Can You Love Me Again?

Chapter 33- Saving Her Through Him

Leia hovered over her handsome smugglers shoulder, holding onto the swivel seat with a tight grasp, head hung low as she watched him, searching desperately for a distraction. She'd been blinking back tears ever since she noticed her mother, lying pale with dark lines streaking her cold body on the floor of the Death Star. Her beloved mother, was gone.

She never thought she'd loose her mom like this. So indignantly at the hands of the empire. It was revolting and she wished the emperor were still alive so she could run him through with her father's lightsaber again.

She threw a short, concerned look over her shoulder, gazing through the small framework that led to the common area of the Millennium Falcon. She could still feel her father's force signature. It radiated crippling sadness, guilt, passion, and an odd sense of hope. She sniffled, wiping her nose on her sleeve, unsanitary, but uncaring. Her mother was dead. There was no pulse, no heartbeat. The medics had already checked her over, even though she was still held in her fathers arms, tightly to his chest like his lifeline. Ironic...

Honestly, she was worried about him. She didn't want to grieve both her loving mother and a stir crazy father. Everyone was a little perturbed by Anakin right now anyway. She wasn't sure about Luke, who still seemed very cold and hateful towards Anakin, even despite the trauma they were both enduring. Odd, she expected Luke and her to go to Anakin for comfort, but neither of them did. Leia had at first, but she quickly realized Anakin didn't have his head in reality for the time being.

Obi-Wan and Ahsoka often went over to settle beside Anakin. Who sat motionless in a seat, except the slight rocking of back and forth as he held Padmé with a vice grip of passion. After the medics had tried to examine her, Anakin seemed like he would choke anyone who tried to touch her again. In fact the medics were lying down on one of the bunks now, thanks to a recent, crazed attack to keep Padmé close to his heart. No one dare go near the pair now. They had tried to talk to him, to comfort him when they weren't trying to sooth her or Luke, but Anakin hadn't responded. The middle-aged Jedi would continue rocking her gently like a special new baby, pushing falling tendrils out of her unlivily face with such feather caresses. All the while cooing softly, lovingly to her. Words of love, courage and hope were the emotions he sent, to comfort her corpse in his arms.

Now at least, the uncomfortably, and sorrowful ride was over. An immediate celebration exploded at the ramp of their ship, clapping and cheering for the empire had nearly been destroyed. However silence struck when Anakin strode down the ramp first, with his dead wife's body in his arms. Many knew Padmé as the Senator and Queen of Naboo in the times of old, and after Anakin's hug announcement, many went up to reassure him and give their condolences. Luke and Leia were also approached the same way. However, to pry Padmé from her husband to prepare a burial, didn't go well. Anakin simply wouldn't allow it. He had marched straight into the infirmary and laid her with extreme tenderness onto a cot, where he now sat anxiously at her side.

No one dare argued. The crazed look of hope and determination that melted in his sea blue eyes was enough for anyone, that wasn't family, to step back and stay clear of the grieving Jedi.

Anakin sat at her side now, bouncing his leg anxiously, impatience pouring off him now as he sat. A crippling sorrow colored his aging features, saddening all in his presence immediately.

Ahsoka now stood across at the adjacent wall, leaning back on it and arms crossed, watching her old mentor with overwhelming concern. Her lips pursed and blue eyes miserable as she watched him with sympathy.

Obi-Wan joined them recently. Calling a chair to sit next to Anakin who now watching him with a calculating eye. Anakin hadn't said a word, hadn't ate, slept, or shaved since the incident that claimed his sanity. Padmé was what kept him grounded, he had said it before. And now, the old Jedi worried that now since she was gone... Anakin's spirit would die alongside her.