker of a smile she was
beginning to look for, enjoyed seeing, and
Padme returned the expression of mercurial
embarrassment identically, even lowering her
eyes then, the way he had. "I meant...so we
can talk. There's so much I want to say to
you--need to say, and so much I want to hear
from you."

It was nice having the air in here lighter,
than it had been following Anakin's gut-
wrenching tirade. Deep down, did he truly
harbor such vindictive, resentful feelings
toward Obi-Wan? The man who was more like a
father to him rather than a mere mentor.
She could not see how that could be true,
seeing his face had taken on a softer aspect.
Giving Anakin the benefit of the doubt, and
given the present circumstances, she refused
to believe he really felt that way about such
a kindly, unselfish soul as Obi-Wan. Duress
had provoked him to utter those indicting
words.

Pertly, Padme asked, "Oh? What exactly would
you like to hear me say?"

Parrying with a renewed sense of positiveness,
Anakin said, "Uh, hmmm, well...that some way,
somehow, we'll always be together. I can't
think of living my life without you. I
understand why you said what you did before,
during the journey here, about our having
different destinies. But, Padme, what good
are noble destinies, if happiness is shut out?
How could anyone live like that?"

Quite successfully Padme quelled the impulse
to roll her eyes. More and more, why were his
arguments starting to make some weird kind of
sense? How unfair of him to look at her that
way, and how unfair of her own awakening
feelings of devotion and loyalty to him betray
her sense of obligation to fulfill her
responsibilities, not only to the deserving
electorate of Naboo, or to her family, who
had such high hopes for her and her career,
but to herself.

She looked over to the tray of untouched food,
knowing that if he perhaps ate something, he
might gain a tighter rein on his feelings
which seemed to be bouncing all over the place.

"Anakin?" Padme said sweetly.

Growing more and more accustomed to that light
lilt of request her voice held, he returned the
question, sounding eager. "Yes?"

"Eat something?"

Giving her the sly eye, and then sounding as
though he were one hundred-proof sham, he
inveigled, "And if I do?"

"You'll have a full stomach..."

"And?" he persisted, braiding the fingers of
his right hand with those of hers, even adding
one or two tugs to help the striking of the
bargain along.

"I'll talk your ears off before tucking you in."
More sensuously she brokered, "As long as you
eat all those purplish, fuzzy vegetables, like
a good, big boy." Padme enjoyed seeing the look
of palpable shock swimming in his eyes this time.
"How's that?"

"Deal," Anakin piped up, stood and rushed to
comply with her wish that he nourish himself.
He came back to their spot and reseated himself
beside her. He took a long swig of the powder-
blue liquid. This stuff was fantastic! It
wasn't too sweet, and had a refreshing tartness
to it. He grinned at Padme, and made the
comparison easily. He thought he had heard Beru
say it was muulik, or muulak juice; for the life
of him, he couldn't remember what it was called,
exactly. All his life living on Tatooine, he had
never seen nor heard of it before. Around bites,
he asked, "What about you? Have you eaten?"

Padme nodded. "A little before you returned..."
Rife for changing the subject before,
unwittingly, a pall was cast on his happier
mood, she expressed, "Life may seem simplier
when fixing things, but it's sustenance that
greases the wheels. You have a healthy appetite.
That's good."

Anakin looked up from, what he thought was
braised Bantha tongue, smiled as he filled his
mouth with the succulent protein, and nodded
with a faint glow of contentment radiating from
his, now, less swollen eyes. "Growing up, mom
said I was always hungry." He gave a short
laugh; one of fond remembrance. "She was
only half right. I was always starving." He
jostled up against his attentive companion in
playful camaraderie.

Padme answered his shove with an equally
playful one of her own, smiling over at him,
when he half-heartedly protested that she had
made him spill some of the, 'blue stuff' on
himself. Pleasantly, she watched him wolf
down his food, and felt happier now; for him
and for herself. He's a handful, she reflected,
and smiled at him again with an upbeat nod,
even favoring him with a game wink when he
showed her how clean he was getting his plate.
But I like...she continued mentally.

Seriously, she deliberated over, and speculated
about the strengthening bond of affection being
forged between them.

Yes, I like challenges...

End