ascension

Summary: Anakin Skywalker does not fall. Anakin/Padmé, Han/Leia, Luke/Mara. (Three times three)

Warning: Three times three short stories, set in the same universe. The usual warnings for fractured, drabble-esque plot.

Set: AU.

Disclaimer: Standards apply.

One – Three conversations

One

She wakes up slowly, like surfacing from deep, black water.

The sheets are warm and it is quiet: there is no reason for her to leave the depths of slumber, no disturbance. And yet, Senator Padmé Amidala Naberrie, former queen of Naboo, knows that there is a reason for her awakening.

Anakin next to her does not move.

He is a light sleeper, anyway, she has woken him more often than not trying to slip past him. But she has yet to make a noise. And he is still, so terribly still, doesn't even seem to breathe. Fear grips her, lances through her in a flash, freezes her on her sheets. She lays there, unmoving, and strains her entire being to hear anything, to feel his breath or his warmth or his heart over her own, thrumming heartbeat.

She hears only silence.

Her hand moves, grabs his arm, her lips form his name, soundlessly, and then he's up, as if he expected her to attack him, his breath comes in harsh pants that tell her he has indeed been holding it before. His skin is clammy and coated with sweat and he rolls out of the bed without even glancing at her, with all the speed and grace of a Jedi, crosses the room until he reaches the window and stops only when he has put the maximum possible distance between them. There, finally, he freezes, panting and forcefully calming his breath, and her heart beats so quickly it hurts.

"Anakin."

He is a dark shadow against an even darker night and everything in her cries out at his sight. He hasn't felt that young – that lost and terrified – to her since a rescued slave boy was taken from his mother and his home, and sat across from her, shaking and determined not to cry.

Are you an angel?

"Anakin." Her voice is a whisper. He doesn't move, his entire posture screaming his distress. "Anakin. What's wrong?"

He answers after what feels like an eternity.

"Nothing." He tries to sound normal, but she knows him. "Bad dream."

Had she really expected his nightmares to be over, after everything that had happened on Tatooine? Why has she never thought about that? Guilt crushes her, all the things she had carefully locked away streaming out at once. Has she really been so busy that she never noticed anything before? How long has he been hiding this? How couldn't she have noticed?

"Your mother?"

"No." Curt, clipped. It hurts her heart. "Go back to sleep."

And - she should, shouldn't she? Because he is so brusque, and because he's not talking to her even though they barely see each other these days, because he's always out on his missions and she is always away at some Senate meeting or other, because she has to leave, early in the morning, and he will be gone when she returns. Because if he doesn't want to talk to her, who is she to force him to? Because, because, because -

Do you know how much I love you this second?

Padmé pushes the sheets back and swings her legs out of the bed, joining him at the window. The air is cool, she shivers, but she does not go back. Her touch makes him jerk away and she freezes, half hurt, half understanding, and waits. Just waits for him to calm his breathing a bit more, to relax just the tiny amount that makes it possible for him to feel her on that level she knows he can but can never experience herself, no matter how much it hurts. Just waits until he risks a sideway glance at her, waits and doesn't move at all. Padmé just waits until he leans into her with an exhalation that sounds like grief and guilt at the same time, like anger and denial and desperation. His skin is hot, as if he's instantly sorry for pushing her away in the first place. But he doesn't look at her. And despite the things that have been standing between them for the past months Padmé does not hesitate a second when she wraps her arms around his middle, too small to reach his shoulders, and draws him in. Grounds him, anchors him, angrily determined not to let him drift away.

Because he has been, in the past weeks. He's moving further and further away and she can't do anything to stop him.

There is so much she wants to say – plead with him, promise him, hear his promises in return. She has questions aplenty. Where do you go when nobody knows where you are, what do you see when you look at me, why do I feel you are constantly slipping away? But all of them are still-born. Padmé presses herself closer to him, takes his hand and lays it on her stomach, and wishes, wishes, wishes.

The baby kicks her.

They freeze.

There it is, again.

Anakin separates from her, his mouth opens wordlessly as he stares at her, at her stomach, at her face.

Padmé can't help but laugh in wonder: it's the first time the baby makes itself known, the first time she feels it like that. Her love for the life growing within her surges, takes away her fear and distress, replaces it with breathless wonder and love. And Anakin he is staring at her, wide-eyed, the child she met, the man she got to know, the heart she loves so much.

"Does it – has it – Padmé-"

"This is the first time," she tells him, giddily. He sinks to his knees, lays both hands against her stomach, closing his eyes, and Padmé feels tears scratch at the back of her eye lids. Together, they breathe, and when Anakin looks up at her again the sensation in his blue eyes is overwhelming.

"You are a miracle."

He's kneeling before her in a way he didn't even do when he proposed to her, and she feels - "Babies generally are-"

Worshipped.

"No. Padmé, I mean you."

He gets up, wraps her in his arms, and for the first time in a long time Padmé thinks yes, this is my Anakin, he's here again. His heartbeat at her cheek is fast, she can feel it, and waits for it to synchronize with hers, as it so often did before. But oddly, it doesn't. Anakin's arms are tighter than usual, too, heavy, the way his breathing is ragged and his skin hot makes her stiffen, and she realizes he is shaking.

"Anakin." She extricates herself from his arms against her own will, but she needs to look at him.

"Anakin. Look at me."

He doesn't, and she knows something is wrong. For how long? Longer as she has wanted to accept it. She felt there was something in him but chose to ignore it, too blissful with the news of her pregnancy, too busy with her work, too preoccupied in hiding their relationship in the first place. Guilt shoots through her again, hot and painful, and she cringes. Anakin is back instantly, his worry written all over his face. So he still cares, at least.

She waves him off, takes his face in her hands instead, looks at him and wills him to understand with her entire heart.

Tell him. Force or God or Destiny, whatever it is that supposedly guides us, that supposedly laid the burden of being the Chosen One on this boy, I never asked anything of you but please, tell him. It's okay to let go, sometimes. It's okay to share. Tell him, the child you supposedly have been waiting for for centuries, don't let it be lost like that-

"Anakin. Something is wrong. What is it?"

(And to think there had been times when she had hated Qui-Gonn for telling her-)

He stares at her, unblinking, and the child is back in a heartbeat. Young, vulnerable and lonely, completely deserted by the cockiness he has carried like a shield for the past years. The child - afraid, broken, heart-breakingly brave. Anakin averts his eyes, swallows. Takes a breath, swallows again. But he doesn't pull away, and Padmé prays. And then it breaks out of him like water from a broken dam: His dreams of her death, of their child's death, of fire and war and devastation. The ugly, painful nightmares, his doubts, fears, hesitations. Palpatine's plans and promises. You will have the power to protect her. And fear – again and again – for her. For her, for their child, so human, so trivial and yet so all-encompassing. Her legs give out under her and she sinks to the ground, Anakin follows, burying his head in her lap, she strokes his hair, numb, unseeing. Padmé fell in love once in her life. Now, for the first time, she learns what a broken heart feels like. Because hers breaks for him, over and over, like jagged shards of a broken glass being trampled again and again until the pulverized particles are ground into the mud and dust of the bleeding earth.

Morning finds them still on the ground – the light is grey and weak, she briefly thinks they are not the only ones mourning (a choice, a man, a future), but moving would have entailed stopping, and once Anakin began he hardly seemed able to stop. He hasn't really looked at her yet but she feels the wetness of his tears on her skin, the trembling in his shoulders.

The way he grips her hands, as if they are the only thing grounding him.

"I don't know what to do, Padmé," he whispers, broken, afraid. "What should I do?"

Padmé has been a politician for all her life. She knows manipulation – even if it is subtle – when she sees it. There is a voice in her head that screams, screams, screams, refuses to stop until she has killed the man she trusted with everything she had ever dreamed of with her own hands. For what he is doing to her life, her goal, her dreams – for what he is doing to her beloved. But she also has been a politician for long enough to know that the first course of action seldom is the best.

"You need to tell someone."

They cannot solve this mess by themselves. She knows very well, and she knows telling one person is hardly enough. But before all of it – before addressing Palpatine's (she can't think of him as Sheev anymore, the man who had been her friend, all these years) treason – she needs to help Anakin. Anakin needs to find his strength, and she only knows one person who might be able to help. The second person, next to her, who has known him since he has been a child and who loves him, unconditionally and deeply, even if he huffs in exasperation at his sight most of the time.

"You need to talk to Obi-Wan," she whispers, and feels exhaustion tug at her core. "Anakin. Please."

He doesn't look at her, but he stills, slightly, as if contemplating. Eternities pass, and Padmé counts her heartbeats. The light from outside is grey and dull. And finally, he nods.

Padmé closes her eyes, feels the softness of Anakin's hair under her fingers, and lets the tears fall.

She wakes up hours later, in their bed. The clouds are shifting, the sun is coming up. And Anakin is right there, beside her, curled around her, protecting her even while asleep himself. His breath is steady and his features relaxed, and now that she knows he was plagued by nightmares she can tell the difference. He looks drawn and exhausted, suddenly aged, his handsome features shuttered and grey. And Padmé never loved him more than then, and never feared for him more than then.

Still, he is peacefully asleep, and with the clearing daylight, Padmé dares to hope.

Two

He expects Obi-Wan to be angry – well, furious, actually.

He has every right to be.

Anakin's master never was of the calm, centered, steady sort. Anakin's master is honest and strong and impatient, at times, and the rashness of his youth sometimes shines through his countenance, a brief, bright reflection of a temperamental boy who learned about loss too early, and took responsibility too early but never shirked away from it. A boy who learned to love his duty, and learned to love the boy placed in his care despite everything. Still, despite the glimpses of the past, Anakin's master is a Jedi Master. And Anakin can't remember how often he has tried to crack that solemn expression in the past, to make the older man show some sentiment, some reaction. He'd been happy if it was anything, impatience, exasperation, even anger. Any show of sentiment would have been proof that Obi-Wan cared. But he'd never managed it, never really got to know what his master carried in his heart. He'd given up, at some place. Now, if there ever was a situation that warranted Obi-Wan Kenobi letting go of his freaking Jedi calm, then it is this one, surely.

There is a Sith Lord attempting to topple the Republic, and it's a man they all have trusted implicitly.

And Anakin fucked up. He's not sorry about his choice of words. Anakin fucked up badly. He needed someone to confide in, wanted someone to look at him, to acknowledge him, to trust him with all the things the Jedi - Obi-Wan - did not trust him with because he was young and angry and impatient, yada yada yada. He'd come so far since Tatooine. He'd gone to lengths to prove himself, he'd trained and fought and even killed. And still, it had been nothing but still much you have to learn young padawan and you're too impatient Anakin and the silent voice, ever-present: you killed him. Sometimes he's not even sure if it's his voice or his master's, because he can understand Obi-Wan's frustration, hates it as much as he hates slavers and heat and sand. But he has come so far. Why, so why - Oh well, he went and fucked up, and so much of what he's been doing is completely fucked up, too, because it feels like everything he's ever done and said has been only been paving the road to ruin. And there is no way back: his trust, his childish wish for acceptance and acknowledgement have made him trust Palpatine – something in Anakin recoils at the name – have helped him establish his base of followers, have aided in his rise to power. It hasn't been Anakin alone, but it feels like that: the Jedi made him Supreme Chancellor, they gave him the Senate, for Force's sake, they have been consolidating the fundament of his power up to the point that there is only little left to make the balance of power topple over, once and for all. Yes, the Jedi have been helping him, but it feels like that means mostly Anakin has, and that's – that's something he can't even think about.

I trusted you.

He still shudders at the revelation of the man's Dark Side powers. But then, he didn't really say anything, did he? He just suggested -

"You have a feeling," Obi-Wan echoes, and Anakin knows it's going downhill from here.

His teacher looks like he's going to explode already when Anakin finally gets to the Hey, by the way, I am married to Padmé - excuse me, Senator Amidala-part, and the vein ticking at his temple is not helping him look more sane.

"You are married?!"

Well, that could have gone better, he supposes. Oh, wait, there's more –

"PREGNANT!"

Seems like his teacher even abandoned the pretense of Ask first, Don't Judge.

And Old Anakin would have argued.

Old Anakin would have mocked and teased and deflected, would have joked, and tried to explain by using flashing gestures and funny metaphors. Old Anakin would have reminded his master of his deeds, the things he did, the beings he rescued, would have hinted at his education. Did you not tell me? But Now Anakin is tired. Tired of sleepless nights, of the emotional wreckage of his nightmares and the fact that Padmé found out, the terror he still feels, the world in flames. Dreams of his master dead, of burning his beloved, of his child dying. He is so sick and tired of these images in which he kills the very things he loves most – Now Anakin is tired and sad and desperate, and yet, he's better than before. Padmé, his inner voice whispers, and he lowers his head guiltily. He's still terrified she might die. Perhaps she will. But… There is a line he cannot cross because suddenly he knows, with a security that evaded him before, that she wouldn't want him to. And even his master - the man he's tried to impress for almost all his life, his master which he has failed by turning towards someone else, trusting the very man who wants to eradicate the Galactic Republic - even if his master never saw him as he'd hoped he would he knows Obi-Wan wouldn't want him to succumb to the darkness. How strange it is, this sudden change in perspective, the sudden knowledge that what he is doing is right, and that, even if he fails, he has tried, at least. How strange, the fact that he bound himself to other people despite knowing that they would leave him so quickly, that he twined and twisted his life around their presences and their faiths, their beliefs and their lives, and how their fear and worry do not increase his own but soothe, somehow. It makes the terror… Not less, but manageable. Maybe that is because he talked to Padmé, because she has a way of putting things into perspective. Maybe that is because he now has told his master everything, no matter whether Obi-Wan will believe him or not. Lines, lines. If Padmé dies, Anakin will die, too. But Padmé never would want a Dark Force user to rise to power, she loves the Republic so much, would fight for it until the end. She loves every single being in the galaxy, and for her faith alone – maybe hers can carry him a bit, when he falters?

Obi-Wan is breathing heavily, his eyes blazing. His voice, despite his earlier outburst, is calm and controlled. Its tone burns through Anakin, worse than the phantom pain he still feels in his hand.

"I expected better of you, Anakin."

In the past Anakin would have rebelled; shouted, argued, protested.

Now, he just lowers his head. "I know, Master. I'm sorry. I failed you."

"What?"

At the startled question, he lifts his head again, and Obi-Wan is looking at him with a puzzled expression.

"You failed me? Anakin, you might drive me close to the edge of madness on days that end with y. I confess, I expected more of you, expected you to act differently, or, at the very least, to tell me earlier. But I never thought – not for a second – that you were a disappointment."

It is a punch to the gut.

"But…"

"But?" Obi-Wan echoes. "Anakin, I've known you since you were a child. I've trained you, I've watched you grow. I've seen you use the Force to protect the helpless and to save those who couldn't protect themselves. You make me want to slap you multiple times a day because you are reckless and disrespectful and don't think enough about the consequences of your actions – but I never once thought you failed me."

His breath hisses out in a stream of air, but he still cannot allow himself to - to believe. Obi-Wan sounds honest. There is no resentment in his voice, no anger, nothing Anakin can detect. But there is - there is that one thing, that one -

"I thought – I mean – Master Qui-Gonn…"

"My Master," Obi-Wan says and speaks extra slowly, and on any other day Anakin's defiance would have been peaked to maximum but today he just waits, frozen, for the verdict, "died to protect you. I began training you to honor him, not because I resent you for his death."

Anakin, up to this point in his life, never realized how much he had longed to hear just these words. He feels his eyes burn, refuses to cry, refuses to lift his head.

"Your allegations against the Supreme Chancellor are grave. But why in the name of the Force would I not believe you? I know you. I raised you. And you are not a liar, Anakin."

"But..."

"You broke the Jedi Code, and you are willing to carry the consequences. You came to me, Anakin."

"Master…"

"This is not the child that pushed the blame onto others anymore, that never was willing to carry responsibility. You've grown so much, Anakin. My Master would agree. He would be proud of you, and so am I."

He doesn't even have the time to look confused. Obi-Wan's warmth floods him, like it had so often when he'd been a child, when he'd desperately clung to it and then pushed it away, thinking it was forced, pretended. But their student-teacher bond is still alive, still fills him with trust and calm and peace. Anakin never saw his master as his master only: Obi-Wan had been a friend, and something like a brother. On some occasions, something like a father, too, and a teacher, a role-model. I want to be just like you. Anakin holds on to the nearness, the trust – not like a child, not desperate and clinging. But like it is something precious, breakable. And suddenly he can see Obi-Wan's doubts, too, his hesitation to get too close. Spoil him you can't, Obi-Wan. His worry for him. His utter, complete trust.

And then Obi-Wan shakes his head and sighs.

"Why is it that you always get yourself into such a mess when I take my eyes off you for even a second, Anakin?"

But even Obi-Wan's reproachful tone feels more like a fond sigh. Laced with true, heavy worry. This is something that is larger than the two of them, something that goes beyond Anakin's breaking of the Jedi Codex. In comparison to Palpatine's treason, a Jedi ditching the No attachment-rule seems trivial indeed.

"What do we do now?"

Obi-Wan sighs. "I don't know. Let me think this over for a night, and then we need to talk to the Council. We need to react quickly. If he told you about his allegiance, he is almost ready to size the power."

"Just confronting him won't help. He's incredibly powerful-"

"He managed to not only hide his powers but to completely shut himself off against even the most far-fetched suspicion. Of course he is extremely powerful."

Anakin can't help it: he grins.

It hurts a bit, because he is not used to it anymore. And he's a bit afraid, because he can't say how Obi-Wan will react, and that aside, this is not a situation that warrants humor. His fear for Padmé and their child is still there, like a leaden stone in his stomach. But Obi-Wan's warm presence is like balm to a wound.

"Don't say it," his master warns him, his eyes blazing.

Anakin feels his heart lift. "You are getting soft at your old age," he teases, and jumps aside when Obi-Wan's hand comes down to knock him on the head. He bows his head again.

"Thank you, Master."

"I am proud of you, Anakin."

They sit, side by side, and the silence is familiar.

"So, when can I visit the Senator? Congratulations are in order, apparently."

And his master's dry tone gives Anakin a raging headache as he suddenly imagines the two most important people in his life meeting on those new, now out-in-the-open, terms.

Three

A failed arrest. A breaking window.

Soundlessly, a Jedi Master dies in the fall. Somewhere else, all over the galaxy, clone troopers turn in unison against their Force-sensitive commanders. They never see it coming.

Fire and destruction.

Devastation.

Death.

Jedi, dying. Younglings. Children. Their screams echo in his head, their blood is warm on his hands. It feels like a dream, and he knows it is none.

"Do it, young Skywalker, and you will gain the power to protect what you love."

Anakin lifts his light saber, and the child in front of him does not run. It knows him, that man in the black cloak, the blond hair billowing out around him. The child looks at him, bewildered but trusting, fascinated by the iridescent, green blade -

"Together, we will be unstoppable!"

Padmé smiles at him in the morning, her eyes full of love, Do you know why I fell in love with you in the first place? She is brilliant in her pregnancy, warm, welcoming, a place to return to, the home he never had.

"You find the power to overcome your fears in yourself alone. There is no life, only darkness."

Obi-Wan looks like he is torn between absolute exasperation and utter amazement. You didn't even realize they were twins? What Jedi are you? I taught you better, Ani. His presence in the Force is warm and trusting, and indeed, proud: all the feelings Padawan Skywalker never could see because he was too afraid to believe.

"Give in to your anger and fear."

And the twins. The twins, their children, his and Padmé's, these miracles, these tiny wonders that already radiate in the Force so brightly, too young to have their own presence and yet so beautiful and precious -

His blade comes down in a green, lethal arc, sealing his fate and the fate of the galaxy forever –

"You and I will hold the galaxy in our hands!"

You will never be alone.

And Anakin Skywalker shakes off the visions, lowers his light saber and steps back.

"No."