FanFiction.Net - unleash your imagination|
Author of 19 Stories |
9
It was late at night, and the couple lay in bed, hoping that tonight they would get a good amount of sleep—for once. Padmé moved over to her husband’s side, attaching herself to his back, slipping her arms around her husband’s lean figure.
“Mmm,” Anakin rolled over, not acknowledging that Padmé had just put her arms around him. They were both very tired, so very tired—
Padmé forced her eyes open, watching the ceiling fan spin around and around. How could she not go to sleep? After all, the day before had been such a tiring day in town. The children needed clothing, for they had outgrown all the others…
Finally a moment of peace…The ‘moment’ was quickly interrupted by the sound of feet coming down the small hallway. Their house was tiny, had only three rooms, and was perfect for the little family.
An sad looking Leia stood in front of her mother’s side of the bed, her long curls falling down her bad, messily—“Mommy,” she grunted, “I had a bad dream again.” The little girl clutched her purple stuffed shaak her grandmother had given her when she turned one year to her chest, squeezing it tight.
Padmé sighed, but not loud enough for her daughter to hear. She pushed back the blankets, and found her robe. She offered her hand to Leia, who took it gladly. “We’ll go downstairs and talk about it,” she said with a smile.
Leia sniffed, holding back tears. She followed her mother down the steep staircase into the kitchen, where Padmé picked her up, placing her on the counter. Leia liked it when her mother held her, she decided. She was warm, and made her happy.
“What was the dream about, Leia?” Padmé asked. She pushed Leia’s hair out of her face.
The child sniffed again, and said, “It was about you and me and Luke and in the dream we died,” she told Padmé, “but only in the dream and it won’t happen in real life right?” She looked at her mother with hopeful eyes—she was also trying to convince herself.
Padmé nodded. “Only a dream.”
“Good,” Leia said confidently. She proceeded to tell Padmé the rest, “In the dream we were locked up and put in irons.” Her eyes got watery, and she reached out for her mother to hold her. Padmé took her daughter in her arms—Leia wrapped her hands around her mother’s neck.
“It was only a dream,” Padmé told Leia again. “It’s not going to happen.”
She took Leia up the stairs, placing her in her room, decorated by the twins’ colorful drawings. She fluffed the pillow, she knew Leia liked that, and tucked her in, bringing the covered to her chin. “You’re better now,” she said quietly, careful not to wake her brother in the next room, and her father, too.
Leia nodded. “Goodnight, Mommy,” she said. “I love you,” came her angelic voice.
Padmé smiled, turning off the bedside light. “I love you too.” She closed the door, walking back to her and Anakin’s room, only to find her husband sitting at the foot of the bed, his hands pressed to his temples.
“You okay?” She asked, sitting next to him.
He nodded. “Yeah,” he told her, “Is Leia okay?”
Padmé nodded. “She just had another bad dream,” she said, smiling, “She seems to have inherited that, along with messy eating, from her father.”
Anakin chuckled. “Luke does it too,” he said, “Messy eating, I mean,” he had a second note, adding rather quickly, “What was her dream about?”
“We were locked up in irons, or something,” she shrugged. “I don’t really remember. You weren’t there, though. It was just a dream.”
Anakin nodded. He didn’t want to tell Padmé that this might be a premonition, like he used to get, and haven’t for a while—he hoped he wouldn’t for a long time, either. Luke and Leia were indeed force sensitive; they remember that all too well during the time they were in high chairs. Anakin laughed at the thought of flying food being hit on the walls.
“Why were you up?” She asked suddenly, letting him return from his self-pity.
“I heard you,” he leaned in to kiss her, suddenly feeling he had too, “When you weren’t next to me, I began to worry—and then I saw you took your robe off, and Leia was missing from her bed.”
Padmé smiled. “I’m right here,” she said, before leaning in to accept Anakin’s kiss.
Anakin knelt between to two, forcefully grabbing the handle of the disignited weapon. “Where’d you find this?” He asked as kindly as he could—
Both of the four-year olds bit their lip, casting glances from each other. What do we tell them? Luke asked his sister through the force.
The truth, dummy—he’s gonna know we took it from his room.
But Leia—
“We took it from you and Mommy’s room,” Leia said quickly, before her twin could interfere. “Luke wanted to see how it worked.”
Luke frowned; he pointed at Leia shamelessly. “It was her, too! She wanted to see how it worked, also, Daddy!” He whined, his voice was loud—he made Leia cross her arms and give Luke a mean look.
Tattletale.
Speak for yourself, bug brain.
Anakin placed two hands on each other their heads—he wasn’t going to stand for this constant bickering. “Stop, you two!” He said, “This is serious. You can’t take my lightsaber, it’s a weapon, and it could hurt someone.”
“We weren’t gonna press the button, Daddy, we swear—“
Just be quiet, Leia—he’s more mad at you than at me.
Leia stuck out her tongue at her twin. Gods, how were they even related? Sometimes she wondered if she was adopted—but other times she was happy to have a brother, a best friend. They were bestest friends, she decided.
“—and if Mommy sees that you had this she’s going to flip out,” both twins giggled at this, for they knew it better than anybody else, “So, we won’t tell her of this, will we?”
They both shook their heads, replying a mechanical “yes, Daddy.”
Anakin clipped the unused weapon to his belt—he might need this later, he thought. He wasn’t going to leave it lying around anymore, for his children could acquire it again, and who know what could happen…
Leia was the fussy, temperamental one. She was moody most of the time, if she wasn’t with her father—Leia had Anakin wrapped around her finger. She wasn’t into normal little girl things, as in dresses and shoes. She liked what her brother like, with the occasional love story in between the Jedi stuff. She reminded Anakin of Padmé in so many ways—she was more mature when it came down to it, and she knew how to handle everything so well.
Luke, on the other hand, was almost the complete opposite. He was shy, but not weak—he was his mother’s protégé, almost, as Leia was Anakin’s. He took a while to adjust to things—he first had to get to know them, get to know the person. He was quiet, always quiet, unless he disagreed with something about his sister. They were both very competitive, but when it he was with his sister, he was the more ambitious one who liked the try the more ‘dangerous’ thing. They both had that in common, in a way.
When they were born, it had come to a shock for Anakin. A pleasant surprise nonetheless, for that was an understatement. He was overjoyed that Padmé and him had created such beautiful creatures, but he had no idea what to do once they brought them home. He had never had a father, or a watchful grandfather that he knew of. Master Kenobi was the closest he knew of, and he hadn’t heard from him in three, four years, had it been?
The disappearance of Kenobi has caused many questions to the remaining Jedi—where was he? Was he dead, no, he couldn’t be—he was a gallant fighter, he would never die in the purges.
With the topic of Kenobi dismissed, Anakin looked at his chrono. The time read 800, early enough to go outside before the town started to bustle.
He went out to the front porch, and seated himself on one of the four wicker chairs that they had acquired from the local markets. Their home was quiet in the morning—the sound of the creatures echoing in the distance as they woke up from their slumber.
Inside the house, he heard Luke and Leia run up the stairs at rapid speed, they stomped down the hall, their giggles muffled through the many walls that separated them from Anakin.
Then, he got this feeling… like he shouldn’t be outside anymore.
He went back inside, the screen door slamming behind him. He trotted upstairs, not making nearly as much noise as the twins had when they ran. He passed Luke’s bedroom, which had suddenly been rearranged to where the minimal furniture had been scrunched into the middle of the room.
He stopped at their doorway, and smiled as Luke hid Leia underneath a blanket. “Hey!” She shouted, struggling to get the blanket off her body, “Luke!!”
Anakin laughed at this sight, and the pure delight that his son was getting from watching his sister run around. “What are you doing?” He asked, amusing.
Luke and Leia froze, unaware of their father’s presence. Leia, suddenly free of the wrath of the blanket—“I thought you were downstairs,” she squeaked, suddenly labeled ‘guilty’.
“I was,” Anakin said, hiding the laughter. “But now I’m not.” He smiled.
Luke smiled, showing off his little teeth, “We’re building a fort!” He exclaimed proudly. It made sense, Anakin decided—the chair, desk, and bed were going to be used as support to hold up the blanket.
“Oh,” Anakin said, “Don’t break anything.”
“We won’t,” came their mechanical responses, again—Anakin knew that this was all a lie; that something had to fall during the time when Luke and Leia played…
He strode off into his bedroom, where Padmé was gone from her side of the bed, and changing into her normal ‘peasants’ clothes. They had adjusted to their new lifestyle wisely, and chose to where the normal clothes that most people wore—not people that resided in the Senate, or served the Jedi.
“Hello,” Anakin greeted casually, “Good morning.” He came behind her, zipping up her dress that she had chosen for today. He kissed her on the cheek, and smiled.
Padmé smiled up at him as well, turning around to greet her husband for the morning. She slung her arms over his shoulders, kissing him, fully, this time—on the lips.
A childish chorus of “Ewww’s” later interrupted their emotional meeting and they broke apart. “Good morning, Mommy,” Luke said sweetly, coming to greet his mother, “You know what?”
Padmé kissed her little boy on the cheek like she did ever so frequently, and smiled at him, anxious to hear what he had to say, “What?”
“Daddy showed us his lightsaber this morning,” he said, “We got to hold it.”
“What a nerfherder, Luke! Daddy told you we couldn’t tell him!” She squealed, throwing her arms in the arm in agony.
Anakin cast Luke and Leia a glance of denial—I told you know to tell her, he said through the force. Sometimes he was thankful that Padmé didn’t fully understand the force, and couldn’t use it, for his children inherited that part of him
Oops.
Padmé’s smile quickly dropped at the sound of this—“Anakin Skywalker, you—I can’t believe you, you—“
He grabbed her by the waist and kissed her again, stopping her from speaking once again. When they broke apart, Padmé just merely sighed, “We’ll discuss this later,” she decided. She stormed off downstairs, Leia in tow—obviously wanting something.
Anakin took advantage of this moment alone. He knelt down next to Luke, meeting him with identical eyes, “What did I tell you about telling your mother things I told you not to tell her?”
This was like speaking Huttese to Luke—he had no idea how to handle it. He just nodded, knowing what he was supposed to say. He sighed, “To not do.”
Anakin nodded. “Uh huh,” he said, “So next time—“
“I won’t,” he said quickly. He broke away from his father’s grasp, beginning to race downstairs. He slid in his socks down the hallway, “Race ‘ya downstairs, Dad!”
Anakin laughed, watching his son go without him.
When he entered the kitchen long after Luke had, Leia shoved a piece of paper in his face. “Look, Dad! It’s our plans for our secret clubhouse!” She exclaimed. Anakin took the papers in his hand, examining them. They were just disconfigured shapes, with arrows pointing to different parts. “See, look!” She pointed to he ‘half’, which read in lopsided lettering, ‘Leia’, “It’s my part.”
“Is this what you’re making upstairs?”
Leia nodded fiercely. “Yeah, Dad—but you’re not allow because you’re a grown up and it’s a little kid thing like me and Luke.”
He laughed, and was about to say something when he heard three loud knocks on their front door.
Luke screamed, “I’ll get it!”
Anakin felt weird about this, but decided it was just another thing that he worried about that really didn’t need worrying—so he let his son open the door.
When he looked back at the open door, he felt his stomach flip over and his heart palpitate. His four-year old son was faced with the clones of the Empire—storm troopers were questioning Luke.
“Padmé,” Anakin vigorously whispered, “Hide.”
He got up from his seat, and walked to guard his son. He met the storm troopers, muttering a nervous “Hello,” placing his hand on Luke’s chest, shoving him aside. His son was afraid; he could feel it through the force—
Luke could feel it also. They people were Bad People. They were going the reason Luke and Leia couldn’t go outside to play, the reason they couldn’t make friends, they reason they couldn’t be seen in public until after dusk. He willingly stepped aside when his father pushed him, he willingly let his father, his hero, deal with them.
“Is this the residence of Anakin Skywalker and Padmé Amidala?”
Skywalker choked up. They knew. Someone knew. “No, actually,” he stated, “I think you have the wrong household.” He was just about to close the door when the clone stopped him from doing so—
“TK 466, bring up the prisoner,” one clone said to another, and the clone fetched a man of striking familiarity—Bail Organa. “Are these the Skywalker’s, Organa?” The clone asked the former Senator.
Bail gave Anakin a look of regret; it was so sad, terrible—he obviously had gone through a lot. He shrugged towards Anakin, but barely noticeable for the clones, “No,” he answered simply, his lips pursed, “This is not them.”
“You’re lying through your teeth, you Rebel scum,” another clone snapped, putting his gun to Organa’s head. “Tell us the truth.”
Organa grunted, his face falling. He shrugged again towards Anakin, and said rather sadly, “They live here.”
Anakin couldn’t describe the feeling suddenly—it was anger, filled with fear—it was nothing he’d ever felt before. Suddenly he wanted to lash out, stab the clone troopers and bring down Organa with them. But he couldn’t—he had a… a… family…
The dark side…Before he knew it, during all of his musings, his hands were in binders, and Luke, who was off the side, cowering, was gone—probably off with his mother, because he wasn’t anywhere in sight. The binders stung, and disallowed him to use the force…
He couldn’t call out for help, he couldn’t see if Padmé, Leia, and Luke were okay—he couldn’t feel anything. He was numb…
“…Search the house,” the clone in custody of Anakin was saying to the others. “There are others, Organa has spoken of them.”
Anakin wanted to know why that bastard Organa gave their secret away—they were the only ones who knew about their secret place. The only ones, he thought. The senator was present when he, Padmé, and Yoda discussed the formation of the Rebellion four years earlier. He was there when Anakin and Padmé announced their marriage, of her secret pregnancy, of the babies that were born merely a day before—
Damn him…
He faintly heard a scream in the house, and Anakin recognized it perfectly—Padmé. She was in danger, they were in danger, and they were going to take their children away from them…
“Padmé!” He screamed at the top of his lungs, loud enough for anyone in the small town to hear. He felt shed tears fall down his face at the thought… the thought…
Luke, Leia—
He screamed again, he didn’t know what came over him—“Padmé!” He looked at Bail Organa, who bowed his head in shame, feeling what he deserved…
They came out of the house in the same binders that Anakin was bound by the wrists in, Leia and Luke trotting behind their mother, sad eyes looking up to their father, “Daddy,” Leia cooed. She didn’t know what she was expecting to hear, but something—something of reassurance, like they had gotten for the first four years of their childhood.
Padmé’s turned towards her children, hoping to say something to them, but it was no use. The troopers turned her back around, “Don’t make eye contact with them, Rebel.”
She opened her mouth to say something, but then noticed Bail Organa in the distance, watching over, his sad eyes waiting, wanting—“You?!” She screamed. “You did this?”
Bail turned away, knowing he shouldn’t say anything to anybody unless he was allowed to speak.
She never thought, in all those years in the politics, one of her most-trusted advisors would be one to spill the secret of Anakin and Padmé. And it wasn’t just Anakin and Padmé anymore, it was Luke and Leia, as well, who were thought to be the, quote, ‘the future for the galaxy’.
Didn’t he know anything? Didn’t he—
“Anakin Skywalker will want to be questioned,” the clone in custody of Anakin said, “Take him to a prison cell on the ship.”
“And what of the others?”
“The posts.”
Padmé gulped, and out the corner of her eyes she could see Anakin being dragged away from their own home. She could hear him crying out for them, ‘Padmé’, ‘Luke’, and ‘Leia’, but her ears felt like they were stuffed with cotton. This couldn’t be happening—it just couldn’t… they had a life to live, children to raise, a family to grow…
She heard the zaps from the binders behind her as Luke and Leia tried to hold hands, grasp onto anything that would make them feel better.
“Mommy,” Leia whispered. Padmé could hardly hear her, but she nodded anyway, “It’s like my dream—it’s exactly like my dream…”
Padmé couldn’t help but feel a pang of regret. It’s just a dream, she had said. But, no—it was not only a dream. Something terrible was going to happen, as Leia foresaw it to. They could’ve got away if Anakin had heard about this—for Anakin had dreams like his about his own mother, as well. They were dreams of death—premonitions, almost.
The binders they were chained by kept them in a straight line, almost as if it was an invisible rope pulling on them. They couldn’t move anything but their feet, and they had to face forward.
Luke, Leia, and Padmé were brought to a wooden panel, where they were chosen to stand together, next to each other. The floor appeared underneath them to have another wooden panel, specifically making it disappear for later usage.
Above them, the most deadly of all—hard, coarse rope—tied in a knot with a large hole in the middle, specifically for the place for the head.
Hanged.
They were going to be hanged.
None spoke a word—they looked up, around. Padmé didn’t notice the crowd of people around her, watching them as they brutally suffered for the empire’s own crime. Some onlookers shouted, trying to through bits and pieces at them, and Padmé looked back—
A full line of people in magnetic binders followed them, probably for almost the same reason they were to be hanged. They looked just as terrible as Padmé, Luke, and Leia did, for they had probably done worse crimes, and had suffered badly, as their clothes stated.
The clones appeared with two boxes to put underneath Luke and Leia, for they were too short for the rope to reach them. Luke looked up at the rope, questioning, about to open his mouth to say something when—
“Stop!”
Padmé perked her head up at this very familiar voice, the different tone of Basic that she hadn’t heard in over four years.
“They’re not the ones you want,” he told the storm troopers. For he, too, was dressed in old, outdated trooper uniform, before it had been updated. It looked similar to—Commander Cody’s? His hair was shorter now, now almost completely gray, but the troopers didn’t think much of his appearance, for clones didn’t look the same anymore…
“Then where are the ‘ones we want’?” The trooper manning the lever asked.
“In the Core,” he answered swiftly. “Not here. You have the wrong people—the ones you want are in Imperial City.” He walked up the stepped, drifting through the crowd of people. The crowd stopped to stare at this uncanny presence, for they came to see a ‘show’. “Let them go,” he demanded.
Their binders unsnapped, and they were free, once again. Leia stretched her fingers, amazing with the sudden ‘free’ feeling. She could use to force again, she could feel her brother, she could sense her mother’s emotions, she could—feel the strange man’s intensity in the force.
“I’ll take them home, General,” he said smoothly. He grabbed Padmé’s hand, a gesture that didn’t mean anything to her at the moment, and dragged her down the steps. She was in such a daze; she didn’t know what to say, what to think—
Luke and Leia hurried behind him and their mother, wondering who this man was.
Do you know him?No, but I don’t really care. He saved our lives, bug brain.
Once they were away from the crowd, they stopped abruptly. When no one said anything, Padmé broke the silence, “Obi-Wan Kenobi?” She said rather loudly, not really sure if she could believe herself, either.
“Shh,” he said, looking around him, trying to feel if there were any traitors around. Obviously the coast was clear, for he nodded. “Yes.”
“Thank you,” Padmé mouthed to him. She couldn’t express her feelings towards Obi-Wan, how she felt that he saved their dear life. “For saving my—our lives.” She motioned around.
Kenobi sat himself on a rock, appearing with a bottle. He drank from it. “Your son looks just like Anakin, you know,” he stated.
She wasn’t shocked to hear this; Luke did looked almost exactly like Anakin. Coming from Obi-Wan, though, it was something obscene. He was one that they had never spoken to about their marriage.
“And your daughter looks just like you,” he continued. “Twins?”
Padmé nodded. She changed the subject quickly, “How’d you know we were here.”
Obi-Wan smirked. He pulled off his datapad from his belt. “Commander Cody’s,” he said, pointing to the screen. “He still gets alerts, even though I killed him during the Purges.”
Luke and Leia looked a few steps back, frightened.
Padmé, though, didn’t—she stepped forward, sitting on the rock next to Obi-Wan. “You’re a Rebel Spy, aren’t you?”
He smiled, nodding weakly. He changed the subject as quickly as Padmé had before, “Where is dear Anakin, Padmé?”
She gulped, feeling a weird sensation in her stomach, a scary feeling. Nerves. Before she could answer, Luke did,
“He’s been taken on the big ship.”
Obi-Wan laughed at the child’s innocence, knowing that the boy was, indeed, Anakin’s son, and had inherited the talent for the force like his father. No one could be as powerful as Anakin in the force, though—Luke couldn’t, for his mother wasn’t force sensitive.
He motioned forward to the path ahead, “Shall we?”
:
:
:
:
