The Long Road Back

Chapter Three: Moving On

~~~~~~~~~~

He liked his voice. Anakin hummed a little, trying it out for the thousandth time since his physician had given the okay for him to talk again.

It was amazing the sort of developments being made in cybernetics and organ replacements. He'd become something of a procedure junkie, reading up on the latest procedures in case his doctor had missed seeing something. He wanted to make sure he was fully informed about all options. Like this surgery he'd had on his throat. He now had the ability to talk without the mask on. It was great. His new voice barely sounded robotic. There was a twinge, but he didn't think anyone could hear it unless they were looking for it.

Of course, it wasn't as good as his old voice, but that couldn't be helped now could it? The technicians and surgeons had done what they could using the old vids Anakin had supplied them with. Who had known that those 'poster boy' times as Obi-Wan had called them would turn into something honestly useful?

He blinked, then blinked again, finally winking at himself in the mirror and grinning. Bolstered by the initial success of that operation, he'd immediately ordered the eye surgery as well...and had a huge mess to clean-up when his personal physician insisted he take time to recover from the throat surgery before undergoing another procedure and Vader had grown tired of arguing.

That surgery had gone well and he could see just fine without the mask.

Anakin sighed, moving across his quarters to sit on the couch. He had a new personal physician now; one fresh from school, with no preconceived notions of what being hired by a Sith Lord could mean for his present and future. He was a likeable fellow, eager to help Lord Vader improve his health and his suggestions, spoken in a soft tone, didn't even anger Vader too much. All in all, Anakin would have to say that he was pleased with his progress physically to date. The procedures brought him closer to what he had been, increasing his hold on his body, making it his again.

Vader was uneasy inside him, pleased by the physical changes only because he kept thinking of how he could have been had he not been injured by the lava. He would go on and on about how he should have won that duel. Considering how powerful they'd been then, Anakin concurred, but Vader had let over-confidence get in the way. He hadn't won, as Anakin constantly reminded him. He'd lost and put them in this health nightmare. Vader would quiet at that reminder; that implication that he'd been responsible for ruining their body. He was uneasy with Anakin's hold, plotting each moment to gain a foothold and shove Anakin back behind him once more.

Anakin wasn't going to let that happen. In fact, he was feeling very confident that he'd made tons of progress all the way around. So confident, that he'd begun really thinking about women, much like when he'd first begun to notice girls as a teen. He was ready to move on, to let Padmé go.

Unfortunately, now that he had deemed himself ready to move on, Anakin hadn't a single idea how to meet women. It wasn't exactly something ever covered in classes at the Temple and he was fairly certain that the rest of the women in his past -- Padmé's handmaidens -- would be fairly unforgiving of his past transgression of having throttled their former employer to death.

If only Padmé wasn't dead. He'd throw himself at her perfect feet and plead with her to forgive him. He wouldn't expect her to take him back or anything like that, not when he'd killed her, but he'd beg for forgiveness anyway. She was dead, though. Cold in a grave and gone, no matter how much he thought he felt her presence in certain places. He'd seen the holo of her funeral procession and gone to her grave. He'd looked at the stone and felt no end to his pain.

It was as though she was not there in the ground at all. He had no feeling of her there, like looking at a picture of a grave of an anonymous woman who had not been his wife.

He'd taken a bouquet of her favorite flowers, though in retrospect he supposed charging a bouquet that big on his Imperial expense account probably hadn't been such a good idea. Palpatine was surely going to ask why he'd bought flowers and the price of those hadn't exactly been cheap. Worth it, in his opinion, but certainly not cheap. It was the wrong time of year for them and they had to be grown in a greenhouse.

They'd looked really pretty at her grave. He didn't think Palpatine would appreciate that, not with him trying to erase Padmé from memory.

It also hadn't been a good idea to leave that picture there. What had he been thinking? He could almost slap himself for stupidity. Anakin sighed. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, a way to tell Padmé that he had loved her and he would continue to remember her even when he began dating other women.

Anakin knew he had a long way to go yet in his grieving process, but that didn't mean he couldn't look, did it? He wanted to look. He wanted to begin feeling again all those things he'd once felt. Padmé, his love, was gone and he could think about other women.

Another woman wouldn't have Padmé's personality or her smile or that adorable quirked brow she got when annoyed or.... She wouldn't be Padmé. There would never be another woman like her, so he had to put away such expectations. He had to...lower the bar, so to speak. So how did one go about meeting women? So far, his excursions into the bars hadn't done anything except make the patrons behave exceedingly well. People had a habit of stopping and staring when he was in the suit and he didn't have a good enough lung capacity yet to go out without the mask.

The nightclubs had been better, primarily because they were dark and he wasn't the only large hulk completely covered in black material. However, the mask was a big drawback. He couldn't take it off and talk to the women because of his lungs and whenever he spoke, his voice had that echoing quality that seemed to turn the women right off.

Not that many women talked to him. Oh, he could make them with a wave of his hand -- and had as a teenager -- but as a grown man wasn't that a bit like cheating? The only good part of the mask that he could see was that he could look all he liked without getting slapped down physically or verbally. He could look and look and look....

Anakin crossed his arms. What about a personal ad? Tarkin had been having wonderful luck with that ad he'd been running for weeks. In fact, Tarkin was telling him just that morning about the woman he'd met. She didn't mind that he worked with two Sith Lords and had a thing for men in uniform.

Maybe he could do that. Did the suit count as a uniform, he wondered.

Anakin settled down to write and couldn't think of a thing to say. It wasn't exactly appropriate to write, "Former Jedi gone bad seeking older woman with political experience, brown curled hair and strong opinions. Must like body armor, masks and silly, romantic conversation."

No, that wouldn't do at all. He'd simply have to come up with something different. Four days later, he had something he decided was suitable and sent it off to be published.

~~~~~~~~~~

Padmé perused the 'who wanted who' ads, always amused by how desperate some people seemed to meet others. She'd always imagined the people who wrote those ads as being shy and socially inept or downright odd. These ads for example --

'Imperial officer seeking female companion. Must like uniforms and be knowledgeable of archaic methods of torture. Only serious replies please.'

'Vertically challenged male seeking like female to share self-imposed isolation. Should enjoy fog, swamps and the simple life.'

Padmé giggled softly to herself, then gasped at the sound of her own laughter. It had been so long since she'd laughed. Continuing to scan the ads, she finally noticed one much longer than the rest that stopped her laughter fully.

'Wishing to meet a woman of similar interests to my own. I enjoy picnicking in meadows and the soothing sound of waterfalls; the scents of wildflowers and skin like silk beneath my fingertips. I adore flying and building droids and hate sand with a passion. Should any of these describe you as well, please let me know. I would be greatly interested in meeting you and am in darkness until that moment.'

Her heart gave a lurch.

Ani.

She recognized the references, the flow of the words and could practically hear his voice in her mind. Padmé closed her eyes. It had to be him. It had to be. After a long moment of soul searching, she began to compose a letter.

~~~~~~~~

Timtec Taytec hated making reports to the Emperor, but the accounting department had appointed him as their representative, so off he went to give the quarterly report. It should have been a relatively painless process, 'should have' being the operative words. Every quarter, he woke up to find himself in the infirmary with no memory of how he'd gotten there or of even giving the report. Not to mention how he couldn't recall how he'd broken those bones.

Squaring his shoulders, he entered Emperor Palpatine's office.

He had a bad feeling about this.

~~~~~~~~~~

Palpatine stared at Vader's expense account report and then at the man reporting it to him. What kind of idiots did he have working for him that they'd let something like this slip past for weeks? No, he squinted at the date. Not weeks. Months. Three months. They'd let this go on for three months before reporting to him about it.

Anakin was ordering flowers and not just any flowers, but the kind that were expensive and rare at the time he'd ordered them. That could only mean one thing.

There was a woman. Somewhere in the galaxy, there was a woman. He recognized the way Anakin was behaving and it pointed to a woman. The flowers, the evenings partaking in Coruscant's wild night life. He shook his head in disgust, Force throwing the man who'd brought the report at the wall and letting him crumple unconscious to the floor.

Hadn't Anakin already learned that lesson? Was he truly that naïve to believe a second affair would end better than the first?

Obviously he was if these annoying side trips to Naboo were any indication. And why Naboo anyway? Did he figure that one Naboo female had been stupid enough to fall in lust with a Jedi so there must be one willing to do so with a Sith?

Oh who knew what the boy was thinking!

No, Palpatine changed his mind. He did know what the boy was thinking, or rather thinking with. The same thing that had caused the whole 'Padmé affair'. Really, he should have had the surgeons take care of that for good when they'd put the initial suit on Anakin, but even he couldn't have foreseen the boy's hormones would take over again. He'd thought the lava had fried all that out of him. He'd thought Anakin would mourn that meddlesome woman for life, effectively keeping him from spreading his genes across the galaxy, yet here he was, apparently over her, however ludicrous that seemed.

Palpatine put his chin in his hand. And wanting to date, his informants had told him. That he didn't understand. Dating. What woman compared to unlimited power? Anakin had had surgeons alter his appearance, as though it mattered that he looked like his old self. Wasn't the suit fearsome enough to engender fear? He'd certainly thought so. Was fear not good enough? Did Anakin still think being liked was important?

Who needed to be liked when the galaxy trembled at the sight of you?

This was a disaster. He could almost see what was going to happen. Anakin would find some woman who thought the suit was a turn on and manage to impregnate her. A disaster. Palpatine would, of course, have to have the woman and child killed and he'd never hear the end of Anakin's whining. Oh, he supposed he could take the child and raise it, but then he'd have to deal with a child. He hated children, especially babies, and had praised fate for years that none of the women he'd chosen as companions had ever had the slightest inclination towards that state of motherhood. Although, no one said he had to raise it himself. Perhaps a foster family would do?

He sighed, noticed the man on the floor was stirring and threw him across to the other wall. He should have groomed Kenobi. Kenobi wouldn't have given him this trouble. Kenobi wouldn't be running around Naboo and Coruscant like an idiot trying to spread his genes with the nearest willing female.

Kenobi would have been a better Sith.

~~~~~~~~~~

"I don't want to wait."

"You have to. I'm not ready yet."

"I don't want to."

"Don't give me problems here, Ben. Keep your eyes closed. It's a surprise." Dormé cast a suspicious glance at her husband, who was so far keeping his eyes obediently closed. She'd bought a sexy little maternity nightgown from a consignment shop on Naboo and it had finally arrived, being among the items they'd picked up in town. Although, little didn't accurately describe it.... Still, it was pretty and silky and completely impractical. Who, she wondered, would even try to sleep with pearls crossing over the arms?

"I don't like surprises. The last one I had about killed me."

"You'll like this one, now keep those eyes closed." Dormé straightened the panels, sliding a hand over the slate blue material. Such a pretty color. Blue in some light, lavender in others. Striking a pose, she said, "You can look now."

Obi-Wan opened his eyes, brow raising and lascivious smile turning his lips. "Well worth the interminable wait. You look...." He crossed to her. "Succulent."

"Succulent is for describing food." The answering shrug of his brows had her suddenly very warm. Dormé stretched her hands up to his face, running her fingers along the line of his jaw. "You are too bad for words, my love."

He put his arms around her, his expression faltering briefly before he kissed her. What was that about, she wondered.

~~~~~~~~~~

The dress Dormé wore was very pretty, though he hoped she wasn't planning to sleep in it. Those pearls didn't look like they'd be very comfortable. The color suited her coloring though and he couldn't resist trying to make her blush.

Obi-Wan reached for her and had an image of Padmé leap into his mind. She was dressed in this very gown, with her hair down and a happy smile curving her lips.

Padmé? What the--

It's my imagination, he thought. It has to be. I do not sense Padmé right now.

But he did and it bothered him. He should not be thinking of Padmé right now of all times. He should be fully focused on his wife, not her best friend. Think Dormé, lovely, beautiful Dormé. You know, the one carrying your baby. He kissed Dormé and worked the dress from her as quickly as possible. With the dress gone, there were no more thoughts of Padmé. He sighed with relief and bent his attention to Dormé in full.