Circle

In the beginning, it's all for his mother. One of the first things he understands is that Watto will keep them both as long as Anakin wins in the pod races. He loves racing, so that's easy, and he likes fixing things, although a lot of what he gets to do is boring.

His mother isn't anything special to Watto; she cleans and cooks and goes to the market. She's easily replaced, but Anakin isn't. And Watto can make him race, but he can't make him win.

His mother loves him, and he loves his mother. Boys who love their mothers do as they're told. So he leaves with the Jedi because it's what she wants.

He never understands why she wanted him to go away.

*****

Anakin has imagined a father. His mother tells him he doesn't have one, but he knows lots of kids whose mothers say that. Fathers get sold or have to work far away. It's not always their fault.

Qui-Gon is a lot like the father he's imagined: wise and tall and kind. He puts his hand on Anakin's head and smiles at him. Qui-Gon carries a weapon in front of everyone, and no one takes it away. He'd hurt anyone who tried.

Qui-Gon tells him that he's special, and he's glad to hear it. It means he'll be useful. He doesn't want Qui-Gon to sell him to anyone else.

"I'll look after you," Qui-Gon says, and for a while Anakin believes him.

*****

He's never paid much attention to girls. There aren't many girls who race or hang around the workshop. He doesn't understand why some of the racers want the girls in the stands to watch them and cheer.

Padme is beautiful, with fine hands like a pleasure slave. She's not, though; she's like him, specially trained, and she wears a blaster. She belongs to a queen, which is almost as good as belonging to the Jedi.

She likes him, and she takes care of him as if he were a little boy. She brings him blankets and cups of hot soup. No one but his mother has ever done things for him that he could do himself.

He'll never forget that for a little while he was hers.

*****

Obi-Wan watches Qui-Gon burn for a long time, his whole body taut with grief. Later he talks to Anakin wearing a smile Anakin knows isn't real. "We must go back to the Temple," he says. "You must begin your education."

"They didn't want me," Anakin says.

Obi-Wan raises his chin with a stubborn light in his eye. "I think perhaps they were mistaken."

"I didn't think Jedi made mistakes."

"We're only human, Anakin," Obi-Wan says.

Anakin thinks they should be better than that.

*****

Anakin is used to hunger, and boredom, and the restless need to move. He doesn't know at first what to make of the new heat that flushes through his body when he looks at the girls in his classes. It throws him off so that he makes stupid mistakes.

Obi-Wan sits him down one afternoon and talks to him. It's nothing to worry about, apparently, just part of growing up. If meditation isn't enough to calm his body, Obi-Wan says, there's nothing wrong with masturbation. Obi-Wan thinks he's still a bit young to experiment with sex.

"When can I have sex?" Anakin says, and Obi-Wan frowns.

It seems unfair to have found something new to be hungry for.

*****

Anakin dreams that he is in his room at home again, with Padme lying beside him. She kisses him and tells him that she loves him and will never go away. She rolls on top of him and he doesn't have to hold anything back anymore.

He moans and wakes up embarrassed in wet sheets. He doesn't think Obi-Wan heard. He doesn't want to hear again that it happens all the time at his age. He's not just like everybody else.

He tosses the sheets and his sleep pants into the cleaner and puts new sheets on the bed, making crisp neat corners the way he's done since he was four. He sits cross-legged naked on the bed and closes his eyes. It's easier to feel the Force that way.

It's almost like feeling Padme on his naked skin.

*****

When she's actually there, it's not the way he dreamed it. She should understand how he feels better than anyone. She shouldn't argue with him or tell him no.

Still, he's sure it'll get better in time. After all, he's handsome; girls look at him all the time. Padme likes to look at him, he's pretty sure. When he smiles, she smiles back.

He's always imagined her in white, but she wears black for him, posing with her back to the fire. He can see the shape of her breasts. He's starving waiting for her, and still she makes him wait.

It takes almost dying to make her stop wasting their time.

*****

The first time they have sex, it's like he's home, cradled in his mother's arms again. He's inside her and he can feel her inside him, too. He loves every part of her, even the parts she doesn't like.

He's finished before she is, and blames himself for it. She tells him that it just takes time, and shows him how to touch her the way she's learned feels good. He likes the idea that she's been hungry too.

He wants her again when she's done. He wants her all the time, a dull fire burning underneath his skin when he's doing anything else. They spend a lot of time in bed.

It never feels like enough.

*****

He's the best pilot in the Jedi Order. Obi-Wan often tells him so, without the faintest hint of resentment. Obi-Wan doesn't like to fly.

He likes to fight, though. There's something perfect about fighting back to back with Obi-Wan, sending headless droids spinning left and right, deflecting blaster bolts, lunging for the kill. They move like they're one person.

It's only when they stop moving that they fall apart, alone with their separate thoughts. Obi-Wan looks at the bodies on the ground like he's sorry. Anakin's only sorry that they're going to have to waste time cleaning up the mess.

"You're still better than I am with a lightsaber," Anakin offers, but Obi-Wan doesn't smile.

*****

Palpatine isn't a bit like his mother, or like any father Anakin imagined. He looks Anakin in the eye when he talks to him and smiles like they share a secret. He tells Anakin that he's special, and that's not new, but it's still good to hear.

Palpatine works so hard, staying up late at night pondering maps and proposals now before the Senate. The war has put new lines at the corners of his mouth and new streaks of gray in his hair. He always has time for Anakin, though, putting his papers away and listening to him the way other people should.

"Why can't Obi-Wan accept it?" Anakin asks in frustration, pacing across Palpatine's office. "I'm not a boy anymore. I'm ready to be a master."

"You've already gone beyond him," Palpatine says, and Anakin smiles.

*****

This is for Padme, Anakin tells himself as he runs toward the Temple. He can still feel the heat of Palpatine's hands on his shoulders. As long as he's useful, Palpatine will help him keep Padme safe. And the Jedi will get what's coming to them for trying to take over.

The Jedi don't care that Padme might die. He promised her he'd do whatever it took to keep her safe. This is what it takes.

It's hard until the first one draws his lightsaber, and then it's easy, a familiar rhythm; it's no different than what he's been doing for two years. They're trying to hurt him, and he has to hurt them first. He has to end it here.

They never trusted him; he doesn't understand why they should feel betrayed.