Author: nostalgia        thehappinesspatrol@hotmail.com

Rating: PG

Categories: Bit angsty, vaguely slashy if you choose to read it that
way.

Summary: Anakin stays up all night.

Disclaima-go-go: Lucasfilm own the Jedi and all their little friends.

Homepage: All this confusion and more can be found at
http://www.angelfire.com/scifi/monkeychild/nostalgia/index.htm

Feedback/Archive: Ask and ye shall receive.

* * * * *

On Tattoine the night is shorter. The binary stars that steal the
moisture from the planet steal the darkness as well, a single sun
hanging lonely in the sky after its twin has sunk beneath the
impossibly flat horizon. In the narrow band of darkness astronomy
will allow, come the stars. Thousands of them, and so many with
planets in their care. Anakin, at nine, had imagined these planets
dust-bowls like his own world, he thought of people cooked and boiled
by the daylight, scavenging for water.

Anakin had always burned easily, too fair for Tatooine. His mother
made him stay indoors while the suns were out. Between the dawns and
after the first sunset she let him venture outside without the
ointments that made his skin tingle, without long sleeves to save his
skin and get in the way. This was his time.

The warmth left quickly when the suns were finally set, a chill to be
savoured and feared. He would wrap himself deeper into the blankets
and listen to the Tuskens and banthas and the ships that left Mos
Espa throughout the night. He grew used to night on Tatooine.

But Coruscant... night on Coruscant was no mere inconvenience. At
night Anakin came into his own. He seemed to wake up when the sun
went down, a second burst of energy to focus his mind. Obi-Wan had
taught him the tricks the Jedi could use in place of sleep, and
Anakin had taken them and twisted them and played with them and
produced something new and wonderful of his own. Night became his
playground as much as the day, because he was the Chosen One and he
was Balance.

Day was warmer and regimented and it made him feel like he belonged.
Eat, meditate, train, read, eat, meditate, duel, run, eat, meditate,
talk, night. Daytime was purpose and peace and perfection. Daytime
was Obi-Wan.

And then the sun would set and everything would change. Anakin,
because he was the Chosen One and he was Balance, adored the
differences caused simply by the planet rotating on its axis. Night
was no quieter than the day, but it was silent in its own ways. At
night the traffic still buzzed across the air, but in his own mind
Anakin felt a stillness form as the other Jedi fell one by one
asleep. It was soothing to feel the calm descend upon the Temple,
serenity itself. It scared him a little when Obi-Wan drifted off,
because Anakin always worried that his Master would never wake and
that the balance would be lost.

Obi-Wan didn't always sleep. This was worse.

Earlier, when the night was warmer, he had heard the hiss of a door
and the gentle pad of feet across wood. Anakin had been in bed,
reading about speed instead of spices, and he had frozen at the
sound. He wasn't supposed to be awake, he knew, and he had guilty
switched off the light and pulled the covers over his head, hiding
his reading under the pillow with panicked haste. He heard the door
and the lightswitch, saw the red of the light through his eyelids. A
sigh. Black, click, hiss. It had been close. He stared up at the
ceiling, listening for his mentor. The sound of a door unlocking and
sliding open came from the wrong direction, and he felt the newer,
deeper silence of being alone. Obi-Wan, when finally Anakin built up
the courage to check, was nowhere to be found.

It was possible, of course. They didn't lock you in. Obi-Wan was free
to come and go as he pleased. Anakin had done it himself a few times,
once or twice he had even left the Temple. They asked when they saw
the braid, but Anakin explained that he had permission from his
Master and that was that. No one ever checked, because it was
inconceiveble that an Apprentice would lie.

But Obi-Wan was gone. Anakin was confused, then scared, then annoyed.
But finally, as the hours passed, he came to accept this new
isolation. This was the night, and night was there for the lonely. It
was freedom. So he sat and read and practiced a little with his
lightsaber and waited for his Master to return. He could ask about it
in the morning, he could say a nightmare woke him. Yes, that would be
perfect. He grinned, pleased by his own ingenuity.

He opened his window as wide as it would go and leaned out into the
night. Above him the clouds reflected an orange glow back onto
Coruscant - the never-night of the city. Even without the cloud- cover, there were no stars on Coruscant. Anakin missed the stars -
one of the reasons he loved flying in space so much. He could ignore
the cold if he could gaze out at the stars. Millions and millions of
them. And Obi-Wan would name them and point to the ones he had
visited and promise that one day Anakin would see them too. Anakin
decided that he would have an Apprentice of his own when he was a
Knight and he would point to the stars and the Apprentice would love
him. He was the Chosen One, and he was Balance.

He breathed in, the air cold as it hit his lungs. It made him gasp.
The night didn't ask questions and it didn't watch you all the time.
If the night had Obi-Wan it would be perfect. But Obi-Wan belonged to
the daytime and so Anakin needed them both and he had to close the
window and go to sleep so that he would be alert enough to make Obi- Wan laugh while they ate breakfast. Anakin had a list of jokes that
he had heard, written down and hidden under his bed. He brought them
out, one by one, to see his Master smile.

He read a few before he went to sleep, so that he would remember them
in the morning.