Lost in Darkness
By Lincoln Six Echo
"Anakin, help me! Help, Anakin! Anakin, I love you. I love you."
Padme is lying on an operating table. She is screaming, her face contorted in pain. Medical droids surround her while two human doctors speak urgently to each other, their grim faces showing their desperation.
"We are losing her," one says, shaking his head. "The haemorrhage is too extensive."
The monitor connected to Padme starts beeping frantically as one of the doctors shouts a series of orders. "Her heart is failing! She is dying!"…
Anakin Skywalker woke with a start, his bare chest covered by a cold sweat. Taking deep breaths, he looked at his side, where Padme was sleeping peacefully.
He slipped out from beneath the sheets and sat on the side of the bed, holding his head in his hands, trying to calm his hurried breath.
The dream had shaken him to his core. It was too detailed, too vivid to be just a nightmare. He raised his eyes to briefly look at the ceiling.
Please no, not another time, he pleaded, his eyes filling with tears as his memory returned to another dream like this…a dream he would never forget because in it, he had seen his Mother's death.
Anakin stood upon shaking legs and after donning his sleep top, he left the bedroom and went to the open veranda, wishing to breathe some fresh air to clear his mind.
Coruscant stretched all around him, still smouldering from the recent Separatist attack. Anakin closed his eyes, but his meditation attempt was cut short when he heard steps coming closer.
Turning around he saw his wife descend the stairs and join him on the veranda. Padmé stopped by his side, and took his hand in her smaller one.
"What's bothering you?" she asked softly.
"Nothing . . ." Anakin answered, not wishing to upset her in her delicate condition. He forced a smile as he touched the japor snippet hanging from his wife's neck. "I remember when I gave this to you."
Padme pursed her lips and murmured, "Anakin, how long is it going to take for us to be honest with each other?"
Anakin felt like cursing. Sometimes his Angel was too perceptive. Unwilling to upset her, he decided to tell her the truth, "It was a dream."
"Bad?"
"Like the ones I used to have about my mother just before she died."
"And?" Padme pressed him, her brown, determinate eyes never leaving his own.
"It was about you." Anakin finally said, hoping she would not press for more details.
No such luck.
"Tell me," Padme urged him, coming even closer.
"It was only a dream," he insisted, but his wife's eyes compelled him to tell her everything. "You die in childbirth . . ."
"And the baby?"
He shook his head. "I don't know."
"It was only a dream," Padme forced a smile as Anakin took her in his arm, holding her as tightly as he could.
"I won't let this one become real, Padme," he murmured fiercely in her hair. "Nothing will happen to you or the child." I promise.
Padme nodded, her chin rubbing against his chest as they both basked in the warmth and safety of their embrace.
