Little note: I changed nickname. No big deal. The old was was a little... old.

Miles From Where You Are

"Fuck this place. I want to go home!"

The great Anakin Skywalker didn't feel so great in that moment. Wrapped in as many clothes as he could wear, he sat in the middle of the "meeting room", as Ferus called it. It was a room dug in ice and rock in the middle of the area they had chose for the new Rebel base with a couple of fold chairs and a table. Nothing else. Ferus felt strangely at ease in that place, in the middle of nothing, with no heating system. As if he was born to live in places like that, where ice never melts and snow is the only landscape around you.

Anakin was used to much warmer climates. He could stand the heat of Tatooine without a flinch, but cold... such intense cold like there on Hoth, it nearly killed him. He had brought the warmer clothes he owned, but it still wasn't enough.

Having already spent four weeks out of six he had been assigned there before going back to Dantooine, he felt a little stupid not having already acclimatized, but no such luck. He was freezing cold 24/7 and was ready to send the best regards to everyone and fly back home to his family.

Not only he had been forced as a form of sadistic revenge to be part of the first wave of workers on the ice planet for a new place that would work as a covert operations base and mineral extraction, considering the high amount of minerals in that place, but he had to come without his family and for the second time he had to be separated from his growing kids. Saying that he hated that situation was the understatement of the year.

"Then go home Skywalker! No one's keeping you here!"

He looked up at Ferus and snorted. "Shut up, you dragged me here and now you are keeping me here. Stop acting like you don't want to keep me here for some distorted reasons. I broke your nose, you're keeping me here even though you know I hate cold climates. Fair enough."

"You don't even mean a word you've just said." he stated, coldness seething in his words.

They hadn't parted in good terms, he nearly bit the head off one of his best pilots when they had met again and they weren't exactly in the best place about their issues, nearly fifteen years after what had happened between them. Fair enough, they couldn't stand each other's presence, that was true. But what he did, tearing him away from his family six weeks before his daughter's first birthday knowing perfectly well how he felt about being forced to leave them home for any kind of reasons, that was beyond cruel.

He knew the story.

He knew Anakin had lost eight years of his life to save the life of more Jedi that he could have hoped (his own included) and in those eight years he had lost everything about his kids. He knew he wanted to be there for everything, but he came up with this unannounced trip to Hoth and the in-construction base on the northern hemisphere of the planet. The coldest hemisphere. It all sounded like a big joke at Anakin's expenses.

"Yeah. I don't mean it. I meant that you're a heartless bastard."

As cold as it was in that room, the silence that followed felt even colder than that. They stared at each other for a long while, before he shrugged his shoulders. "Who cares what you meant. You had your chance with me Skywalker. You blew it."

"Oh come on! That was ages ago! Can't you just bury the hatchet and forgive me? I know I was a jerk, I realized it long ago! I paid for my sins, OK?"

"You're alive. Darra isn't. If you had told me what you had done, she would still be here. If you had paid for your sins, as you said, you'd be dead." he said, voice filled with hatred. "You're alive. You haven't paid."

Anakin folded his arms across his chest and leaned back on the chair. "Would it make you feel better if I was dead?"

"No. But at least justice would be done. She died because you didn't tell me you had fixed Tru Veld's lightsaber!"

"She died because the Dark Side of the Force was screwing with us! And yes, I'm alive. I nearly died I don't know how many times since that day. I've been shot, slashed, beaten, stabbed, broken and rebuilt more times that you can count. If that's not a payback for all the idiotic things I've done in the past, then I don't really know what you want from me. Try at least to be civil with me, because we'll have to work with together for a while now." he looked at his watch and stood up. Time to go to his bunk, his shift had finished three hours earlier and he was dead tired. Also, they were entering the right time-window to call home and get to know how his family was doing. "Oh, and by the way, if you won't let me go back when we have agreed so I can be home for my daughter's birthday, you're gonna suffer. For real. I'm a nice guy, but when it comes to family, I'm the biggest asshole of the Galaxy. Clear?"

"Clear. I would never take her father from a little girl. I'm not that cruel. Now go, I know you want to call home."

He nodded and left. Outside, there was only a maze of hallways and rooms dug in ice or rock, a lot of work being done all day long, sometimes even at night, and feverish activity, even with that temperature. As he walked towards the living quarters, in the small single room that Ferus had kindly assigned to him, General Skywalker was saluted more times he could count. He didn't even know half of the people in there, they came from other bases and places in the Galaxy, he didn't much care if they saluted him or not. He just wanted to take that heavy and cumbersome jacket off, slip into something more comfortable and then take refuge beneath the giant mass of covers and blankets he had amassed on his bunk bed.

He literally wrapped himself into at least six different kind of covers, two of them were made out of high tech fabrics designed to protect people from the coldest environments. They didn't work so well, at least with him.

He was cold every fuckin' night of those six weeks. From his perspective, that sucked. Hard.

The few moments he spent without the heavy jacket before he slipped in his bunk nearly froze him off, there and then. Shivering like a dry leaf on the wind, he hastily settled down and relaxed, waiting for the insulating wrap around him to stop his body heat from dissipating into nothing. He was starting to feel a little better when the comlink beeped. He checked on the screen for the caller ID. Padmè, right on time as always.

"Hey there Angel. How you doin'?"

"Tired, but alright. How 'bout you?"

"Trying not to be turned into a Force Sensitive popsicle. I swear this is the last time I come here. Any other place would do. I'll go even to Yavin, I don't care. Hoth is off limits."

She giggled on the other side of the line. "I see. Do you want to speak to the twins?"

"Nah, let them do their homework, I know how you care about it. We texted this afternoon, before their training session with Obi-Wan. We're cool that way. How's Lena?" he asked, hearing the cheerful laughter of his youngest daughter in the background.

Padmè groaned. "Hyperactive. She didn't take her afternoon nap and now she's overstimulated. I've been trying to put her down for sleep for a long time now and there's no way she'll lay down to sleep. I think I'm going to let her ride the rush until she's exausted and falls asleep on her own."

"It may take some time, you know." he mumbled, running his hand on his roughened face. The combination of the extreme cold and the frenetic activity had restrained him from shaving. Results: three weeks worth of scruffy beard, perfect for keeping him a little warmer but definitely a reminder of his darkest days. It had stopped itching a long while earlier, still, everytime he touched his face his mind went back to the long, agonizing months on Dxun. He needed a long encounter with a razor.

"I know all too well. She's getting quieter now though. Maybe she's tired now."

"Want me to talk to her?"

He pictured her while she shrugged her shoulders and sighed. "Why not? Maybe it will work. After all, I've already changed her into her pjs."

He heard Padmè calling their daughter and the baby girl chirping loudly. He heard a soft thump when Lena staggered and fell while walking towards her mother and the crackling noise as Padmè held the comlink to their daughter's ear. A subsequent long streak of "DADA!" spoken in such a high pitched voice pierced his own ear and made him flinch a little, but despite the slight physical pain, hearing his little girl's voice for the first time after such a long time warmed his heart. It made him more than happy and more than willing to stand the next two weeks of forced leave.

"Hey Cricket! It's dad you remember me?"

Lena chirped again, happily, holding the comlink in both her tiny hands. She couldn't go much further than "mama" and "dada" as of words, she couldn't properly speak, be she knew of the make others understand her. And from the other side of the galaxy, her father could understand her pretty well: yes, she remembered him.

"Hey Crickey, listen to daddy: give mom a break. I know you're tired, mom told me you haven't slept this afternoon and I know you all too well. You get cranky without your nap! And it's getting late, so make daddy a promise: you'll be good and you'll let mom put you down for sleep now. OK?"

The tone of the next "dada" was completely different from the previews one. It was more quiet, calmer, all signs that Lena was quickly showing that she was tired for real.

"Good girl. Now, say goodnight to Luke and Leia, kiss mom for me and lay down, will you do that for me Crickey?"

"Ya, dad..a."

Ya was the closest word to yes Lena could say. And Anakin heard that she had tried to stop herself from adding the second "a" to dad. Padmè had told him a couple of days earlier that Leia was trying to teach her how to say dad instead of dada.

"Good girl. Come on Cricket, hand the comlink to mom and let her take you your bed. Can you do that for me?"

"Yeh." even if he couldn't see her, he knew she was nodding, as if she was in front of him.

"Hey, you said yeh! That's better than Ya!" he praised her for the improvement. "Now Crickey, give the comm to mom and go to bed. OK?"

"'ov yoo dad...a."

"Love you too sweetie. Now go. The bed misses you."

A moment later, Padmè was again in possess of the commlink. "Give me a minute. I'll put her down and be right back."

Exactly a minute later, just like she had said, the former Senator was back on the phone with her husband. "Here I am. So, how was your day?"

He grunted. "Ask me something else please. I swear I'm gonna kill Ferus one day or another, even if Jane asked me to leave her the privilege to choke him with her hands!"

"Still that bad?"

"Padmè, try to understand my situation: I'm light years away from where you are, every fuckin' night I have to sleep alone in the coldest room of the coldest building on the coldest planet in the whole Galaxy and I grew up in the desert. I miss you, I miss the kids, I miss my friends and I'm forced to stay all day with a guy that hates me. It's not the best place to stay."

"But Ferus was right to call you there. So you can supervise the building of the base from the perspective of the navy. We need you there."

He heard some ruffling on the other side of the line. "I know, I know. I got it. It's just that... well, I'd prefer a warmer place. That's all. By the way, what are you doing?"

"I'm trying to get ready for bed while talking to you. I know, I'm making some noise and you can pick it up."

She heard a loud groan as he sunk deeper beneath the little mound of cover above him. "Damn, I wish I could help you."

"The twins are still awake." she stated.

"I know." he mumbled. "It's just that... well you know..."

"Hey, if you haven't had sex in four weeks same goes for me, you know."

He felt like being an ass and holding a grudge to Ferus even for that. "Four weeks too much."

"Hey, we'll catch up when you come back! Don't worry, we can deal with that. We've already gone through a very long dry spell before."

She laughed when she heard him grunt even louder on the other side of the line. "That makes it even worse."

"What? The Galactic Masturbator can't deal with six weeks away from his wife?"

"Padmè, don't make fun of me. And yes, the Galactic Masturbator, who actually prefers to be called the Galactic Fucker if you don't mind, has issues with living half with half of the galaxy between us. Sorry if I'm kinda clingy when it comes to you."

"And sex." she added.

"And sex. The dry spell you talked about, just in case you've forgotten, lasted eight years. No wonder I became the Galactic Masturbator!"

A moment of comfortable silence followed, during which they simply basked in the warmth their long conversations always evoked in them. It wasn't exactly as being close, but it wasn't bad.

"You could always reprise the role." she said then, interrupting the silence. "You know, it's never too late."

"Nah... too cold." said Anakin, shifting a little to get a little more comfortable. "It's so cold I can't even get a boner in here."

"You didn't say that the other night..." the tone of her voice suddenly shifted and lowered.

Something stirred in him. Suddenly he wasn't so cold anymore. He ran his free hand on his face again and sighed. "The other night was a little different. I was horny, you were horny and the kids were already asleep. Seriously, we're King and Queen of comlink sex, but not now. Seriously, I miss sex, but I'm not in the mood."

She drew a long, deep breath. "Alright. Not in the mood. I get it."

"I'm sorry Padmè. It's just that... you said the kids are still up and stuff... Also I just argued with Ferus for the fourth time today... Seriously, I'd be a total whack and in the end no one would enjoy it."

"Anakin, seriously, no need to apologise. It's fine, seriously."

He closed his eyes, picturing his sexy wife on their bed, that terribly alluring nightgown he was sure she was wearing showing more skin than how much it should be legal. He crawled even more beneath the thick covers and sighed. "Why the hell I'm now thinking about that gown you bought some years ago that leaves more than nothing to imagination?"

Padmè chuckled. "Actually, I was going for sweats. It's quite cold in here."

"Better. Way better. Oh fuck off, I just miss you..."

"I miss you too Anakin. And I can't wait to have you here but..." she sighed. "I can't do much about it."

"Can't you just go to Antilles and ask him to call me back for some reason?"

"I've tried. More than once. But he's so happy that you're gone I can't really do anything about it."

"Shit..." he mumbled. "Damn it... I won't resist two weeks more, I can't..."

She hushed him. "No Anakin, you can. You can deal with everything, with Ferus, the other guys, the cold and the distance. We can deal with everything. Six weeks is nothing, you understand me?"

"Yes Padmè I do but..."

"But nothing. Anakin, we can wait two more weeks. Just be sure to be here for Lena's birthday. It wouldn't be the same without you."

"Oh don't worry, I'll be there. Even if I have to punch Ferus through a wall and encase him in ice. I swear. I'll make it for her birthday. Maybe a couple of days earlier."

"Good, because I've got something to tell you."

He took his time to reply. "Do I have to worry?"

She shook her head. "Nope. At all. But I don't want to tell you on the phone. I want to see your reaction."

"Alright, that means you think I'll over-react. It's either extremely good or extremely awful. You said I don't have to worry about it, so..."

"Extremely good. I tell you. Now, it's time to put the twins in bed. And it's time for you to sleep too, or tomorrow you're going to be a vegetable and Ferus will pick on you even more."

Anakin scrubbed his face hard. "Alright. Goodnight Padmè. Sleep well."

"You too. Love you."