A Love Story

Man At War

AN: I think this chapter might be hard for some, but you just have to trust me :D and I promise nobody dies xoxo

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Man At War

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You're a mystery

Always running wild

Like a child without a home

You're always searching

Searching for a feeling

But it's easy come and easy go

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The midday sky painted an apocalyptic work of art in colors and intensity. Even its bright fluffy clouds couldn't efface the darkness swirling in the car. Anakin, firmly grasping Sebulba's ring, felt the shedding of the self he had curated up until now as he asked her, "Why do you have this?"

"Why do you?" Padme insisted, shaken by his earthquakes of denial.

With quick, nervous fingers, Anakin shoved the ring in pocket and kept staring blindly out into the universe, as if he had thrown a kite of dreams up in the air and searched for its return by validation or chance. But all he saw ahead was where mountains dropped off and fresh greenery started like a seed sprouting, trailing, and spreading fast and vast, blooming well before his thoughts ever could.

His delayed responses made worry stalk her; she began to sob. "Tell me you had nothing to do with it, baby. Tell me you had nothing to do with Sebulba's disappearance!"

She wanted to preserve the innocence. He was too beautiful to equate with such horrific behaviors. But the memory of him coming home covered in bloody scrapes and mud and dirt after his fight with Sebulba scarred her brain.

"What did you do?" She cried with desperation. "Tell me what you did!" The intolerable pain avenged the waiting for confirmation.

His energy was heavy and restless but he kept his eyes on the road for fear that looking at her might vanish her love. His hands were frozen on the wheel. She espoused a stare oozing with a short circuit of senses pressuring his every limb, every muscle, every bone.

"He pulled a gun on me first!" Anakin snapped in a cold sweat, needing to abolish his guilt. "I did what I had to do... After what he did to you, should I really feel guilty that the world is now short a man like Sebulba?! He deserved it."

Her light diminished in great fear. "Anakin, that's not for you or I to decide! You are not God!"

At this moment she became aware of this secret illness, a crime he had held onto for months. It sprung up like a corrosive hand closing in on her windpipe to destroy her voice, her sanity, her soul.

"Oh god." She started feeling sick, incurable, as she sunk into the doom, and he wasn't going to rescue her from it. An unnamable truth was suddenly the only word in her head. "You're a – you're a murderer!"

"Padme–" Anakin whispered in an attempt to smooth things over. His eyes closed for a brief second as he felt warmth and logic deserting him.

"I can't breathe." She swallowed as if grasping for air like she was drowning. He noticed her hyperventilating and quickly offered a little brown bag that carried the muffin he bought her earlier. "I need some air." She said breathlessly.

"We're almost there." He tried to sound consoling, pressing down on the button that opened her window slightly.

"No, I need to get out of here. Stop the car." The more desperate and angry she sounded, the quicker it annihilated him.