Balance and Victory: A Star Wars Alternate Universe [COMPLETED!]

Chapter 9

(Note: The artwork is not mine, it belongs to shorelle on DeviantArt.)

It dawned on Anakin one day that he had known Padmé for twenty years, and only spent three of them with her. For the remaining seventeen, all he had been able to do was think of her and imagine what it would be like if she was actually there. Three years out of twenty was such an unbelievably short amount of time- it was almost as if Padmé had never actually been real. Those three years felt like nothing more than a dream.

So now he had lost not only Padmé, but also his career as a Jedi. His existence would have been pretty dull if it weren't for Leia.

Her childhood certainly hadn't been easy, thanks to the Empire. Every time Anakin felt that the Empire was getting too close to them, he and Leia would move away. They had done this five times in seven years already, so Leia had never gotten a chance to settle down and make friends and get used to whatever school she was in.

On top of that, she had inherited his fiery temper and brutal honesty. She made it very clear whenever she was unhappy with her circumstances.

However, the moving seemed to be Leia's only complaint, and that was a good thing. Anakin had always made sure that Leia had a good education, a safe place to live, decent food and nice clothes. Most importantly, they were together, and safe from the Empire. For now, anyway. They were lucky that the Empire didn't seem to care much about the Outer Rim yet.

Anakin was sitting in his parked speeder outside Leia's school, lost in his own thoughts, when the doors opened and all the children came flooding out. Leia was easy to recognize with her cream-colored outfit and dark hair in two little buns, and she made a beeline for the speeder.

"Hi, Leia," Anakin said as the little girl climbed into the speeder and shut the door.

"Hi," she replied, surveying the vehicle with her big brown eyes. She glanced up at him hopefully. "This speeder is new, it's nice, is it ours?"

"No," Anakin sighed, stepping on the gas pedal and exiting the school. "It's a client's. I got it to drivable condition today, and I'm taking it home so I can keep working on it tonight."

Every time they had moved to a new planet, Anakin had easily found work as a mechanic. Everyone all over the galaxy needed repairs and modifications to their vehicles, and Anakin was highly skilled at this thanks to all his time spent fixing his own ships as a Jedi. It was unfulfilling work compared to saving lives and fighting wars, but it was much safer, and productive and fun.

It was strange how he always wanted what he couldn't have. As a Jedi, he had always longed to live a less chaotic life, but now, he missed the excitement and importance of being a Jedi.

As they drove, Anakin noticed that Leia was being uncharacteristically quiet. She always chatted on her way home from school. "Is everything okay?" he asked her.

She stared at the ground, scowling. "Daddy, they... they took my blaster!"

He sighed in frustration. The blaster pistol hadn't been cheap, and now that he was earning his own money instead of being paid by the government, he was forced to care about how much things cost. "How did they find out about it?" he said sternly. "You were supposed to keep it a secret. You didn't use it, did you?"

"I didn't!" Leia exclaimed, her face flushing bright red. "There was this boy at recess. He kept going on about how great the Empire is-" she made a face- "so I came up and told him everything about the Empire, how bad it is. And... he laughed at me. Him and his friends. I told them to stop or I would tell a teacher. And so he pushed me... and he could feel the blaster underneath my tunic." Leia shook her head angrily and pounded her little fist on the dashboard. "Then they told the teacher, and she felt the blaster underneath my clothes and she forced me to show it to her. And then they took it away! It's not my fault!"