Office hours [all day]

[sith_happened]

Anakin was writing up his impressions of his current Ethics students in preparation for Parents Weekend. He'd decided that giving himself a time-cushion of a week meant that he could observe the students who hadn't made a huge impression more closely in this coming class so he could tell their guardians how much improvement they needed.

Anakin was a giver that way.

The door was open.

Comments

[likes_scoundrels]

"Any other reason would be cruel," Leia said, just a little bit bitter. And if that was what the Force was, she wasn't so sure she wanted any part of it.

[sith_happened]

"I was on bodyguard duty on Naboo," Anakin said. "I shouldn't have gone to Tatooine at all." He shook his head. "And I definitely shouldn't have taken your mother with me."

But that way he could still guard her! Padmé was a lot like Leia in her thinking.

[likes_scoundrels]

"Why would you be given those visions then?" Leia wanted to know. "Just to torment you to know she was suffering? Or to make you indifferent to it?" Neither option was remotely acceptable.

[sith_happened]

"Because the Force likes to fuck with meI don't know," Anakin replied. "Perhaps to put me closer to Obi-Wan to assist when he was captured on Geonosis."

Where all three of them had been captured and almost eaten by giant creatures, so...probably not.

"The point is that despite all of my foreknowledge, I arrived just in time to see my mother die," he said. "I didn't take it well."

Which was possibly one of the greatest understatements ever uttered.

[likes_scoundrels]

"So are you saying I'm just supposed to ignore what I know and pretend that my son isn't going to die young?" Leia said bitterly. "How?"

[sith_happened]

"I'm saying you don't know if your son is going to die young," Anakin countered, "just that the ones Ben, Jaina and Tahiri knew did. The future is constantly in motion."

Mmm, platitudes.

[likes_scoundrels]

"So all the other timelines so far," Leia said. "That doesn't make my odds seem very good at all."

[sith_happened]

"Three out of possibly thousands," Anakin said with a small smile. "Every year we get an influx of impossible children to remind us that we don't always know everything, even if we can see the future."

[likes_scoundrels]

"So am I supposed to just ignore what I know then?" Leia said. "Not care when I have a son who reaches his age that every time I say goodbye to him it could be the last time I ever see him?" That was always a possibility, but never one that was so certain.

[sith_happened]

She was asking the man who sent her out the door waiting for the day she came back in to tell him that Alderaan was gone, so he wasn't the best source of information on this.

"Yes," he said quietly. "Trying to fix the future can have disasterous consequences."

[likes_scoundrels]

"So if you knew when I would die," Leia said quietly, "you would just let it happen?"

She wasn't exactly being fair, but she didn't care at the moment.

[sith_happened]

"That's not a fair question," Anakin replied.

[likes_scoundrels]

"But it's fair for me?" Leia protested.

[sith_happened]

"That's why I don't like telling you things about your future," Anakin said. "I don't like seeing you unhappy."

[likes_scoundrels]

"No one told me about him," Leia said. "I only knew his name until I met him that weekend. He's the one who recognized me."

[sith_happened]

"I bet you came as a bit of a shock to him," Anakin replied quietly. "How did your meeting go?"

[likes_scoundrels]

"About as well as meeting your future son who dies young can go," Leia said. "And then I tucked it away to deal with later." Because she was a Skywalker, after all. "It wasn't until I talked to Ben the other day that I realized I need to figure out what I'm going to do about it."

[sith_happened]

"Any decisions yet?" he asked.

[likes_scoundrels]

Leia shook her head. "No, not really," she said. "And no matter how hard I resolve to let things happen how they're supposed to happen, I know that'll probably change the first minute I hold him in my arms."

[sith_happened]

Anakin nodded. "But then you'll get older and realize that your children won't necessarily listen to you, no matter how you might yell or scowl."

[likes_scoundrels]

"Maybe I'm meant to keep him alive in my world," Leia said. "You just said things don't necessarily have to be the same."

[sith_happened]

"They don't," Anakin agreed. "Just...be careful."