I wrote a thing!
Yay, I got a bunch of prompts for my meme, repeatedly maxed out the comment boxes and had to cut them down. And of course just about all are untitled beginnings of the 'if I were going to write this fic, which I'm not, I'd begin it something like this...' type. For convenience's sake, I will title each fic with a random line from Handel's Messiah (my go-to SW music for the bizarrely appropriate lols).
Here's the only two-part one, though, requested (in two parts!) by wyncatastrophe:
title: a man of sorrows
verse: Anakin dies in the battle of Coruscant, prompt: the structure of her nose alone
The hero of the Republic was dead.
Every channel on the holonet was abuzz. Some said that it was a tragedy; others, a disaster; still others that it had only been a matter of time. Nobody could scrutinize their hero's career close enough.
Very few said his name. Even to those few it was rarely more than Jedi Skywalker, a clarification of which hero they meant.
“Anakin,” said Obi-Wan, raising a shaking hand to his face. His fingers felt strange against his skin, unreal, as unreal as Anakin's had been. “I can't-”
Yoda bowed his head. “Sorry I am, for the loss of your apprentice. A mighty Jedi was he.”
Obi-Wan scarcely heard him. “Anakin is dead,” he said, thickly, “and I am alive.”
It seemed a perversion, somehow, of the natural order of things.
Obi-Wan hadn't wasted much time dwelling on the possibility of dying in the war. Perhaps they would; perhaps they wouldn't. It was decent odds either way. Yet when he did imagine it, for all his caution and Anakin's recklessness, Obi-Wan had always assumed he would die first. It had frankly been difficult to imagine Anakin dying at all.
Yoda was saying something. Obi-Wan couldn't quite catch it. He hardly noticed when the tiny Jedi Master left.
He should release his grief into the Force. He should at least try. Yet he was loath to touch it at all.
Obi-Wan had never been much good at sensing others through the Force. When it came to identifying comrades in the thick of battle, he might as well have been Force-blind. He could tell when other Jedi were in his general vicinity, but no more. His only comfort was that no other Jedi seemed to do better-except Anakin, of course, and even he could only pinpoint Obi-Wan's presence, not anyone else's.
I'd know you anywhere, Master, he'd said, laughing, but refused to explain why. Obi-Wan rather suspected Anakin didn't know, himself, and was simply unwilling to acknowledge his own ignorance. In any case, Obi-Wan wouldn't sense Anakin in the Force even if his corpse weren't lying in the Temple. Just another Jedi.
Obi-Wan walked to the window, sighing. He was the only Jedi here.
He opened his mind to the Force, and felt-not a Jedi, but . . . something.
The door crashed open. Obi-Wan spun around, one hand flying to his lightsaber. He half-expected to find himself facing a gang of Separatist commandos; instead, Padmé Amidala burst through the door.
“Obi-Wan, they're saying Anakin is dead!” Her voice was high, almost shrill. “It can't-he can't be-you have to tell me. I've got to know the truth.”
Despite the severity of her hair, coiled neatly about her ears, and elegance of her blue cloak, she looked almost wild. Her eyes were wide and vaguely reddish, her cheeks stained. She already knew.
Obi-Wan bowed his head, and she gave a small moan.
“No. No-” Padmé turned swiftly away, pressing the heel of her hand against her mouth. “That's not true. That's impossible!”
His ears were still buzzing from the not-Jedi, but Obi-Wan felt the world righting on its axis, a little. In some obscure way, she'd been bound up with Anakin in his mind, since before the war began. She was Anakin's best friend and he was Anakin's master; Anakin was the common thread running between their lives, even now. Particularly now.
“Sen-Padmé, I'm so sorry,” he said. “I know how close you were.”
Padmé gave a shriek of laughter. Her entire face was hidden behind her hands, now.
Obi-Wan's compassion verged towards alarm.
“Padmé-”
Falling silent, she tossed her cloak aside.
“I'm pregnant,” Padmé said.
His eyes dropped half-involuntarily to her flat stomach. It was on the tip of his tongue to say, I'd offer congratulations, or I don't understand. But he did understand.
“Anakin's the father.”
She nodded.
Obi-Wan sank into a chair. Padmé stayed where she was, small and proud.
He hadn't known. Hadn't even guessed, exactly. Perhaps he'd preferred not to know, overlooked every too-warm glance, every lingering touch, the glamorous senator's eyes narrowing at any girl who dared so much as bat her eyelashes at Anakin. Anakin, too, had watched hapless politicians flirting with her with thinly-concealed fury.
Your friend can take care of herself, Obi-Wan had said, amused, or telling himself he was.
I know, said Anakin, but only relaxed when she threw a long-suffering glance over her shoulder.
“You were his lover,” Obi-Wan said blankly.
Padmé threw her head back. Something about her, -the half-fearful, half-resolute expression in her dark eyes, the square set of her shoulders, perhaps just the high straight line of her nose-something, in that moment, reminded him more of the daring young queen than the senator.
“No,” said Padmé, and an unmistakable note of defiance rang in her voice. “He was my husband.”
title: out of the land of the living
verse: Anakin dies in the battle of Coruscant; prompt: I'd storm heaven for you, if I knew where it was
It took Anakin approximately twenty minutes to figure out how to walk among the living.
The others disapproved. Something about transcending mortal concerns and moving into eternity and the same nonsense he'd heard about attachment the whole time he'd been alive. Anakin ignored them and wandered through the streets of Coruscant.
He had to find Padmé and Obi-Wan. She might be in the Senate at this hour-but when he sent his thoughts in that direction, he felt only a drowning malice. Even in this insubstantial body, a chill went through him.
So the Sith was a senator. Interesting.
There were his apartments, of course, but-Anakin tilted his head to the side. He sensed the undifferentiated mass of life, the stronger but equally indistinct presence of Jedi, and . . . there, Obi-Wan. Not far, probably in his apartments.
Anakin felt a sharp spike of grief-Obi-Wan's grief-and flinched.
Then he hurried, faster than he had ever walked in life, to Obi-Wan's apartment.
Padmé was here. He'd never sensed her before, but now he could feel her, her anguish and Obi-Wan's battering against his mind. Anakin waved the doors open, hoping nobody noticed, and slipped through.
“-a simple blood test,” Obi-Wan was saying. What?
Anakin felt a flicker of fear, and then determination-Padmé's.
“And then what?” she demanded. “You'll give me six months, a year, before you start training up another Jedi? Another Chosen One? No. I won't let you take my child from me, Obi-Wan.”
What?
“Padmé, I have no intention-”
Anakin stepped into the room, into full sunlight. Neither noticed him, and he could do nothing but stare at Padmé. She didn't look any different-beautiful, of course, her face pale and set, her eyes flinty. Nothing unusual there. But she was pregnant.
He took another few steps forward. His body was starting to dim, his will fraying. He'd need more practice, if-when, when he came back. Anakin could feel the future rising before them like a great dark wave, and the people he loved would be walking under its shadow.
He felt, oddly, like he had all those years ago, when he found his mother: the entire galaxy narrowing to one person, and those who had, or would, or might, harm her. Now it was Obi-Wan and Padmé and the baby, and the galaxy set against them.
Anakin might be dead, but he was here, and he would return, and the Force was stronger in him than ever.
He looked at his wife. I'd have done anything for you, he thought, and I still will.
Anakin laid one glimmering hand over her belly. And you.
He was tired, too tired to resist the pull of the future. He saw
a teenaged boy and girl in white, running hand-in-hand down a bleak grey hall. The girl's dark hair was coiled over her ears, almost exactly like Padmé's now, but her brown eyes were large, her cheeks round, her nose strong. She scowled out from under lowered brows. The boy, his face half-hidden by messy blond hair, lifted a blaster-
the girl, a little older now, standing in front of an enormous viewscreen. Now it was her face he could hardly make out, the hood of her black cloak throwing her face in shadow. The boy was sprawled in the captain's chair, smiling lazily, but his blue eyes were somber-
the same boy and girl in grey fatigues, walking through a swamp. They looked about twenty, the boy's hair cut short, the girl's simply tied back, and each held a blaster at the ready. The boy helped a droid-Artoo?-over a limb-
an older, strangely withered version of Palpatine, marching into the Senate. The boy and girl trailed after him, lightsabers at their waists, their eyes shining gold.
Padmé sitting in the Chancellor's office, in his chair, her face strained as she pored over reports. In a corner, smaller versions of the boy and girl played with model starships-
Anakin's eyes flew open. Not a child. Children. Twins.
Both of you then, he thought. You and your mother and Obi-Wan-damn transcendence anyway. You're all that matters now.
Here's the only two-part one, though, requested (in two parts!) by wyncatastrophe:
title: a man of sorrows
verse: Anakin dies in the battle of Coruscant, prompt: the structure of her nose alone
The hero of the Republic was dead.
Every channel on the holonet was abuzz. Some said that it was a tragedy; others, a disaster; still others that it had only been a matter of time. Nobody could scrutinize their hero's career close enough.
Very few said his name. Even to those few it was rarely more than Jedi Skywalker, a clarification of which hero they meant.
“Anakin,” said Obi-Wan, raising a shaking hand to his face. His fingers felt strange against his skin, unreal, as unreal as Anakin's had been. “I can't-”
Yoda bowed his head. “Sorry I am, for the loss of your apprentice. A mighty Jedi was he.”
Obi-Wan scarcely heard him. “Anakin is dead,” he said, thickly, “and I am alive.”
It seemed a perversion, somehow, of the natural order of things.
Obi-Wan hadn't wasted much time dwelling on the possibility of dying in the war. Perhaps they would; perhaps they wouldn't. It was decent odds either way. Yet when he did imagine it, for all his caution and Anakin's recklessness, Obi-Wan had always assumed he would die first. It had frankly been difficult to imagine Anakin dying at all.
Yoda was saying something. Obi-Wan couldn't quite catch it. He hardly noticed when the tiny Jedi Master left.
He should release his grief into the Force. He should at least try. Yet he was loath to touch it at all.
Obi-Wan had never been much good at sensing others through the Force. When it came to identifying comrades in the thick of battle, he might as well have been Force-blind. He could tell when other Jedi were in his general vicinity, but no more. His only comfort was that no other Jedi seemed to do better-except Anakin, of course, and even he could only pinpoint Obi-Wan's presence, not anyone else's.
I'd know you anywhere, Master, he'd said, laughing, but refused to explain why. Obi-Wan rather suspected Anakin didn't know, himself, and was simply unwilling to acknowledge his own ignorance. In any case, Obi-Wan wouldn't sense Anakin in the Force even if his corpse weren't lying in the Temple. Just another Jedi.
Obi-Wan walked to the window, sighing. He was the only Jedi here.
He opened his mind to the Force, and felt-not a Jedi, but . . . something.
The door crashed open. Obi-Wan spun around, one hand flying to his lightsaber. He half-expected to find himself facing a gang of Separatist commandos; instead, Padmé Amidala burst through the door.
“Obi-Wan, they're saying Anakin is dead!” Her voice was high, almost shrill. “It can't-he can't be-you have to tell me. I've got to know the truth.”
Despite the severity of her hair, coiled neatly about her ears, and elegance of her blue cloak, she looked almost wild. Her eyes were wide and vaguely reddish, her cheeks stained. She already knew.
Obi-Wan bowed his head, and she gave a small moan.
“No. No-” Padmé turned swiftly away, pressing the heel of her hand against her mouth. “That's not true. That's impossible!”
His ears were still buzzing from the not-Jedi, but Obi-Wan felt the world righting on its axis, a little. In some obscure way, she'd been bound up with Anakin in his mind, since before the war began. She was Anakin's best friend and he was Anakin's master; Anakin was the common thread running between their lives, even now. Particularly now.
“Sen-Padmé, I'm so sorry,” he said. “I know how close you were.”
Padmé gave a shriek of laughter. Her entire face was hidden behind her hands, now.
Obi-Wan's compassion verged towards alarm.
“Padmé-”
Falling silent, she tossed her cloak aside.
“I'm pregnant,” Padmé said.
His eyes dropped half-involuntarily to her flat stomach. It was on the tip of his tongue to say, I'd offer congratulations, or I don't understand. But he did understand.
“Anakin's the father.”
She nodded.
Obi-Wan sank into a chair. Padmé stayed where she was, small and proud.
He hadn't known. Hadn't even guessed, exactly. Perhaps he'd preferred not to know, overlooked every too-warm glance, every lingering touch, the glamorous senator's eyes narrowing at any girl who dared so much as bat her eyelashes at Anakin. Anakin, too, had watched hapless politicians flirting with her with thinly-concealed fury.
Your friend can take care of herself, Obi-Wan had said, amused, or telling himself he was.
I know, said Anakin, but only relaxed when she threw a long-suffering glance over her shoulder.
“You were his lover,” Obi-Wan said blankly.
Padmé threw her head back. Something about her, -the half-fearful, half-resolute expression in her dark eyes, the square set of her shoulders, perhaps just the high straight line of her nose-something, in that moment, reminded him more of the daring young queen than the senator.
“No,” said Padmé, and an unmistakable note of defiance rang in her voice. “He was my husband.”
title: out of the land of the living
verse: Anakin dies in the battle of Coruscant; prompt: I'd storm heaven for you, if I knew where it was
It took Anakin approximately twenty minutes to figure out how to walk among the living.
The others disapproved. Something about transcending mortal concerns and moving into eternity and the same nonsense he'd heard about attachment the whole time he'd been alive. Anakin ignored them and wandered through the streets of Coruscant.
He had to find Padmé and Obi-Wan. She might be in the Senate at this hour-but when he sent his thoughts in that direction, he felt only a drowning malice. Even in this insubstantial body, a chill went through him.
So the Sith was a senator. Interesting.
There were his apartments, of course, but-Anakin tilted his head to the side. He sensed the undifferentiated mass of life, the stronger but equally indistinct presence of Jedi, and . . . there, Obi-Wan. Not far, probably in his apartments.
Anakin felt a sharp spike of grief-Obi-Wan's grief-and flinched.
Then he hurried, faster than he had ever walked in life, to Obi-Wan's apartment.
Padmé was here. He'd never sensed her before, but now he could feel her, her anguish and Obi-Wan's battering against his mind. Anakin waved the doors open, hoping nobody noticed, and slipped through.
“-a simple blood test,” Obi-Wan was saying. What?
Anakin felt a flicker of fear, and then determination-Padmé's.
“And then what?” she demanded. “You'll give me six months, a year, before you start training up another Jedi? Another Chosen One? No. I won't let you take my child from me, Obi-Wan.”
What?
“Padmé, I have no intention-”
Anakin stepped into the room, into full sunlight. Neither noticed him, and he could do nothing but stare at Padmé. She didn't look any different-beautiful, of course, her face pale and set, her eyes flinty. Nothing unusual there. But she was pregnant.
He took another few steps forward. His body was starting to dim, his will fraying. He'd need more practice, if-when, when he came back. Anakin could feel the future rising before them like a great dark wave, and the people he loved would be walking under its shadow.
He felt, oddly, like he had all those years ago, when he found his mother: the entire galaxy narrowing to one person, and those who had, or would, or might, harm her. Now it was Obi-Wan and Padmé and the baby, and the galaxy set against them.
Anakin might be dead, but he was here, and he would return, and the Force was stronger in him than ever.
He looked at his wife. I'd have done anything for you, he thought, and I still will.
Anakin laid one glimmering hand over her belly. And you.
He was tired, too tired to resist the pull of the future. He saw
a teenaged boy and girl in white, running hand-in-hand down a bleak grey hall. The girl's dark hair was coiled over her ears, almost exactly like Padmé's now, but her brown eyes were large, her cheeks round, her nose strong. She scowled out from under lowered brows. The boy, his face half-hidden by messy blond hair, lifted a blaster-
the girl, a little older now, standing in front of an enormous viewscreen. Now it was her face he could hardly make out, the hood of her black cloak throwing her face in shadow. The boy was sprawled in the captain's chair, smiling lazily, but his blue eyes were somber-
the same boy and girl in grey fatigues, walking through a swamp. They looked about twenty, the boy's hair cut short, the girl's simply tied back, and each held a blaster at the ready. The boy helped a droid-Artoo?-over a limb-
an older, strangely withered version of Palpatine, marching into the Senate. The boy and girl trailed after him, lightsabers at their waists, their eyes shining gold.
Padmé sitting in the Chancellor's office, in his chair, her face strained as she pored over reports. In a corner, smaller versions of the boy and girl played with model starships-
Anakin's eyes flew open. Not a child. Children. Twins.
Both of you then, he thought. You and your mother and Obi-Wan-damn transcendence anyway. You're all that matters now.