Balto: Memory

Author: Starwarsisme
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Balto
Category: Vignette

Disclaimer: All Star Wars characters, locations and concepts belong to George Lucas. Balto and other characters are copyright of Universal Studious and Amblin Entertainment.

Summary: A vignette concerning Darth Balto's memories of Jenna.

*I have received permission by *JediJolene* to use some of his story concerning Anakin Skywalker and Padmé Amidala Skywalker.*

Would you be surprised, my love, if I told you that I can remember the very moment that your heart stopped beating? No, not the date. The moment. The second. The exact vacuous empty fraction of time. I will never stop living it. The mechanical knocking of my machine's heart echoes heavily in me while the ghost of your heartbeat flutters like a bird in my ruined chest, a cruel mockery of what once was. My heart thuds. The memory of yours beats. It is all I know of humanity now, this shade that is my memory of you.

The remembrance of you tortures me. You and me, back in Nome. I hear your voice in my mind, the smooth sweet sound of it like the water trickling the fountain room of the Temple. Like a white-robed crowd of pilgrims singing praises at a holy shrine. Like flutterplumes. Like Nome’s crystal snow plains. Like all that used to heal and soothe me. Your voice was a meditation. Now, it finds the raw and weeping sores in my soul and burns into them with the words "Balto, you're breaking my heart."

These are the only words I can conjure with my sorcerer's powers. I have forgotten the kindly wizard spells to call forth happier words. This black-robed necromancer can only hear the words it wants nothing more than to forget. But if I were to will away this hated phrase, would I lose you?

Do I want to stop hearing you or hold onto this two-edged memory until it cuts through me?

But even the honey-flavored thoughts, those not soaked in blood and screams, carve ragged holes in me. Do you recall the time I came home sooner than expected, surprising you? I woke you with a soft kiss and you were sleep-ruffled. You fur was mussed. Your pillow had etched red lines onto your cream-colored cheek reminiscent of the fading scars you wore proudly on your furry back, echoes of an old battle on Geonosis. You smiled that sleepy smile that only I have seen and you were the Angel I had long ago dreamed you to be.

This memory makes me weep, tears like ashes that rub dustily against my transparisteel faceplate. I could kiss you a thousand times and you would not wake, smile or no. These dusty tears might as well be shards of transparisteel next to the memory of you nuzzling me. Against the memory of you, everything else is blaster bolts. Everything else is sarlacc teeth. The pain of remembering you is only slightly less than the agony of your absence. This constant dying that is not death is my punishment. I have been made to live without you.

As in now when the taste of you comes to me as I inhale. You always tasted of something sweet and tangy. You tasted the way I always imagined light might taste, subtle and tart. I want to keep the taste in my lungs, let it wash over my tongue, flower-shaped and heavy.

But this demon suit does not grant me even this most tiny of desires. It labors another breath into me, this one tasting of metal and my own burnt fur. Each breath, save that last one, makes me want to vomit. Even that is denied me. I cannot die. I do not live. The Force has exacted its retribution for my betrayal. I will never find peace.

How could I ever imagine that I deserve absolution? How can I beg to be forgiven when the taste of the soft skin of your throat mingles with the white-hot feel of it tightened under my power? Your light-taste, your flower-shaped flavor, blackened under murderous rage.

When your eyes never cease to follow my every movement?

I can see your clear beautiful eyes, shining with wisdom and that tiny bit of terrified awe which sparked in them like a flame whenever I was near. Those eyes, two warriors, had stared down assassins of two varieties, political and mercenary, and never weakened. They had widened in joy with a widening of arms to your lovely nieces. They had battled with me in a political chamber and dared me to disagree. They had turned smoky with rage or desire. Sometimes both.

It was only in those last acidic weeks that I saw them at their most beautiful. You were never one for tears, my love. You were too mighty to show your weaknesses. Your eyes burned when others' watered and you nearly always hid behind this flame. But I, the monster, with my disgusting black-holed soul pulled tears from you, ripped them from you. You are beautiful when you cry, Jenna. Tears turned your eyes sparkly in a way I can no longer bear to describe. The very last time your eyes glittered that way…..

…..you were begging me for your life, begging me to allow you to help me.

Jenna, my love, my shame, how can I ever tell you how utterly sorry I am? How can I tell you that forgiveness drives me, that absolution is my only dream.

That I wake in the night from nightmares of your endless judgment?

Jenna, my soul, the love I have for you defines the best part of me, the only worthy part. I have become a flagellant, merciless in remembering you. The sting of that final memory is both my survival and my torture. I embrace both.

Could I move you to forgiveness if I told you that I pray, I beg……

……….to die?

This where all my agonies meet, though, my love.

The very memory of you giving birth, haunts me. It’s foggy and I’m not sure what happened…

"Where does it hurt, Jenna?" asked Nava.

Jenna moaned and moved her paw over her swollen belly. She could feel one of the pups kick and struggle inside her. She asked for Balto constantly and she asked in a groggy voice if it was time.

"Yes. It's time,” said Nava.

"Okay, Jenna. Listen to me. I may no know much about birth, because I’m a Jedi, but I need you to trust me. Now you need to try to push them out as they come, understand?" asked Nava.

Jenna nodded. Her eyes widened and she seemed to be straining.

"Gently," said Nava.

She pushed, and pushed and finally a puppy came out from her tired body," I got one!" Jenna heard Nava say to a medical droid.

For a moment, seeing Nava with her first born son, cradled in Nava’s arm, she thought it was Balto, cradling their son.

He was light cinnamon in color, but a bit dark because it was still wet. She thought of a name, then one hit her. “Oh, Kodi.” She said weakly as she stroked her newborn’s fur.

In the next half hour Nava counted as the puppies came out. He held her paw, as if simple pressure could keep her tried body going. Three, four, and Jenna was still trying. He looked the pups over. There was the first male, a reddish-cream colored female, another female who was colored gray, and a male who was totally black, except for a little white star on his chest.

Nava was still working with Jenna, practically cheering her on as she kept trying with the next pup.

"Push Jenna, push! Push! Push!" he said over and over.

"I AM PUSHING!" shouted Jenna. With that the last pup popped out. It was a small female that looked more than wolf like Balto. Jenna named her Aleu.

Jenna took a deep breath and collapsed onto the soft floor of the medical center. All of Balto and Jenna’s pups snuggled near their mother. Jenna smiled up to Nava, breathing heavily. “Na…Nava.”

Nava leaned in closer to hear her whisper.

“There’s good in him. I know…I know…there’s…still…” She slowly slumped against the soft pillow.

I cannot ask your forgiveness. I have you taken away your voice. But I know, and hate, that you would give it if this phantom heartbeat I felt were truly yours.

You cannot forgive.

I cannot die.

This is my Hell.

And Angels have no place here…