Redemption - A Star Wars Fanfic

Chapter 20

Anakin woke rather groggily, surprised not to have been plagued by his occasional nightmares. Especially a certain one about his wife...

But for some reason the nightmare about Padmé dying in childbirth hadn't plagued him since Luke had been in the medbay.

Palpatine's tale about Plagueis the Wise still taunted him, but he found himself...not as worried about Padmé anymore.

Not that he didn't care of course, he just felt suddenly reassured that she would be okay.

He looked over at her, her face even more beautiful as she slept.

Anakin sighed and pressed his lips to her hair, making her hum in content but still remain asleep.

He smiled and then pressed another kiss to her belly, allowing his future child to know he loved them as well.

His eyes slid toward the chrono and he groaned. Without his comm, he had no way of knowing if the Council needed him, let alone at what hour, but he figured now would be a reasonable time for them to choose. Or, more accurately, an unreasonable time, since the Council thought waking up before the light of day could even touch the horizon was perfectly fine.

Sighing, he clambered out of bed and lazily threw on his robes, running his hands through his dark blonde curls as a makeshift comb.

He walked out into the living room to see Luke curled up under his blanket. Anakin would have kept walking, thinking the boy was asleep, until he heard the mumbling.

Pausing, he turned towards the lump that was Luke, which Anakin now noticed was shaking rather violently.

Worried that it was an aftereffect symptom of the poison, Anakin strode towards him, gently lifting the blanket up.

The sight that greeted him made him blink in surprise. Luke's skin was deathly pale, his azure eyes were blown wide, staring at nothing, and he was trembling in the fetal position.

Anakin crouched and put his hands on Luke's shoulder, trying to shake the boy out of his state. Luke's glazed eyes slid to him and recognition flared up, replaced instantly by fear.

"G-Get away f-from me!" He cried, tearing away from Anakin's grip and startling backwards onto the couch, curling tighter in on himself.

"Luke?" Anakin asked softly, his worry spiking. Could the poor boy ever get a break?

"N-No. G-G-Get away. O-O-Obi-Wan...h-he...y-you...c-c-c-comm." Luke stuttered painfully. "ssss-secret."

Anakin stared at the boy in confusion, cursing mentally that he couldn't contact the medbay without his comm. He knew Padmé had one for her apartment...if he could get to it-

"N-no m-medbay. P-p-p-poison. N-n-nurse. F-f-f-fire. L-l-l-l-l-lights-s-s-saber."

The random gibberish made no sense to Anakin and tried to put them into logical sentences.

He obviously didn't want to go to the medbay...but what about the nurse? The one who killed herself? What did she have to do with poison? And was Luke freaking out because he made Anakin mad about the comm?

If he got this freaked out over little things like a broken commlink, Anakin wondered guiltily if should've dialed back his anger a bit the other day.

"Luke...please, I need you to talk to me." Anakin begged.

Luke took a few more shaky breaths before wiping hastily at his tears, still sniffling and curling into himself.