Chapter Text
“I met your nephew.”
Skywalker looks up from the datapad he’s poking around on, jerking with surprise. It’s not quite a flinch, but she maybe should have made an attempt to project her approach. She isn’t sure if he’s quite trained himself out of war reflexes yet.
“Lu—I mean, Knight Unduli,” he corrects himself immediately. “Er, take a seat?”
She does so.
The chairs of the archives are not, perhaps, the most comfortable in the Temple, but they are padded and ergonomically designed, and the ones for humans suit a Mirialan just fine. The three additional vertebrae that a Mirialan has are not enough to make these chairs a problem for her. So much of their galaxy is built around the majority population being humans. She is lucky, in that she is of a near-human species herself, and that most of those structures accommodate her with minimal fuss. Were she Kel-Dor or Thisspiasian, perhaps, her life would be a fair turn more difficult.
“You can call me Luminara, you know,” she tells him. “I rather imagine we know each other well enough by now.”
He grins hesitantly at her. “You’ll call me Anakin, then?”
“I’d like to, yes.” She tilts her head, telegraphing her glance at his datapad, and finds some senate records. “Brushing up on your politics, then?”
He blinks and looks down, and then snorts. “You could say that. No idea what I’m looking for, so I’m just trying to get a feel for what I’m even looking at.”
“Would you like some help?”
“If you aren’t busy?” He scoots his chair closer, and shifts some of the pads closer. “I’m trying to understand the budgeting process for Senate-sourced funding of the Temple. I know there’s a war budget in there somewhere, in case there’s a Sith resurgence or another form of darksider that rises to an army-level threat somehow, but I can’t figure out how the money gets there, or what the budget is even called. It’s referenced in the original Ruusan treaties, so it’s there, but at some point it was moved and renamed, possibly more than once, and I can’t find it.”
“I see.” She pulls a few of the pads over. His research methods aren’t quite structured enough for what he’s doing, but it’s not the worst she’s encountered. She imagines she’d be similarly out of her depth if she were researching engine types. “Do you have some context for the project you’re doing?”
“Not entirely,” he says. He doesn’t meet her eyes. “It’s… can I just say that it’s for Master Dyas? The actual background to the mess I’m trying to untangle is complicated and mostly classified.”
“I’ll see what I can do with what we have,” she says. She marks off a few points that he’s found, checks it against the others, and stands. “Follow me. I’ll run you through how to use the history and politics section search algorithms. I gather you’re more used to the ones for navigation and mechanics?”
“Pretty much,” he says. They wind through the shelves, away from the isolated research table—designed as such to ensure peace and privacy for those who need to focus without distraction—and to the catalog consoles. “I also need to look into… something about the divesting of power from the Chancellor to the Senate during the Reformation, but honestly? I’m having enough trouble with the budget question, and that’s one I at least sort of understand. Obi-Wan said he could help me get it, but he and Master Jinn got called away for a mission, and I don’t really…”
“Know anyone but Obi-Wan, myself, and the council?” Luminara prompts.
He shrugs. “Pretty much. Feels a bit weird to bother Madame Nu about it before I’ve exhausted what I can do.”
Luminara disagrees, but it’s hardly a big deal when she’s here to help instead. “I understand. Show me what method you were using? I’ll adjust it and help you understand where you might have used the wrong process once I see what you’re already doing.”
--
After an afternoon of research, where Luminara finds that Anakin was absolutely not exaggerating his difficulty with anything in the realm of civic duty and understanding of governmental structures, they go to the salles.
“After all,” Anakin says, actually looking excited in a way that isn’t touched by the grief she’s never quite seen him without, “we made a pact, didn’t we?”
Hardly. She smiles and nods anyway, because the details aren’t the point. They make it to the salles, and start to stretch. A few minutes later, just as they start to warm up with a few forms, a class of younglings enter. The younger Skywalker is among them.
The crèchemaster shrugs when Luminara asks. “We heard that Knight Skywalker was in the salles, and Initiate Ani asked if we could observe. Apparently, he’s not had the chance to see a lightsaber in proper action, yet.”
The little boy is, indeed, bouncing where he’s sat pretzeled on the floor. The excitement radiates off of him.
“I don’t mind if Luminara doesn’t,” Anakin says.
“I don’t see a problem with it,” she agrees. “Hello, little Ani.”
The boy puffs up, just like before. “I’m not little!”
“You’re certainly much smaller than your uncle,” Luminara tells him. “You’ll be Little Ani until you catch up, methinks.”
He pouts. It is, in the manner of all children that age, adorable.
They get to sparring. Anakin is, much like she expected, beautiful in motion. She wonders vaguely at what he would look like from the outside, but it’s a distant thought when he’s bearing down on her without even the pretense of difficulty. It’s terrifying, or would be if she had any real fear of him. Even so, she is hard pressed to keep up, and being a knight for three years, being his senior in age by just as much, means nothing when their specialties are so very different.
The children are enthralled. There is nothing as entertaining as a lightsaber battle, as friendly as this one is.
Anakin moves wildly, almost violently. She can tell he has control, or he’d be much worse off in their spar, but it always looks as though he’s moving as fast and as hard as he can, without care for form or function. It’s frustrating, because the part of her that takes pride in how carefully she’s perfected her own forms is impacted directly by his seeming disregard for precision.
It is something to work on. She should not be so upset by imagined blows to her pride. She shouldn’t be offended by hurt pride at all. It’s unbecoming, and it’s one of those things that people will constantly and ever try to use against her, as they do to any Jedi who works in a diplomatic function. There are too many politicians in the Galaxy who find their amusement in trying to get a Jedi to crack.
She needs to be better.
He disarms her, and she is graceful about the defeat. She’d known this would end in loss, for all that she’d hoped to impress him at least a little. There is nothing to be surprised about.
It’s not impossible for her to win, but it is unlikely. She already knows that this is a man who wears armor as comfortably as he does robes. She’d found him in it, after all.
“Again,” she says.
“Of course, madame.” He doesn’t even seem to be breathing the slightest bit harder than usual. Infuriating man.
She’d like to kiss that smirk off his face. It is an inappropriate thought to be having, and she reminds herself, as she has every time since these thoughts began, that this man is still grieving, and that he carries more secrets than she may be ready to dance with.
Luminara takes her stance, and Anakin takes his, and they begin once more.
--
They drift apart and together over the course of months. It is a holding pattern, in some ways. Anakin has projects for the council that Luminara isn’t at all allowed to know about, and Luminara has diplomatic missions every other week or so. She gleans, from the words that go unsaid in their meetings, that he has mandatory psychiatric counseling more often than most Jedi.
“They won’t let him leave the Temple unless he goes,” little Ani says. He’s showing her a drawing he’s done, which looks more like a droid schematic than the standard doodle a child that age might have. He is also gossiping.
(Luminara hadn’t even come here for him, but to visit the toddler that is Barriss Offee. Ani’s crèche clan lives just a few doors down, however, and she’s not one to turn down such an opportunity.)
“But he said I have to go, too,” Ani continues. “Because I’ve got a lot of the same problems.”
For a blank and horrified moment, Luminara thinks he means the war.
After a moment, she realizes he means the childhood of slavery.
“That seems appropriate,” she tells him. “Have you been going?”
Ani shrugs. “Yeah. It’s weird, but it makes Uncle feel better about him going, so I guess that’s a good thing, right?”
“It is,” Luminara says. “Tell me more about this droid you’re designing?”
It’s not entirely appropriate to get information on Anakin’s mental health from his nephew. She’d rather learn directly from the source. Going behind his back, even accidentally, isn’t something a friend should be doing.
--
Anakin finds her one night, knocks on her door in the wee hours, looking haggard and broken.
She wonders why her.
“Anakin?”
“I’m… I can’t sleep and I can’t—I can’t think,” he says, and each word feels as though it’s been broken in half and hastily taped back together. “She’s—I keep think—I can’t, Luminara.”
Her name falls from his mouth like a prayer. It’s not benediction; he is begging.
“What do you need?” she asks.
“Spar with me,” he says, not quite a question or request, but an answer. “I need—maybe if I’m just tired enough—”
“Of course,” she says. “Step inside, I just need to change.”
It is, after all, the middle of the night cycle.
He is jittery, and dithers in the little square meter she can call her entry hall. She changes as quick as she can, sonics her teeth clean to get rid of the taste, and exits.
“Why me?” she asks, once they’re already on their way. “I’m not a particularly proficient fighter, compared to you. Tiring you out may be beyond me.”
“Obi-Wan isn’t here,” he says, “and the rest… I only really know the Council, you know? And they’d lecture.”
Would they? Finding someone to engage in physical activity to calm racing thoughts isn’t an unhealthy way to manage them. Exercise helps, and a trusted fellow can be a good anchor and control for when one is feeling untethered enough to not trust themselves.
“Perhaps,” she allows. “I am flattered by your trust in me.”
He looks at her, brow furrowed and almost hurt, and she thinks she may have misstepped.
Anakin… does not respond well to formality. It may not be the best time.
She slips her hand into his, and squeezes, and the furrow smooths out.
Good.
Luminara doesn’t ask many questions once they reach the stalls. They aren’t the only ones there—plenty of species are nocturnal, including among the Jedi—but they can get a private room without trouble.
They spar. Anakin is always wild, but it is uncoordinated tonight. He is desperate.
He’s on the verge of tears, leaving openings and slipping up, and it’s not enough for Luminara to win, it never is, but it’s enough that she doesn’t lose before he’s dropping his saber of his own volition.
He falls to his knees and puts his face in his hands, and shudders.
His breath hitches. Though she cannot see them, Luminara knows there are tears falling now.
He is sobbing.
Luminara disengages her saber, edges closer, and goes to her knees next to him. She does not know what is happening, but she probably doesn’t need to. Anakin responds well to physical assurance, and so it is only sensible to hug him.
He leans into her, still shuddering.
Would it be too forward to press her cheek to his head? She chances it.
They sit like this for several long minutes, and Luminara slowly eases Anakin closer as he continues to cry. She levitates some cushions to them, and one of the heavier standing bags, and leans them back against the now-soft, now-sturdy backing.
Anakin folds to lay across her lap. She cards her fingers through his hair, and wonders just how much trouble he is having. She hopes, dearly, that whatever this is will be coming up when he is next scheduled to see his psychiatrist.
“Would you like to talk about it?” she prompts, after the hitching breaths have eased and the tears have slowed.
Anakin doesn’t respond, at first. When he does, it is without sitting up, or moving at all. He just stares at the wall opposite them, eyes crusted and voice rough. “I dreamed about Padmé.”
The wife that doesn’t remember him.
(Of course, nobody remembers him, as far as Luminara can tell.)
“I see,” she says, because there is little else she can. This is not a problem that can be fixed. “If you don’t mind me asking, is she the reason you didn’t want to speak with a council member? I don’t know if you ever told them about her.”
“I did. And… yeah, kinda. I just… I can’t ever, ever have her back. She won’t know me, and the only reason she ever knew me enough to care, to consider me, was an adventure we shared as children. If I approached her now, it would… fuck, it would probably lead to me getting arrested, for more reasons than one.” He breathes in, heavy and shaking. “So I know that I can’t do that. It would be a mistake to even consider it, so she’s… it’s basically like she’s dead. As far as I and my feelings go, she’s as good as dead. Except she’s still out there, and I can’t… I’ll never be able to see her and watch the way she looks at me like she loves me again, and it’s… it’s selfish, because at that point I’m making it about me, but it’s… she’s…”
His breath hitches again. “It’s attachment, everyone would say so, and I know that, but I can’t just… I can’t get past it. I can’t stop missing her, and it hurts so much, and I can’t even pretend I’m okay, some days, because I miss her so much. At least with Obi-Wan, I could rebuild our friendship. And you, that’s mostly new, but I could build a friendship with you, too. But Padmé’s just… never going to be in my life again, not really. I can’t build something new there. I just… all I can do is be angry about it, because it’s better than being sad, right? Except that’s not what being a Jedi is about, and I just spiral. Over and over and over again.”
He's shaking in her lap, and it’s all Luminara can do to keep playing with his hair and trying to keep the Force calm and comforting around them. His pain is a palpable thing, just whirling through the air around them. What can she do, for someone who’s lost everything?
“I would prefer sadness, I think,” she says, quiet and contemplative. “That eases with time, for me. Anger just feeds into more of the same, and a Jedi’s anger is a dangerous thing.”
“You’d find grief easier?” Anakin asks, aghast with confusion and a little bit of offense. He even sits up to look her in the eye.
She shrugs. “I have lost people, yes. None so close as you have; I have been lucky, in that regard. All Jedi struggle with their emotions at one point or another. But our emotions are easily plucked up by the Dark for a ride that drags us closer to it, and so we must be careful in how we manage those feelings. Anger, I have found, was always the easiest to make that happen. It feels good, as you said, better than fear or grief, because it comes with energy and a sensation of being able to do something, and so we cling to it past the point of use. It is addicting, to some.”
He leans closer, the hurt at her comment waning. She takes it as reason to continue. She also takes his hand, turns it palm up, holds it between hers. He lets her.
“There are Jedi that can manage that, like Master Windu, harness their anger in a controlled way, but I have never been one of them. Anger is a natural thing, but it is… difficult. I would rather feel my pain and hurt, and then work through it and release it as I do. It rarely helps me. Anger makes it hard to think. Sadness does too, but… in different ways.
“I am less likely to lash out, if I am not angry. I come out the other side knowing that I have accustomed myself to the changes, and that my grief had reason, but that I have not hurt anyone I care about in anger that had no direction, and that I have no reason to feel ashamed of myself, or to have given my loved ones reason to be ashamed of me in turn. Anger will come, and frustration and fear and all those things we are warned about, because they are natural to any sentient, but we do not feed them.”
She hesitates, because Anakin looks guarded, like he’s expecting her to betray him at any moment.
“But my life has been kinder than yours,” she says, quietly as she can. It still rings, in the silent stillness of the salles, with only the faint hum of circulating air and Anakin’s own breathing. “Anger was useful to you, far longer and more often than it was for me. Anger at a crèchemate over a spilled drink is not the same thing as losing soldiers in war, or the things you suffered as a child. Your anger kept you alive, I’d wager, as often as not. That is not an easy thing to unlearn. It makes sense that you would cling to such a habit, even when it is no longer necessary. Even… even when it would be kinder, to yourself, to let yourself feel the grief without turning to anger as your method to bottle it back where it cannot slow you down.”
He stares at her, eyes wide and almost eerily focused.
“Anakin?”
His other hand comes up to grasp hers. “Thank you for telling me my method had a point, even if it’s not useful now. People… people usually skip that. They just tell me it isn’t useful, and never is, and I’m… it had a point, once. It’s easier to survive someone that tries to break your spirit if you’re angry.”
She does not ask about his childhood. She never, ever, asks about his childhood. She just squeezes his hands back.
“Fuck,” he says, and lifts his untrapped hand to wipe at his eyes. “You’re going to be a great teacher, you know? Might have argued about it when I was actually a padawan, but I can see it now. You’re really good at the explaining part.”
There’s a warmth in her chest that she cannot indulge in right now. Despite that fact, the blush rises. “Thank you.”
He can’t smile. He tries, bless him, but he can’t. It’s just too watery. “Do you mind if I cry on you a little longer?”
She spreads her arms just enough to invite him back to their previous position.
(She scolds herself for the little glee that springs into being at how close he is.)
(The man is actively crying over his wife. This is not the time to indulge in this crush.)
--
Anakin doesn’t bother her for midnight spars often; he prefers to fight Obi-Wan, in that sense.
He does come to her when he needs to talk, though. Yes, he talks to Obi-Wan, or even Masters Koon or Jinn or Yoda sometimes, but it’s mostly Obi-Wan or Luminara herself.
“Obi-Wan has more of my secrets, but you’re the best at explaining things,” he says. “It’s… things make sense, when I talk to you.”
It’s flattering. Awkward, but flattering.
“Have you spoken to your sister?” Luminara asks, instead of commenting on the compliment she can’t take too personally without causing far too much trouble for her poor heart. “Since you picked up Little Ani, I mean.”
He blinks at her in confusion. “I… no, not really, it was discouraged. I’ve got, you know,” he gestures vaguely, “problems with attachment.”
“I see,” Luminara says. “It’s… if you don’t mind me asking, you said that nobody remembered you, but she named her child after you, so didn’t she…?”
“It’s a traditional name,” Anakin says. He doesn’t meet her eyes. “She didn’t remember why she picked it, but it was a name she might have picked anyway, so it didn’t strike her as odd.”
“Oh,” Luminara says. She’d hoped that… maybe… “I’m sorry to hear that.”
He shrugs. “It is what it is. I’m… used to it, by now. And she was still happy to see me, after I explained.”
Explained what?
He still hasn’t told Luminara, either.
--
Luminara goes on missions regularly, but she’s receiving more and more of the missions that require she take a partner, just in case.
As often as not, that partner is Anakin.
“Gotta guard someone if I’m a Guardian, right?” he jokes.
She laughs, and teases right back, “my hero. Shall we fetch you some shining armor, my knight?”
“Nah, shiny means new,” he says, and she gets the sudden feeling that this is unfamiliar slang, rather than a comment on history as it may have been from another Jedi. “You wear armor into the field, it gets scuffed up, especially if its painted, and nobody’s got time to fix that up when you’ve got another battle coming on.”
Or experience, of course.
They see Mandalorians, on this trip. He barely acknowledges them. As a result, one tries to pick a fight.
He insults them in Mando’a, steals and knocks back their drink—tihaar, she’d heard one of them order—and grins with challenge. He is very comfortable, meeting these Mandos on their own level, and Luminara does not know what to think of it. “You wanna go?”
As it turns out, they do not.
“You know Mando’a?” she prompts, after he sits back down.
“Just a bit,” he tells her. He’s wistful, but it’s not as awful as it sometimes is. “Some of my boys… the troopers had a Mandalorian background. Not fully, really, it was complicated as hell, but… yeah. Anyway. I picked up some insults and random phrases they shouted often enough. Seemed to make ‘em feel better if they had something for themselves, so I didn’t actively study it.”
“I see.”
She doesn’t.
--
There are no recent conflicts that fit Anakin’s story. She gets details from him, here and there, and it all confuses her more. He mentions a darksider apprentice, almost says Sith more often than not, and even mentions Korriban.
The picture he paints only grows more confusing. Luminara’s been patient, tried to be polite, but she’d rather pick up a few pieces on her own than pry, and so she goes the archives.
There are… stories. Old ones. Most are about the Sith, but some mention other, more isolated darksider sects. It’s not the first she’s heard of most of them, but she’s rarely researched so deeply.
The nightsisters of Dathomir are the topic that gives her what she thinks might be the final piece.
They have a curse, rare and difficult to cast, but possible. Recorded. Deadly to the caster or a sacrifice of their choosing, but would it not be worth it, to erase the man that may be the Chosen One?
(At least, if Master Jinn is to be believed.)
The curse erases all memory of a person, from everyone including the caster, until the only person to know the name is the victim themselves. Parents, siblings, lovers, all would forget. Every bond, every record, completely gone. Even Force bonds would evaporate. Belongings, gone from shared spaces. Birth certificates, arrest records, news clippings that could be galaxy-wide, just… no longer there.
Not even his own sister had known him.
Not even his wife had remembered him.
Luminara was wrong when she called it a tragedy. It was far, far too targeted for that label to apply.
--
She isn’t careful enough.
She should be. She knows just how paranoid men like Anakin can be. She knows just what kind of mental state his life would result in. He finds her research.
Luminara exits her room, just gone for two minutes to swap out her headdress after a youngling spilled some sticky jam on it, and finds Anakin looking at one of the datapads she’s taken from the Archives. He’s just staring at it, and it takes several long seconds for him to register her arrival.
When he looks at her, the expression is unreadable.
“…I didn’t want to pry,” she says. “I thought it might be better if I figured out the issue on my own, so I could… avoid the pitfalls, without having to dig.”
“No,” he says. He looks down at the datapad again. He looks up at her. He opens his mouth as if to say more, and closes it.
He drops the pad and wordlessly leaves the room.
Oh.
--
Obi-Wan finds her.
“You’re moping.”
“I am not.”
“You are,” he says easily, dropping into the seat beside her. Her couch is large enough for three, yet he still sits almost on top of her. Rude man. “You know, sometimes just asking is better than avoiding the topic.”
“I was not avoiding it,” she huffs. “He was grieving, and just talking about it upset him, and much of his background is classified. It wasn’t polite to press.”
“And your reaction to classified info was to go piecing it together for your own amusement?”
“It wasn’t for amusement,” she snaps, right before she can stop herself.
She closes her eyes and breathes. He lets her.
“It wasn’t for amusement,” she repeats. “It was never about idle curiosity or—or what narrative I could tease out of his past like a cheap holofilm. I wanted to help him, and half the time I was swimming blindly because I didn’t know enough, and you were the one that told me I was one of the only friends he had at all.”
Obi-Wan puts an arm around her shoulders, and squeezes. It feels like she’s back in their early padawan classes, the ones where she was still struggling and Obi-Wan was finally relaxing into being a padawan instead of the most anxious of initiates; even a full year younger than her, he’d been fully ready and willing and capable of being her shoulder to cry on when it got to be too much.
He hadn’t been the only one, but… well, this situation was a familiar one.
“Anakin Skywalker is exactly the kind of person who prefers when people are straightforward,” Obi-Wan says. “At least, he claims he is, and he’s working on figuring out when that’s actually true, and when he’s sure to overreact because the straightforward truth wasn’t the one he wanted to hear. I can’t say asking right out would have been without drama, but it may have been easier on you both, after a day or two.”
He squeezes her shoulder, and knocks his head against hers. “It’ll be fine, I’m sure, but you could have avoided moping.”
“I am not moping, Obi-Wan Kenobi,” she mutters.
“You are,” he says, again. “Come on, he’s going to come back around soon, and you can return to your new favorite hobby.”
She looks at him, blank and befuddled. “What?”
“You know. Staring at him when he isn’t looking and wishing he’d kiss you.”
Luminara grabs a pillow and, without shame or remorse, attempts to smother a laughing Padawan Kenobi.
--
Anakin finds her at nine in the morning, just as she finishes a late breakfast.
“I’m… I’m sorry I left so quickly yesterday,” he manages in a rush. “You… I didn’t expect. That.”
Luminara hesitates. “Would you… like to have this conversation inside?”
He would. They make their way to the couch. Luminara still has tea, a calming blend she’d made with breakfast. It’s a little cooler than she prefers, but not yet stale. She offers it to him. He accepts.
They sit.
“I shouldn’t have dug,” she says, eventually. “Obi-Wan stopped by. He said you would have preferred if I just asked, and in hindsight, he was probably right.”
“Maybe,” Anakin says. He flexes his hands in his lap, and the quiet whirr of his prosthesis is audible past the whirring of her fridge and air. “But… honestly, you’ve been one of my only friends for almost a year. I should have talked to the Council about getting you read in on the situation before now, instead of lying about… pretty much everything I lied to the rest of the galaxy about.”
She hadn’t known he was lying. Keeping secrets, yes, but for some reason, she hadn’t thought he was lying.
“I see,” she says.
She sort of does.
Anakin focuses on his hands for a bit, and then sighs heavily. “Okay. So. When I say that nobody remembers me, it’s technically true, but not… it’s not amnesia. Which I know is how I usually framed it, but it’s not actually accurate.”
Luminara does not turn away from him, for all that he does not look at her at all.
“I’d met you all, but none of you had met me,” he continues, “at all. Not just met me and forgotten, but not met at all. It’s, well, it’s time travel.”
Her thoughts freeze.
He goes to continue talking, but she raises a hand, and he stops. Her eyes focus beyond him, moving all her puzzle pieces to new places, trying to process all he’s told her in light of this new information.
“Little Ani,” Luminara says. “Not your nephew, but you.”
“Yes.”
“…Obi-Wan?”
“I was his padawan, first time around.”
Luminara nods. “Did you and I… know each other?”
“Not well,” he says. “We ran a few missions together, during the war, and I shared a few classes with Barriss for the single year we were both senior padawans. She was medic and consular, so her early classes matched up to my last.”
Luminara nods. He does not try to press her, and she appreciates it.
Another piece clicks. “You said you would be arrested if you pursued your wife now, while she does not know you.”
“Yes.”
“She’s a child.”
“Thirteen and about to be elected queen of Naboo,” Anakin says drily. “So… no, not exactly an option. If mini me somehow ends up on her radar, I’m not going to get in the way, but me me? Not happening. She’s barely a teenager, and I’m a full decade older than her. I’m not pursuing a literal child.”
“And if she shows interest in you, ten years down the line, without you having influenced her decision at all?”
He hesitates, and then closes his eyes and shakes his head. “No. It wouldn’t… it wouldn’t be her. Not really. Not in the way I’d have… no. There wouldn’t be any of the shared experiences, and that’s important. Besides that, I’ll be over thirty by that point, and I don’t think I can really… find interest in someone that much younger than me, even once they actually are an adult. Won’t know until I actually am thirty, but… probably not.”
As good as dead, he’d always said. Basically a widower. It was even more accurate than the amnesia explanation.
“Your project for Master Dyas?”
“Uh, that’s still classified,” Anakin admits, grimacing. “I haven’t told Obi-Wan about that one either, if it helps.”
She nods, and looks at her hands. There are other things she can ask, but most of the answers present themselves quickly enough. Why had Shmi been happy to see him despite not remembering her ‘brother?’ They’d told her the truth, to have her agree to a cover story that Little Ani wouldn’t question too hard. Why had he called her Master Unduli when he’d still been in a fever-daze, that first week? That was the rank she had held when he had known her in that future. Why is he so sure that Barriss is to be her padawan? Well, he’s seen it happen, of course.
“Your friendship with Master Koon in particular?” she hazards.
“He was my padawan’s finder,” he says, and laughs when she turns to blink in surprise at him. She may be gaping. “Yeah, uh, I was barely twenty, and she was fourteen. It was several months into the war and I had only barely been knighted; Yoda threw us together and just told us to make it work. We did.”
“Is she at the Temple?”
“No, not yet,” Anakin says. The wistfulness is there, as ever. “But soon, I think. Year, maybe year and a half.”
Luminara wonders if he will teach the same child. Maybe. It’s a decade too early to tell.
“I think that’s all I have to ask,” she decides. “I’ll tell you if anything comes to mind.”
He smiles, halting, and says, “so you and me, we’re good?”
“We are.”
“Back to being your knight in scuffy armor?”
She scoffs a laugh and lightly whaps at his shoulder. “I am a knight in my own right, I’ll thank you to remember.”
He laughs right back, though it is still a little thin and awkward. He hugs her.
It’s nice. She doesn’t want it to end.
“Oh,” Anakin says, as if quite suddenly remembering. “Obi-Wan said there was something else you needed to talk to me about? He mentioned a hobby but wouldn’t elaborate.”
Curse that boy.
“It’s nothing to talk about now,” Luminara says.
“Why not?” Anakin asks.
“Until such a time that you’ve settled your grief, odd as the situation is, it’s inappropriate,” Luminara says. “It’s hardly been a year. I don’t think it’s a good idea to discuss it now.”
“Settled how?” Anakin presses.
A flash of irritation, but Luminara reminds herself of Obi-Wan’s words. Anakin values straightforwardness. “That for the relationships you cannot rekindle, you have grieved and come to terms with them to the point where you can move forward and find new people that can fill that same role in your life. Not a replacement, of course, but the same kind of relationship.”
She hopes that’s vague enough.
Anakin frowns. “That’s… not exactly going to be easy to figure out.”
Luminara shrugs. “More detail would put pressure on you and strain our friendship, I think. Trust me?”
He does, obviously.
--
It’s another six months before Anakin lets himself into her rooms, grabs her by the arms, and asks, “can I kiss you?”
She gapes at him.
“Obi-Wan told me. You meant you were waiting for me to get over Padmé and be ready to start dating again, right? And you like me, and wanted me to be ready to like you back without the whole widower thing being a factor, and I really do, so if you still like me, can I kiss you?”
Luminara can feel how wide her eyes are in this moment.
She nods.
(Ah. It appears that a man who was previously married knows far better how to kiss with romance than most of her previous partners.)
(There’s been plenty of skill, especially for those with experience in clubs and the like, but Luminara’s never felt quite as worshiped as she does in this moment.)
(It’s nice to be adored.)