sith_happened | Secluded bit of beach (yes, there's still some left, shhh) [afternoon]

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one big happy family

Secluded bit of beach (yes, there's still some left, shhh) [afternoon]

Rory had met Padmé and had liked her. His namesake, deceased, grandson was somewhere on the island.

Anakin needed peace, and he found himself on a familiar spot of beach--the place he'd come when he was a teenager and had found the crashing waves soothing.

He closed his eyes, reached out into the Force, and tried to find calm.

[OOC: Also open, though expecting one.]

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"Most good Jedi are reckless," Anakin said, forgetting for a moment he was talking to a dead member of his family. "It's because they trust their feelings instinctively and don't second-guess them."

"Well, apparently they've forgotten that." Anakin actually looked pained, admitting this to his grandfather. "Ben says I'm a legend to everyone now."

"And how does that make you feel?" Anakin replied.

"Concerned," he said bluntly, "for the future of the Order, if they thought that much of me. For Ben, too -- don't let them try to make him into another one like us, because it seems like they're trying."

He looked up at Anakin and smiled wryly. "I'm a bit past worrying about how it affects me."

"Ben's father insisted he train with me," Anakin said, trusting that Anakin would see the joke there. "I won't let him take on the weight of the galaxy. I've seen it chew up and spit out far too many of our family as it is."

He did see the joke, and laughed. "He's part of our family; you know there's a good chance he'll try anyway," Anakin replied, then fell silent as he thought over his reaction to that promise. "You know, all my life I wasn't sure what to think of you. All I knew was the stories, and it wasn't like I ever thought I'd get the chance to find out for myself."

Anakin gazed back steadily. "Do you want to know why it happened?" he asked.

Anakin was silent for just a moment before nodding. "I'd like to hear it from you, yes."

Anakin looked out over the crashing waves for a moment, getting his thoughts together.

"I had a vision that your grandmother would die in childbirth," he said finally, "and I was terrified to lose her. So I listened to someone who told me exactly what I wanted to hear, helped to destroy an organization that had stood for peace and justice for a thousand generations...and she died anyway, along with our child. Or so I thought at the time."

He gazed down at his hands. "And once they were gone, there didn't seem to be much point in living."

He looked back at his grandson. "It's hardly a good reason."

"No," Anakin replied, thinking of the way he'd set the jungles of Yavin on fire when he and Vua Rapuung had gone to rescue Tahiri from the shapers' compound. "And I'd hardly tell you that it was. But you were trying to save her -- that's different from what I always thought it was."

Not that they'd had much of anything to go by as far as Anakin Skywalker's personal perspective on the matter was concerned, so it couldn't really be helped.

"What did you think happened?" Anakin asked, interested. He knew the propaganda that he'd helped to disseminate, but didn't know what had lasted past the Empire.

"I thought you were completely in line with the Emperor's goals," Anakin answered honestly, not flinching even though he didn't expect the answer to go over well. "It seemed in line with Sith philosophy."

Which was not something he'd ever made a particular study of, beyond his own lifelong worries about the Dark Side.

Anakin shook his head. "He told me that in order to save Padmé, I'd need the power the Dark Side offered that the Light couldn't. And like the desperate idiot I was at the time, I believed him. Philosophy didn't enter in until much later."

Anakin was quiet for a long time. "The closest thing I can think of that I've had to deal with was trying to stop the Peace Brigade from capturing the Academy kids, but even then, even if I had a vision of it that was something I knew how to handle. I'm not sure I have something I can compare to that, to understand it, but then I sort of had stories of you hanging over my head all my life as a reminder."

He was matter-of-fact about it; there wasn't any bitterness there.

"Yes, I imagine you would have heard those stories about me," Anakin said with a slightly tired sigh. "I wasn't supposed to even be married, let alone about to become a father, and I was too stubborn and stupid to ask for a second opinion about an offer that sounding too good to be true."

This was the most honest Anakin had ever been with anyone about this part of his life--he'd figured there was no point in holding anything back from the dead.

Anakin smiled slightly, ruefully. "I wish I'd had this chance before, but it still means a lot to actually get to meet you. Hear your side of everything. I'm sorry about the, ah, more unfortunate reputation you have for most of our galaxy though."

He sat up a little straighter and tried to look his grandfather in the eyes. "From everything Tahiri's told me, and from talking to you now, I can say it was definitely an honor to be named after you despite all that."

He would have gotten a sense of how deeply touched Anakin was to hear him say that before he retreated back behind a deeply ingrained sense of resignation. "Oh, I more than earned the other reputation, too," he said. "It was my choice to stay Sith for decades. It wasn't something that was going to be solved with a hug and someone understanding my childhood."

"I don't doubt that. The HoloNet may lie, but I'm related to far too many former Rebels to think otherwise," Anakin answered, his gaze steady. "But if Mom and Uncle Luke could forgive you, so can I."

Of course, Uncle Luke could forgive just about anything, but that went without saying.

Anakin nodded, looking a bit tormented. "This Leia doesn't know yet."

Anakin winced and, instinctively, projected comfort toward him -- a weird, weird thing to do when talking to the man who'd tortured your mother, but what about this entire situation wasn't weird? "That would be pretty awkward, yeah. For you more than her right now, I'd think."

"Alderaan still exists," Anakin said. "I have an internal countdown clock ticking down until the moment she hates me."

He sounded...resigned.

Anakin, who had always had an effortless answer for just about everything, didn't know what to say to that right away.

"It won't last forever," he offered.

"Unless you think I should tell her now," Anakin said, "but that seems to shift far too much of what happens next when I try to see the future."

Anakin's expression turned troubled, and he nodded. "As stubborn as Mom can be, I don't know if anyone could convince her not to try and stop it," he agreed. "It sounds like a horrible thing to say, all those lives lost, but how that would alter everything is too complicated to consider."

Which sounded so cold, under the circumstances. "Besides, visions of what might be are hard enough to deal with. This . . ."

"It's how she meets Luke," Anakin said, nodding. "And...other people."

Han, Anakin. Say it.

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