New: This first chapter is a repost. I realized I posted it on my old account, so I had to fix that. Sorry, forgive me for the inconvenience.

This has been sitting on my laptop for awhile, nearly complete but I've been extremely nervous to post it. It deals with some sensitive, unconventional (in the terms of fanfics) subject matters, and I believe it frankly is the biggest AU I've ever done. So much so that I feel like it's more of a borrowing of characters instead of an alternate universe as MANY things are different. I may just post this single chapter and see how you all react, as it only gets odder as it continues. Feel free to tell me off in a review if you get where this is going...

Different

Chapter 1

It Began With A Different Seat

My name is Anakin Skywalker and I lived in Coruscant.

Coruscant was a big place. It was a large university town, divided into areas mostly devoted to the locals, the Council University campus grounds, and Uptown Coruscant, where everyone shopped and went out to eat. The shops mostly catered to the students, and most of the buildings even had student apartments on the second story, on top of the storefronts. First-year students lived in campus housing, but upperclassmen lived in apartments and rented houses within a few blocks of Uptown.

Most of the kids in my class had at least one parent who worked for Council University. My mother had taught social science in the school of education. Growing up here was all right, I guess. I enjoyed summers the most when all of the students would leave Coruscant to the townies, and I could find a parking space Uptown when I needed one.

I headed to my first class—AP Ecology. I opened my locker and carefully placed the folders from my book bag into their proper places on the little metal shelf. The corresponding textbook was placed next to the folders in order of my class schedule, my meager lunch placed on the top shelf, and the empty backpack on the hook. Then I pulled out the ecology textbook and green folder to take to class. I checked my watch and quickly headed to the classroom. I should get there with about ten seconds to spare. I couldn't stand being late, but I also didn't want to be there early.

I walked inside Mr. Palpatine's lab and turned down the aisle toward my desk. There was already someone in my seat. He was a really big, wide-shouldered guy. I hadn't seen him before, but he could have been one of the kids who transferred from another school. I wasn't concerned about where he came from though. The problem was he was in my seat. Maybe I should have been a few second earlier.

I stopped between desks—right between Dorme Andrews and Plo Koon—and just stared at the floor for a minute. I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do. That was the seat where I was supposed to be sitting. I had been in that seat all year, and it was spring. This was a two-semester course, so I had been in that same seat each and every school day for over a hundred days. One hundred and twelve.

"Anakin, take a seat, please," Mr. Palpatine said from the front of the room. "It's time to start, and I've got a lot of material to cover before you break into groups."

Someone in my seat and group work. Double whammy. I looked at the guy in the chair, then up at Mr. Palpatine. My pulse was beginning to pound in my temples, and I was having a hard time keeping my breathing in check. I kicked the toe of one foot with the heel of the other—trying to snap myself out of it—but it didn't work. I turned around and went up to the front of the class. "Mr. Palpatine," I said, "there's someone in my seat."

"There aren't any assigned seats, Anakin," Mr. Palpatine said with one of those odd smiles of his.

I stared at the papers on his desk.

All of my teachers were supposed to know the ins and outs of my education plan, including some of my triggers such as unexpected change. Most of them were great about sticking to the plan, but Mr. Palpatine didn't seem to understand how much it could impact me. Or he didn't care...

"But…my seat…" I could barely hear my own voice. "Rex just transferred here," Mr. Palpatine said, his smile becoming tighter. I think he was aggravated. "There's an open seat behind Padme."

Padme. Padme Naberrie. I glanced over at the brunette with the long, wavy hair as she leaned forward with a smile on her face and chatted with Rush Clovis. She had large brown eyes and full lips. She was smart, popular, beautiful, and she was the co-captain of the girls' soccer team along with Dorme Andrews. It could be worse. She was usually pretty nice to me. Rush, the king of my high school, was a whole other story. He'd given me a hard time since elementary. He was a classic bully, right down to the overbearing, overachieving father, who was also a city councilman.

I closed my eyes for a moment and tried to get my bearings. My entire body was tense—poised for fight or flight. Probably flight. But flight would mean not graduating. I could have gotten my GED already if I wanted to go that route. I didn't want that. I wanted the diploma. I wanted to get into a good school so I could manage a decent career and be able to pay my little sister's medical bills.

You can do this. I tried grinding my teeth to see if that would help my feet move, but it didn't. I realized it was because my eyes were still closed, and I'd probably trip over my feet if I tried. I opened my eyes again and took a couple of shuffling steps to the other side of the room. The other side. Far from the door. Shit, shit, shit.

With a shudder, I managed to sit down in the seat behind Padme Naberrie. She glanced back at me. "Hey, Anakin!" I crossed my arms on the desk and stared at the little hairs on my wrist. I took another long breath and closed my eyes, trying to imagine myself in my regular seat and that Padme had just decided to sit in front of me. It didn't help much because if she were there, where would Kit sit? I shuddered a little.

"Hey," I managed to say quietly. Thankfully, Mr. Palpatine started his lecture then. What he had to say didn't help at all, though—group work. Shit, shit, shit!

"Everyone will be divided into pairs, choose a potential risk to our biosphere Earth, explore the causes and potential implications of that risk, and then present your findings to the class." Pairs. I relaxed a little. Kit and I had known each other since we were both pulled out of the regular classes in the third grade for our "superior cognitive abilities." He was the closest thing I had to a friend, and we always worked on projects like this together. When Mr. Palpatine had mentioned group work, I thought he meant a larger group. I didn't do well in those. I tried to keep my focus on the good news as opposed to the potential for public speaking, which just wasn't going to happen. Kit would do it for us.

"Rush and Shaak, pair up. Kit and Rex, Dorme and Plo, Padme and Anakin…"

"Wha-what?" I interrupted.

"You and Padme will work on your project together," Mr. Palpatine confirmed. He smiled, and I wondered if he had brushed his teeth that morning.

"I work with Kit," I reminded him. Surely he just forgot.

"Kit's going to work with our new student," Mr. Palpatine said. "You will be working with Padme."

My heart began to pound, and blood rushed to my ears, which also began to pound. I knew I wasn't going to be able to hold this one back, so I got up and ran out into the hallway. I didn't look back. With sweat running from my hairline and onto my neck, I headed straight for the front door, trying to figure out where I could go to hide. I ended up just running laps around the football field. Once I managed to calm down, I went to the office and tried to change out of AP Ecology and into anything else, anything that would give me the science credit I needed for graduation.

"I'm sorry, Anakin," the secretary told me, "but it's too late in the semester to switch."

"Is Mr. Organa available?" Mr. Organa was the special education consultant for the school. He worked in a lot of the schools around the county, and I met with him twice a year to go over my individual education plan.

"Mr. Organa won't be on site until next Tuesday."

I wanted to bang my head against the wall, but giving myself a concussion certainly wasn't going to help. I couldn't just drop ecology for a study hall and graduate on time, and Mr. Palpatine was clear the project was going to be a major chunk of our semester grade, so I couldn't just opt out of the project. I was stuck. I would have to do it to keep my GPA up.

I heard the door open behind me and looked back over my shoulder to see none other than Padme Naberrie herself, followed by Dorme.

Padme reached over the counter and dropped a paper on the office desk before turning to me with a smile. "I tried to wait for you to come back," she said quietly, "but Mr. Palpatine said we had to choose from a list today. I picked honey bees. I hope that's okay."

I just stared at her for a minute, watching the way her mouth moved while I tried to figure out just what the hell I was supposed to say back to her.

"Honey bees?" I finally managed to say.

"The depletion of honey bee populations could have a drastic impact on our ecosystems," she replied.

"Oh…um…I have work to do tonight," I finally said. "I can't work on it."

"Tomorrow, then?" she suggested. "We could work on it in the library or maybe at my place?" Dorme shuffled her feet behind Padme and tossed her long, brown hair over her shoulder. I wondered if she wanted to say something but was holding back. She had a soccer bag over her shoulder, and I figured they had already started practice for the spring season.

"Anakin," Padme said again, "is the library okay?"

"Not the library," I said softly. That's where football couch. Every time he saw me, he badgered me to play football. They were always short on players, and if there weren't enough people signed up to play, the funding would be cut.

"Okay," she responded. "My place?"

"Your place?" I repeated, like a total idiot. Normally, I didn't make eye contact with people, but I couldn't stop looking at her eyes. I had never really looked at them before. Most people with brown eyes had speckles of a lighter color or a lot of variations in the hues, but hers were almost solid brown—like a chocolate bar.

"After school?"

"Okay." I could barely get the sound out because I had totally stopped breathing.

"Cool! Do you need directions?"

"No," I said. "I know where you live."

"Then I'll see you tomorrow!" She turned to Dorme, and they both skipped out of the office while I tried to breathe again.

Different seat, different project partner —these were the kinds of things I couldn't have stack up on me all at once. Despite the run around the field, I was still too worked up to deal with any more surprises today. I quickly signed myself out of school for the day.