The Moons of Iego: The Padmé Amidala & Anakin Skywalker Website

FAN FICTION : CLASSIC TRILOGY ERA

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Epilogue

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Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by Lucasfilm, Ltd. No money is being made and no infringement is intended.

Author's Note: Once again, thanks Holly...

Twenty years later: Just out beyond the Dune Sea of Tatooine.

I watched the boy speed off across the desert, so much like his father, heedless of his own safety.

Anakin! I could never tell the boy about his father, the real truth. How I was partly to blame for his fall, for our loss...

I closed my eyes and let my mind drifted back to that fateful day...

Anakin was cradling her seemingly too-small body in his arms, weeping and sobbing inconsolably. He pulled her closer to his breast, calling her name over and over as if he could bring her back by sheer force of will.

"Anakin... Anakin," I choked, being assaulted by his pain as if it were a physical thing. "Please, there's nothing you can do..." Suddenly, I was thrown against the wall with a violence that I'd never experienced before in my life.

"Get away from her!" he positively screamed. "Why did she come here? Why did YOU bring her here, Obi-Wan?" He broke down into a flood of grief, keening her name again and over again in a bout of raw anguish.

I slowly got to my feet, and walked to the entrance of the hangar, leaving him to his distress.

There was nothing I could do, nothing I could say to alleviate his pain. With his cries penetrating my very soul, all I could do was go outside, and wait.

After what seemed like hours, he emerged carrying her remains wrapped in his Jedi robes, his features pale and drawn.

"Anakin..." I said softly, my own voice hoarse with emotion.

He stood there, saying nothing, and I tried again.

"Anakin... your son..." I paused; the look of pure rage was like a blade through my very heart. I could not bring myself to tell him about the girl, and perhaps, it was for the best that he did not know. Anger and blackness radiated from him like a murderous cloud, if there had been any light left in him, it had died with Padmé.

"Son..." he echoed hollowly.

"He's safe..." I started but his icy stare made it impossible to continue.

"Safe... with the Jedi," he replied bitterly, and then turned away slowly. After a moment, he continued. "No," he said with finality. "The Jedi will not destroy another member of the Skywalker family. He will be raised by his..." here he paused, almost choking on the words, "step family. His uncle on Tatooine. The R2 unit, he knows where to find them."

"Anakin, please..." I tried to reach out to him to no avail.

"Leave this place, Obi-Wan," he said with sudden intensity, his voice once again shaky with emotion.

"Leave here NOW; lest I kill you where you stand."

I couldn't move, stunned by his words.

"This is your last chance. Know that I only let you live this time because, it is what SHE would have wished," he slowly sank to his knees, again pulling her lifeless body closer to himself. "Know this also, Obi-Wan, the next time our paths cross, only one of us will walk away alive. I swear to you, ONLY one of us."

His sobs began to rack his body once more. "Leave me!" he shrieked again, "Leave us!" and he dissolved in to a fresh flood of tears.

Dazed, I began to back away, fully aware that this had been no empty threat.

To my growing horror, my mind assaulted me with the realization that I had been wrong. WE had been wrong. The whole bloody code was WRONG! "A Jedi shall not know LOVE," read the code, but it had been that very thing that had held my former Padawan together. The thing that had kept him by my side when he had lost patience with my teachings, that had made him listen to my endless lectures... that had made him human. Now, that vital element had been taken from him, there nothing left of the vivacious young man I had once called my friend. The man that Padmé had called husband, had given her very life to. The man that young Luke might have known as father. Anakin Skywalker was gone. In his place would rise an unforgiving shade of hell, a true Sith Lord lost beyond all redemption. Beyond hope. All because, because...

I stumbled farther back, gaining speed as my mind reeled in confusion and with possibilities. Everything that I had known, everything I believed in was being called into question now. It was too much to handle all at once.

I raced blindly back to my ship, thankful Anakin was too absorbed in his own grief to notice me. I would return to Coruscant, and arrange to have the other child taken to safety. I then would take the boy to Tatooine myself and finish my days in self-imposed exile. Perhaps someday, somehow, I could redeem myself, but for now... now, there were the children to think of. The children that had been denied both a mother and a father in the space of just a few hours. The world was crumbling around us all but perhaps, just perhaps...

He's coming back now, that same grim determination that was the hallmark of his father. Anakin's features are firmly stamped on his visage. He has the same piercing blue eyes, the unruly blond hair; he is very much his father's son. Yet there is something very different with the boy. A sense of peace that my young friend had only seemed to know when his beloved wife was at his side. The boy has his father's face, his father's spirit, but he has his mother's heart.

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