Anakin Skywalker was dreaming.
He wasn't dreaming of just anything, like he used to in the days he was a padawan, the days he was only a child.
He wasn't dreaming of his beloved wife, coming to her close of certain death.
He wasn't dreaming of his mother, the long-since-gone Shmi Skywalker, the only family he'd ever had.
He was dreaming of things he'd only dreamt of before in the past minorly, a few times to say the least.
Anakin Skywalker was dreaming of Kyla Valero.
After her defeat, the defeat he had longed for since her transition to the Dark Side, things had been different. He knew they were different now. After what she said to him; after he sliced through her arms to the elbows, separating herself from her weapon, leaving her to cry in pain for the Clones that wouldn't hear her... things were different.
And he knew this, of course. He had embraced the fact that his padawan was gone awhile ago.
But with her defeat, with things being different...
Could she be who she was before?
He saw her as clearly as he would see when he were to be awake. He saw her there, with him, and she was happy. He was happy. She had two mechanical arms...
She was older. He was older. She was in her mid twenties; he was approaching the end of his.
He saw his children; Luke and Leia were young, at the peak of their double-digits.
Leia looked like her mother. She had her father's nose. Mother's lips and eyes.
Luke's hair was bright. A defeaning gold, the striking blond his parents could never truly explain: though Anakin took it upon himself to adhere to the fact that he was blond as a child as well.
Luke had his father's eyes. His mother's stubbornness.
Kyla looked... wiser. Happier.
She looked happier than Anakin had never seen her. A feeling of happiness and serenity coursed through his veins at the sight of her, at the fully rebuilt Temple, kneeling before his daughter.
"Leia," she says to the girl, and her voice is even purer than Anakin's dream state, "I'm unmistakably sorry for everything that I had done to your family, all those years ago. I... tore your family apart, young one, but now I am here to replace the evil I have committed."
Anakin tries to stop her, in his dream. She needn't apologize; he knew that - Kyla needed no more forgiveness, now that she was pure and light - so Anakin tried to stop her. She couldn't redeem herself now.
Kyla, you don't have to -
He couldn't hear himself. He was only... in his head.
Kyla - !
He watches as though he wasn't even there. His eyes are blank; distracted as his former padawan kneels to his daughter, taking her tiny hand in her mechanical one. It was a scene he never could've imagined he'd be seeing... it was surreal. What's going on?
"I'm truly sorry. Will I ever gain your forgiveness?"
He knew Kyla didn't need forgiveness from anyone else other than himself.
But his daughter takes initiative for matters anyway.
Leia says to Kyla, a bit stunned by her action to have taken her hand into hers, "I - forgive you. You didn't do too much wrong, we are still alive."
We are still alive. The words from his daughter's mouth in this odd premonition were almost... music to his ears.
But he didn't avert his gaze from the scene.
Luke stood beside Leia, giving Kyla a look of distrust. He had no real reason not to trust Kyla, but perhaps he knew about the incident when they were toddlers... Kyla's captivation and hostage of his sister.
Perhaps he remembered.
Luke, Anakin calls out desperately, Can you hear me?
The blond boy didn't move a muscle. His scowling face was directed at Kyla, but subtly. Kyla releases her grip from the girl, slowly, then all at once. She gives her a smile; but it was sad. It wasn't the Kyla he remembered; Kyla smiled with faith and honesty, never pain. He had even seen her smile in anger, but never pain.
Leia smiles back. And for a moment, everything seems okay.
But Anakin Skywalker knows he is dreaming.
But everything seemed okay...
Until Luke looks up, directly at his father's nonexistent image. Can he see me? Luke - Can you see me? Why is he looking at me?
The boy pulls his eyebrows together. "Kyla, who's that?" the child asks, raising a finger to point at Anakin.
Anakin's heart races. Can he see me? He-he can see me! Luke!
Kyla turns her head and looks up at Anakin too, followed by Leia. The children eyed him suspiciously, but Kyla's smile fades into a moping frown. She looked depressed as she stared at Anakin and whispered to his children, "That's your father. He is only a Force ghost now, but when you were younger, he was still with us."
What?
Luke turns back to Kyla, confusion still riddled into his features. The boy asks, "How did my father die? I wish I'd known him longer."
Kyla is still staring at Anakin, directly into his soul. But - he is only a ghost. A Force ghost, who is not speaking nor interacting with them but why, why couldn't he say anything? What was this?
Kyla sighs in response to his son. "A young Jedi named Demetrious. She was a-pupil of mine, she killed him when you were only very young."
No! No, this is - this is all wrong, Luke. Leia! Luke! That's not right, I'm still here, don't listen to her!
Then it hit him: That's why they were so confused when she apologized to them. Because even if they remembered the events when they were toddlers, with what happened to Leia, they still had always seen her as Kyla... never Demetrious. Demetrious is... nonexistent to them...
His chest burned with the desire to go out there and put a stop to this. They were conversing about him when he was right there and yet - they didn't see his pain. They couldn't feel it, none of them. How could they not feel it?
Was it because Anakin Skywalker was dead?
And then, when he woke up, it was just as things were before - in his bed, the same bed he knew so familiarly on Coruscant. He was alone, there wasn't a warm being beside him. His daughter was down the hall, his three-year-old precious daughter he rescued from the wraths of Demetrious. She was waiting. Eagerly awaiting to see her brother, her mother again...
"Tomorrow, princess," he had told her, "Tomorrow you'll see your mother and Luke again, I promise you. But tonight we're staying at our old home, then we get to back to Naboo and get our things. Do you understand?"
"Yes, daddy," she had replied before bounding off on her own two feet to go play with something, a spare toy she had perhaps left behind in their Coruscanti apartment.
But that was last night. That was before the peak of the early morning hit Anakin with a dream so real, whilst knowing he was dreaming.
That was before he awoke again and turned his head immediately to the right, his heart skipping a beat involuntarily when he noticed ruffled, empty sheets where there should be life.
For a moment, he had to reconsider everything that had just happened. For a moment, he had to sit on the edge of the bed, holding his head in his hands, trying to control his breathing.
For a moment, he had to think about just how close the Rebel Alliance was to destroying the Death Star once and for all.
And then he pulled himself back to bed but couldn't sleep; he couldn't sleep while the dream still lingered, still haunted him - it was a premonition. As Padmé would say, "It was only a dream," but he knew better than that.
This one was going to become real.
It was the way his children, his older, more mature children looked at him and didn't know who he was. That no matter their strength in the Force, they couldn't sense that the ghostly image was... their father.
It was the way Kyla had lied to them; hiding her alter ego, telling them what seemed like a myth, the legend of Anakin Skywalker, the story of Demetrious slaughtering The Hero With No Fear.
It was the way her sad eyes apologized, the look she gave as she gazed at him, knowing what she had committed, and yet apologizing to his children for it.
So he couldn't sleep.
He thinks of Padmé. She was alone, in Naboo, with their son. Probably asleep, but he got a strange sense that... she wasn't.
He rises now, and heads to the veranda. The one spot he knew he could truly be discreet, safe, and have time to think about things. His body grew oddly cold at his entrance, but warms as he lowers himself to the couch, his mind searching his feelings for answers.
He hangs his head. He feels... weak.
I saved Padmé. I - couldn't save Kyla. Can I save myself? He didn't know. He didn't have the answers he needed, the answers he was so desperately looking for.
Anakin looks up, out into the air traffic that still commenced in the deep night.
He directed his ruminations to her; he could sense her, staring off into Naboo, seeing him. They could sense each other now; he could sense her worry, she could sense his pain.
She sits on the balcony, her hands nervously fiddling in her lap as she watched the still lake, then moving her eyes to the sky. "Oh, Ani," she says aloud, but to herself, "If only you knew how poorly I feel for everything you've been through."
Her voice was soft, under her breath. Only she could hear it.
Or so she thought.
Anakin grows more alert at the sense his wife had spoken to him, so calmly but yet - there. He replies to her, hoping she can sense his reply. "I miss you, Padmé. I miss you so much."
She smiles warmly to herself at his reply. She was not and never could be strong with the Force, but she felt him. And she smiled.
It was a sad smile. Kind, but sad. For it reflected on who she was; who she and her husband were.
Anakin senses her rise, turn and leave the balcony. She had sleep she could peacefully return to.
All he had was fear. A world of fear he entered when he dreamed, a world of sadness, pain. So he stayed on the veranda for as long as he could.
Then his daughter had awoken and joined him.
"Daddy?" The sweet ring of a toddler's sleepy, mumbled voice filled his ears-it soothed him. Simply her presence alone had a way of affecting him the same way only Padmé's presence could. It was the same feeling he got whenever he looked into their strikingly alike brown eyes, or saw himself within his son.
He blinks and looks down. He had to speak to her. He had to be strong. I can never let her see me cry.
"Yes, Princess?" He doesn't turn around. He isn't prepared to look at her yet; he must let her presence sooth him as much as possible first.
"Why are you out here?"
"I - was just thinking, Leia. Why are you up this late?"
He senses her frown in confusion as she hobbles over to him and rests a chubby hand upon his knee for her own balance. He tilts his head a bit and looks at her. She is so beautiful. She looks... just like her mother.
"I knew you were out here. What're you thinking about?"
He holds his hand out, his mechanical hand his children never winced at and treated like a real hand. Gently, he caresses her hair, holding her tiny head lightly and showing her a small smile of assurance.
"Oh, just - things, Princess. Jedi things. I promise you, it's nothing to worry about."
She knits her eyebrows and gives him a look of knowledge. She was too smart for him in some cases. "Did you have a bad dream?"
His smile fades and he pulls his eyebrows together in confusion. She really was too smart for him, and it didn't help she wasn't weak in the Force.
He replies nervously, "What? No, no, Leia. Jedi don't have nightmares."
She shakes her head. "That's not true," she mumbles tiredly, "Everybody gets bad dreams. I got one the other night, when I was with Kyla."
Anakin's gaze hardens dramatically as he stared at his daughter. "You did?" he asks, intrigued but worried by the toddler's words.
"Yeah," she replies, "It was bad. But it's okay now, I didn't get any other bad dreams after that one."
"Oh," he mumbles, glancing at the floor, then proceeding to lift her off the floor and place her onto his lap, "Will you tell me about it?"
She throws her head gently onto his bare shoulder and sighs. "I can't remember," she admits, "But I wanna sleep now, I'm tired."
He exhales and lets her warmth embrace him. "I know, Leia," he breathes, closing his eyes for a moment, "I am too. Want me to take you back to your room?"
"Yeah," she giggles within a yawn.
Her father shoots her a look and she giggles again, saying, "Yes please."
"That's my girl," he heaves, rising off the couch with his toddler in his arms.
He enters her bedroom, which contained two cribs and a quickly-thrown-together bed for her, since they hadn't lived here in awhile. He sets her down upon it very gently, seeing she had fallen asleep in his arms, and pulls the blankets up over her.
He takes one last look over his shoulder at his sleeping toddler before leaving the door open a crack and returning to his own bedroom, a place haunted with the loneliness that leaked from it.
At his return to his bedroom, he just leans against the wall for a second. He runs his hand through his sweat-encased, wavy hair and breathes, the warmth of his breath seeming to enclose the room.
He knew he wouldn't be able to sleep through the rest of the night, but he had to try. He had to give it one last attempt; and so he did.
And thankfully, he was able to have slept.
• • •
Kyla sat in the medbay, with both her new mechanical arms laid out in front of her on the armrests of the leather seat. Her eyes maneuvered over the new arms, studying each golden wire, each metal placement she'd have to cover with matching black gloves. She missed when she had both her arms.
"I believe we are finished here," blurts the medical droid from behind her, the whirring sound of the wheels against the tile unpleasing to Kyla's sensitive ears. "I hope you adjust to your mechanism replacements. At the time being, I have other work I must tend to, therefore you may exit as you wish. Good day."
Kyla looks at the medical droid as it exits, no words escaping her dry lips.
She licks them and sighs through her nose, leaning back into the chair. All she could think about were her new arms, how she'd have to hide them, yet having everyone know by the black gloves just what had happened to them. It didn't show bravery; it showed weakness.
But, for some reason, she didn't care.
She closes her eyes. She embraces darkness. It soothed her; it never frightened her. It never betrayed her now; the darkness was her friend. Yet, she couldn't smile as she closed her eyes. She refused to make any other movements.
Then she heard a voice.
"Well, well, well, now what has happened to you?"
The second the voice rung out, she knew just who it was. But... it didn't make sense. How was she hearing him?
She was afraid the darkness had betrayed her. Her eyes fly open, just to stare at her brother, a more blue-tinted, lightweight ghostly version of him before her, crossing his arms and smacking his tongue to the roof of his mouth disappointedly.
"Desmond?" she asks in confusion, as though she was just waking up to a new world she didn't belong in. "How - ?"
He raises a hand to stop her. "Hold it right there, that's not important... yet. What's important is, how in the hell did this happen?" he gestures to the mechanical replacements in both her arms. "Who did this to you?"
She hangs her head and looks to the floor. "Anakin," she mumbles, but surprisingly, with no anger. Just despair was intertwined into her voice now, her lightened, sad voice.
"Ah, I see," he says, walking closer and bending over a bit to inspect the mechanical replacements. "Sorry to hear that. What about everything else? How's everything else going for you?" He whirls around and faces the Death Star's view, the big, bold view from the large windows in the medbay.
"What do you mean?"
"Uh, hello? The Death Star? Your supreme Empire?"
Kyla swallows. "Oh, right-that. You want me to be honest, Des?"
Des. It feels so good to call him that again...
"Of course, Kyla. You can always be honest with me."
She shuffles awkwardly in the chair and lets out an exhale. She hated to admit the truth, even if it was to her own brother, her own ghostly brother. "Not well..." she admits with another sigh, looking up at the back of her brother in his old slave clothes. "I don't know what to do."
"End everything, that's what you do," he tells her, whirling around to face her again. "It's over, Kyla. I mean, just look at you-you're so..." he stops and lets his face fall despairingly, "...sad."
"That-that means nothing," she argues, not hiding the fact that he was truly right about her being sad. "Just because I'm sad, doesn't mean I have to-end my Empire, or anything."
"Have they destroyed the Death Star?"
Kyla blinks back tears. "Not yet," she chokes out bitterly, "But they will. I'm not going to stop them."
"Because you're sad," Desmond assumes.
"No," she argues again, "Not because I'm sad. Because I've... I've given up, Des. I had no choice."
He moves slowly and kneels by the leather medbay seat. "Why? What happened to the fierce Darth Demetrious I watched you become?"
"She... she isn't me."
He leans closer and brings his voice lower, to a gentle whisper. "What do you mean, Ky? Go on, you can tell me."
"Oh, Desmond," she breathes, feeling herself break into a sob, "I miss you and dad so much. It's-all my fault, that you're gone. It's all my fault. I ruined everything, I tore us apart. It's been three years, Desmond. Three years..."
He shakes his head. "I'm right here," he assures, "And I'm not going anywhere."
"Desmond," Kyla repeats, shaking her head slowly as she falls into a sob, "I'm so sorry. Not a day has gone by where I haven't hated myself for everything I've done-not only to you and dad, but to Anakin, his family, the whole galaxy, I - I..."
"Hey," he stops, "Hey. It's okay. Listen to me, Ky. Listen to the sound of my voice."
She blurs everything else out but her ghost brother before her, and the melodic sound of his voice. "Okay," she whimpers.
"It's all okay now. Right from the start, I knew this wasn't you. I knew this wasn't who you really were. But I know who you are, Kyla. And I know you're the type of girl to realize when she's done wrong."
"My whole life has been wrong - "
"I know," he continues, "So has mine. But I can be one with the Force in peace, if you admit to being redeemed."
"Am I redeemed, Desmond?" she groans through her cries, "I can't be redeemed. I'm stuck in this life, Desmond, I'm stuck here."
He watches his baby sister cry, her grief-stricken face a bright red color as the tears streamed down her face.
"I know you can," he tells her, "You already are, Kyla. You're who you once were, minus the anger, the hate. All it is, is sadness now."
"What do I do?" she cries to him, every blink containing another stream of tears. Her face burned with agony, her heart swelled up with the pain of the actions she committed. It was unbearable, all the emotions that were occurring to her now.
Her entire life was a whirlwind before her eyes as she stared at her brother, who was at a loss for anything to say to her.
Then he thinks of it.
"You have to apologize."
"Desmond, I can't apologize to you more than I already have - "
"No, not to me," he says, his voice growing wise and bold, as he was much older than he was when Kyla last locked eyes with him, snarling at him with all the anger she once contained.
And at once, he tells her the truth he had been longing to tell her. "I want you to apologize to Anakin."
Kyla's face gets washed with confusion. Not only confusion, but worry. Nausea builds up in her throat, for she was afraid. She was afraid she would be shunned by her former Master, rejecting her apologies.
She shakes her head pitifully. "Why? Why him?"
Desmond cracks a smile, a smile of assurance, a smile that brightened her whole word. He looks at her with this look that said, even through everything, he was still proud of her. He said everything to her as though she deserved to hear it.
Then he tells her. "Because he saved you."
• • •
It struck him all at once. Right to his heart.
It hit him in a way he never thought would occur, a way he had hoped it would but the hoping had to cease.
He was with his daughter, on the way to Naboo in a starship to retrieve the rest of his family when it hit him.
When all at once, everything in the galaxy seemed to be at rest.
When the starship glided smoothly, his daughter smiled proudly, Padmé smiled at the sky, knowing the good that had just occurred. His son smiled too; he could sense it. And when everything in the galaxy was light, when the peace was restored -
When Obi-Wan, Mace Windu, Grand Master Yoda and the entire Rebel Clone Army broke into a thousand cheers, a thousand yells of happiness into one crowded room - when the Force Ghost of Master Klavis and Master Jinn rested in peace and serenity - when Anakin's spirits were lifted once and for all, he came to one final conclusion.
I saved Kyla Valero.
A/N: WOWWW. What an ending. *Roll credits*
Just kidding, that's not the ending. I know, right? I bet you all thought that was the ending. Nope. A few more chapters left to go!
Anyways, I hope you guys all enjoyed, and thank you so much for 1k on Forbidden ALREADY!! Super crazy. I couldn't be more thankful, I love all you guys so much!
Thanks for reading!
- Claudia