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Soft notes of slow music drift between particles of sunlight, weaving and dipping in the humid haze that clings to the air around the Lake District that Anakin now calls home.
He lies on his back on a picnic blanket, with his head resting comfortably in the lap of his wife. Yes, his wife. A word that is just as exciting now as it was the first time he ever uttered it, eight years ago beneath the setting Naboo sun, under which Anakin Skywalker wed Padmé Amidala.
Padmé absentmindedly runs her fingers through his hair and he lets his eyes shut, truly at peace whenever her touch lingers on his skin. The Force practically sings around him in moments like this, and a contented sigh slips from his lips as Padmé plants a chaste kiss to forehead. Her fingers stray from the confines of his faint curls, and a warm palm cups his cheek. Slowly, Padmé maps out the contours of his face with her thumb, tracing the bridge of his nose, then the slope of his cheekbones, before ghosting against his lips.
Each plain of his face is then graced by her soft lips in a spree of tender kisses. It is enough to make Anakin shiver, overwhelmed by the fierce love that burns so bright in her presence. How truly she loves him, how deeply. She leaves no space for doubt, and he wonders, sometimes, just how he came to deserve a woman so perfect?
Anakin stares up at Padmé, transfixed by the golden sheen of the setting sun, lathering itself over her skin. The deep, chocolate brown of her eyes is his favourite colour, and he could spend an eternity simply looking at her. Of course, that would only be possible if she hadn't just restarted her quest to kiss every inch of his face.
"Not that I don't treasure your every kiss, angel," Anakin grasps his wife's wrists, halting her advances, "but what have I done to earn such devout affection?" He quirks a brow, "There isn't an anniversary around the corner, is there?"
"Oh please." Padmé rolls her eyes, "Like you could ever forget an anniversary, you hopeless romantic."
Anakin pulls her down, lips stretching into a smarmy grin that he hopes she will decide to kiss off his face, "You love me for all my romance."
"And all your hopelessness."
"Ah...so was it my hopelessness that invoked the desire to smooch me to death?"
Padmé shakes her head, "Your crime this time, my darling, is being far prettier than you have any right to be."
(The thrill those words manage to send up his spine is almost embarrassing.)
"And that's punishable by an onslaught of kisses?"
"Obviously."
Pursing his lips in an incredible imitation of his master, Anakin feigns thinking it over, before addressing his wife with the sort of seriousness she must only hear in senate.
"Well then, Senator, I find you guilty on grounds of being far too beautiful for a poor man like me to handle."
Before she can attempt to talk her way out of her mandated kisses, Anakin quickly pushes himself up onto his palms, twisting at his waist to capture her lips with his own.
It's not one of their best, as Padmé giggles, and although the sound is enough to make a man feel heady with warmth, it makes kissing sort of difficult to achieve.
But he adores her laugh, adores the light in her eyes, adores the scrunch of her nose. He adores and adores and adores. The feeling is too searing to contain, burning him up from the inside, and Anakin's chest aches with a sweet kind of pain. A good kind of pain. He thinks it's peace and love and all those pleasing things he once thought he had no right to.
When she calms down, the unmistakable adoration in her eyes makes Anakin feel dizzy, and he leans in on instinct, still heady on her laughter, only to be met by the soft pads of her fingers splayed over his mouth. He furrows his brow in a question.
"The children." Padmé mock-scolds, shaking her head, "Don't tell me you've forgotten that our little demons are out here with us?"
"Like they would ever let me forget." Anakin closes his eyes, aware of their bright presence not too far away.
He can never lose sight of Luke and Leia, who burn with the strength of Tatooine's twin suns, but are blessed with the gentleness of Naboo's calm lakes. They've so much of their mother in them, and Anakin is so very glad to see it.
Their Force signature is humming with happiness and excitement, which generally means they're cooking up trouble.
("It's all down to their incorrigible Skywalker genes," Obi-Wan has often told him. "They're a taste of your own medicine, young one.")
"From the reading I'm getting, our hellions are probably giving poor old Threepio a real run around." He cranes his neck, staring down at the beach from the peaceful vantage point where they had set up their picnic, easily picking out the figure of their golden protocol droid and the twins, who were gleefully rolling around in the sand. At that, Anakin frowns.
Padmé obviously catches his line of thinking, "The twins like sand, Ani. Don't pull that face."
"What face?"
"The 'it's coarse and rough and irritating' face."
With a burst of energy, Anakin sits up properly, huffing, "It is! It's all of those things! It's not my fault your weird Naberrie genes have conditioned my children into sand-loving beach dwellers!"
"Your children?" Padmé repeats, unimpressed.
"Our children." Anakin hastily corrects as he reaches out to touch her, hands ghosting her elbows.
Padmé pulls further back, smirking and highly amused at the way he splutters and stammers to find his way back into her good graces. The glint in her gaze is evidence enough that she is teasing him, but really, he's a sucker for all her ribbing. He always has been.
"Our lovely, beautiful, amazing children who take after their equally as wonderful mother, who is, unquestionably, an angel amongst us mere mortals."
Padmé laughs, swatting at his shoulder, “You’re laying it on a bit thick, Ani.”
“If you don’t like it, why don’t you come here and shut me up?” He wiggles his eyebrows suggestively, only to be met with an eye roll.
Ouch. That certainly doesn’t do his pride any favours.
"My weird Naberrie genes are fine over here where they can't get any Skywalker on them, thank you very much."
Anakin huffs and pouts, a sight Obi-Wan tells him is 'unbecoming' of a man his age. Though, Obi-Wan is certainly in no place to talk. Anakin is only twenty-seven, whereas his old master is still very much a reckless flirt in the name of being the famed Negotiator, despite being in his mid-forties. Surely that is more unbecoming than a man simply trying to win his wife over?
He levels Padmé a look, "You know, my lady, I would've thought you were quite fond of Skywalkers, since you married one after all."
Padmé raises her eyebrow a fraction, "The same could be said of you and Naberries."
Anakin shifts forwards on his knees in order to lean towards her, memorising the way her eyes flash with bright mirth. When he reaches with his hand, she doesn't hesitate to take it in hers, the webs of their fingers fitting perfectly together. He pulls her closer, a smirk playing on his lips.
"I seem to recall you being the one to have proposed."
"Yet you were the one harbouring a decade long crush on me."
"Yes but—"
"Anakin, my love, tell me you’re not trying to out debate a senator."
“You know I would never dare tty it—I’m much too frightened.” He grins then, all sharp and toothy, “Especially of that Senator Amidala. I hear she can command men to do her bidding with a simple look.”
A small snort escapes Padmé as she playfully rolls her eyes, “Ani darling please shut up.”
"Of course senator, anything for you." He feigns a dreamy look, voice lowered until it sounds dazed.
Padmé shakes her head, giggling as she takes his face into her hands like she has a million times before, and she kisses him. Anakin sighs, melting against her. To him, it does not matter how many times he feels his wife’s lips against his own, because each one always feels like coming home. It seems he will never learn to not savour her affections; a habit from wartime that he is glad to have not shaken.
They part soon enough, resting their heads against one another, and Anakin feels content in a way his family always inspire. Padmé gives him a soft smile, and it makes Anakin feel nine, nineteen, twenty-two, all over again. With her, the happiness he once thought fleeting, becomes eternal.
Anakin responds with a peck to her forehead. "I." Her nose. "Love." And finally, her lips. "You."
Padmé cradles his face in her hands and smiles that sweet smile of hers, “Not as much as I love you.”
Oh but she doesn’t know. She couldn’t possibly fathom how important her love is to him.
Loving Padmé Amidala is like finding yourself; it’s every moment in your life colliding at lightspeed at once, exploding into a supernova that burns bright in the space where your heart should be. It is like discovering how to breathe for the first time, like the first drops of rain in the first storm a boy from the desert ever saw, like watching galaxies burn to life as you enter hyperspace. She is everything he isn’t, everything that he longs for, everything that he needs. But most of all, she is his, just as he is undoubtedly hers.
She, and their children, are the light that stopped him from succumbing to the dark. They tethered him to his goodness, and taught him to make the hard choices, to see the world without the lens of fear that plagued him for so long.
In Anakin’s darkest moments, back in Coruscant five years ago, loving Padmé Amidala was both his reckoning and his salvation.
He almost fell in his desperation to save her, to never lose her, but she would not let him. When he could not shine, her light was enough for the both of them, enough to guide him back home. She stopped that furnace of his heart from scorching him alive, and he had never loved her more.
(Well, that’s not true; he loves her more everyday.)
“I don’t think so, my angel.” He says, fondly.
Padmé pushes stray hairs out of his eyes, and diplomatically replies, “Agree to disagree?”
His wife, ever the politician. Anakin can only grin and kiss her yellower than the brightest sunrise.
Afterwards, they lie side by side for a while, hand in hand. Padmé watches the dipping sun; Anakin watches her. His thoughts drift and flow like a calm haze that he cannot shake, like warm waves on a summer day.
If someone had told him ten years ago, that leaving the Jedi Order would be the thing that led to his happiness, he would’ve taken it as an insult. Arrogant, brash, and desperate to prove himself as he was back then.
But now…Now he cannot imagine a life different to this.
Sure, sometimes, he reminisces about being General Skywalker, the Hero With No Fear, the Chosen One, but then he remembers the misery that came attached to all those titles. The secrets he had to keep and the lies he had to tell. He remembers almost falling.
Being a Jedi was his dream the second he left that blasted desert plant, but Padmé was—is his life. Their children are his heart. Leaving the Order to be with them was easier than breathing. Plus, it’s not like they needed him anymore. He’d done his job: Sidious was dead and balance was restored, all thanks to a couple of frowned upon attachments.
Without his love for Padmé, Obi-Wan, Ahsoka, and his yet to be born children, Anakin Skywalker would cease to exist. Without their love for him, he would have lost himself completely. He made sure the Council heard that, and truly understood the depth of what he was saying, that change was needed in the Order.
The Jedi were always well-meaning, he understood that now. They were not evil, not like Sidious was trying to have him believe near the end of the war; they wanted the best for him, even if he never saw that. Unfortunately, what was best for Anakin, didn’t adhere to their rules.
Nowadays he’s little more than a Jedi adviser—aka, a glorified trophy husband, as Ahsoka likes to call him—but he finds he’s quite alright with that. He has been fighting all his life, has been at war for years, and has lost so much time with the ones he loves that now he simply enjoys making up for it all. Looking after the twins is his favourite thing in the galaxy, and Force-sensitive as they are, it’s good for everyone if he’s around during one of their temper tantrums.
(Any nannies Padmé tried might have been scared off by children who make the walls rattle with every cry).
“Daddy!”
At the sound of Leia’s delighted voice, Anakin swiftly sits up, only to be thumped back down by the troublesome twosome that launch themselves into his chest. He wheezes as the gleeful giggles of children fill the air, accompanied by that airy lilt of amusement that suits Padmé so well.
It’s almost impossible to not break out into an unbidden grin of his own in their presence; they’re that adorable. Anakin doesn’t fight it, cheeks soon smarting from how wide he smiles.
“Now what brings you two troublemakers back up from the beach?” Anakin’s voice is light and playful as he encloses both children into a hug, content to let them nuzzle against his shirt.
Luke looks up at him, blue eyes shimmering with excitement, “You were so bright!”
“Bright?” Padmé and Anakin say at once.
“Uh-huh. You know—in the Force!” Leia answers for her brother, and now, Anakin thinks he understands what they mean.
“Leia ‘n I thought it was really warm. There was so much light!”
Luke says that last remark with such awe that Anakin tries and fails to not to get misty eyed. For so much of his life he has been told that fear and anger sticks to his soul like a brand; the message blocked off his ability to hear otherwise for the longest time. But he has been working on truly believing it when Padmé and Obi-Wan tell him he’s good, or loved. It’s been so many years but their words have finally begun to sink in, and none faster than those of his children, wholeheartedly telling him that he is Light.
“Well, my little stars,” he sits up so the twins are in his lap, “that would be because I’m so very happy.”
“We like it when you’re happy,” Leia pauses, her lips twisting into a little smirk that Padmé has all too often seen on her husband.“Mama likes it too.”
“Oh does she now?” Anakin casts his wife a sly look. He leans towards their daughter, all conspiratorial as he stage-whispers, “Your Mama likes everything about me it seems.”
“Don’t you like everything about Mama?” Luke interjects, innocently staring up at his father with wide eyes.
“Of course I like everything about her, sunshine. I probably like her more than she likes me.”
“Nuh-uh!” Luke pouts, “Mama likes you more ‘cause Mama’s the best at everything, which means she’s the best at liking you.”
Padmé laughs at the ridiculously offended look on Anakin’s face, and pulls Luke into her lap. She throws her husband a mocking look, “Seems at least one of my babies is on their mother’s side.”
“Luke’s wrong.” Leia says with all the authority a five-year-old can manage, and Anakin practically beams when she comes to his defence.
He has spoiled her rotten, though Padmé may have spoiled Luke just as badly. She would never admit that, of course.
“Daddy’s the best at liking Mama, since Mama can’t be the best at liking herself! Plus, Daddy always brings her those pretty flowers that Grandpa taught him to grow.”
Luke glares at his sister, and Padmé can see very clearly all the Skywalker in the furrow of his brow. Anakin, however, is more focused on the Naberrie in the stubborn set of his chin.
“Well, Mama called Uncle Obi when Daddy was really sick and Daddy is always happy to see him!”
“Yeah well Daddy threw Mama a surprise birthday party even though he was so bad at planning for it.”
(Padmé giggles at Anakin’s wince; he was very disorganised according to Sabé, which was a surprise to absolutely no one, but the final event itself had made Padmé tear up at all the clear love and care he had put into it).
“Mama bought Daddy a new ship for his birthday!”
“Daddy built Mama another droid for her birthday!”
“Mama got Aunt ‘Soka—”
“Yeah well Daddy brought Ryoo and—”
“Okay kiddos, I think you’ve made it very clear just how much your Daddy loves me.” Padmé pulls a huffing, red-faced Luke back into her arms from where he was practically forehead-to-forehead with his sister, who was, of course, identically riled up.
Anakin plants a featherlight kiss on the crown of Leia’s head, and her twisted frown practically disappears, “And how much your Mama loves me.”
“But at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter who loves who more, because we can’t quantify something like that.” Padmé reaches out and takes Leia’s hand, and Anakin does the same with Luke.
“Just know that we love the two of you more than anything in the galaxy.”
The twins nod slowly, but soon enough Luke has another question for his father.
“Even more than flying?”
Anakin huffs out a laugh and leans over to ruffle Luke’s hair, “Yeah, sunshine, even more than flying..”
“Even more than your lightsaber?” Leia stares up at Anakin from his lap, arching a brow as if this is her way of saying ‘gotcha!’.
“Even more than my lightsaber, I promise.”
The protest from Luke is instantaneous, “But Uncle Obi says your lightsaber is your life.”
“Well it was my life once,” Anakin says slowly.
It was more than his life, really; it was his worth as a person, and for a boy who had been born into slavery, any iota of self-worth weighed far more than each breath he took. After all, the life of a slave is something with a price tag attached to it, but their sense of identity? That is hope that they must latch onto, even if it kills them, because freedom can exist in death, but living in despair is not really living at all.
(“I’m a person,” he had said as a nine-year-old who knew nothing of the galaxy surrounding him, “and my name is Anakin.” If only he had felt such strong clarity about who he was in his years as a Jedi.)
But now he had learned that his worth was not measured by how many lightsaber forms he could master, nor how many Seppies he could put down—no, his worth was not so tangible. For now, he liked to think of it measured in the love that he could give and receive, because what was a person, if not a collection of all the lives they have touched? He certainly would be a far lesser man without Padmé, Ahsoka, Obi-Wan, and his children.
Anakin catches Padmé’s soft gaze, lost in all the love she exudes in the force, as bright and clear as the twin suns of Tatooine on a cloudless sky. It is a wonder he was ever manipulated into even beginning to doubt her feelings for him. People say he does nothing by halves, but neither does his wife, and that includes loving him. He knows that now, and he shall never forget it.
(He doubts she will ever let him.)
“But I found a better one.” He smiles at their children, swallowing down the lump that has formed in his throat; they are the greatest creation in the galaxy, and no one is allowed to tell him otherwise. “Now you two and your Mama are my life.”
He’s surprised he can get the words out without sobbing.
The twins latch onto his sides and hug him tight, burning with a blend of adoration and care in the Force that only constricts Anakin’s throat further; he is sure his heart must be lodged in there. He doesn’t realise he’s fighting back tears until Padmé gently swipes her thumbs across the arch of his cheekbones, wiping them away.
Then she takes his hand in her own and squeezes it tight, her own eyes watery, and her smile is so big it makes Anakin want to bundle her up in his arms and never let go.
“You’re our life too, Ani,” she whispers, before kissing his cheek in a feather-light motion.
As the sun sets, surrounded by his family on a planet he can finally call home, Anakin Skywalker thinks that he may be the happiest man to ever live. He’s still not entirely certain why he is so lucky, or whether he deserves any of it, but he doesn’t worry about it for very long before the twins drag him to his feet to dance along to whatever new song has started playing on Artoo’s speaker, Padmé’s peals of laughter chasing them all the way.
And all is well in that galaxy, far, far away—it always will be.