Birthday
It's a normal evening in busy, businesslike Coruscant, the cloudlessly blue sky filled with trafficked spaceships, lights shining from every corner in the ever-industrializing city. Not the usual calm mood she would like, but Padmé Naberrie Skywalker, standing silently at her apartment's balcony, staring at the panoramic view, had grown accustomed to the tensed situation since Chancellor Palpatine had taken office: the feel of war.
A sigh.
War. An exchange of innocent blood over negotiations, a situation she most despised her husband—the thought filled her with a small tinge of happiness—getting involved. Sure, he was a Jedi, the one of the protectors of the galaxy, but Yoda knows what would happen to him. She had worried more of his safety, than of the galaxy's, lately, a pretty selfish thing for a Senator to do, yet wasn't going out of her ways to marry him just months ago the start of it all?
She shook her head slowly.
Love.
Why did she ever allow herself to gaze back into those bright blue eyes?
Before Padmé could answer the question herself, the night sky was suddenly blocked by a pair of familiar hands, the owner of which stood behind her.
"Padmé."
She loved the way he whispered her name in her ears. Soft, but playful
A smile tugged at the corners of her lips. "Yes?"
"Happy Birthday." In one swift motion—Jedi reflexes-related?—Anakin had swept Padmé to face him, his hands before him holding out a small, tattered notebook.
Other than C3PO not having a fight with R2 today, this was certainly a surprise. "Ani, you shouldn't have…" she managed to say, her heart bursting with feelings. Sweet, that he'd taken the time, out of his busy Jedi schedule, to remember her birthday. Worried, of all the troubles he might have gone through in finding her present. "I don't care that much about—"
The rest of her sentence was cut off, Anakin planting on her a light kiss.
He touched her lips, tracing it with his finger, "You care too much of others, Senator."
I care too much of you, she replied mentally.
"What about yourself? And anyway," he placed the notebook on her hand, "I've been waiting for you to have this forever, but haven't exactly found the opportunity to."
Padmé glanced down at the notebook again. A rare exhibition, it was, for every galaxy's citizen used datapad these days. The book, merely decorated in a simple brownish covering, was titled in her name.
"Padmé?" she read, her tone questioning. "…you've been…Waiting for me to have this? But…how?"
Anakin chuckled knowingly, pulling her down onto the sofa beside him, "I knew you would ask questions. Ready to hear a story?"
"Are you sure you've got time for all this?" her self-explanatory question came out in a teasing tone.
"Who says I haven't got time for my Angel, Padmé?" Anakin's tone was the same, his returning smile even widening. "So it goes…"
XXXXXX
"Mom?"
It was nothing, really, just a simple brown notebook the ten-year-old Anakin Skywalker found in a clunked up old room, but there was something…strangely attractive about the object.
Heavy sounds of footsteps later, he was standing there in the kitchen before Shmi, his little hands, clever enough to fly Podracers, holding the precious treasure.
"Can I have this?" asked the young mechanist enthusiastically, "It seems really old, and no one's using it anymore."
Shmi simply nodded, "And what are you writing in it, my Ani?"
Anakin blinked. "Write, Mom? There are lots of things I could do with a notebook other than write!"
XXXX
"Lots more to do than write, yes!" laughed Padmé, flipping through the notebook. "Now I have one more announcement to the Jedi Council."
"What else are you going to expose, other than how charming I am?" teased Anakin, Padmé not resisting the urge to hit him with a cushion.
"Well," she began, "For one thing, the fact that Jedis can be pretty good artists."
"Guess your choice of men didn't change from Palo much," the Jedi-artist replied, grinning.
Padmé pretended to roll her eyes, "Artists pretty good in drawing my portrait, at least."
XXX
Padmé.
Her name was Padmé.
Such a suitable, exquisite name for an angel.
Safely hidden behind the counter, Anakin, hands busily fixing a broken datapad, was thinking of Padmé, a topic hardly able to leave his mind since she walked into this shop just yesterday.
Those chocolate brown orbs, her lovely smile, her melodic voice…
Knowing that he would not have a chance to see her, much less to talk to her, again, in what way could he record the memories?
The notebook….that's the perfect place.
Anakin carefully took the small book out of his shirt pocket, dusting its cover, and slowly, the best concentration he'd ever given anything other than fixing Podracers, wrote 'Padmé,' in his best handwriting on the cover.
There.
No one had ever said he was quite the artist, but they didn't say he couldn't try.
He began sketching her face from his mind, taking in the most he could…
This, he decided, was to be his scrapbook for her.
XXX
Her hair
The thick, wavy brown waves…
No, not the stylized hairdos she had undergone while being Queen of Naboo, the so-called elegance that in fact dimmed her real beauty.
No, he would remember her as Padme, just Padme the handmaiden, the Padme who sent his heart beating at first sight at such a tender age.
Her braids, simple and yet giving her a carefree look…were ideal.
"Anakin, what in Force's name are you doing?"
At the sound of an all-too familiar accent, the teenage Padawan raised his head from the notebook he was so absorbed in to face his master.
They were on a distant planet, several systems away somewhere, so remote Anakin could not trace its location, and, as usual, on an easy negotiating mission for the Council.
Sitting in the waiting room, face to face with Obi-wan, and just waiting for those ambassadors bored him to death. Anakin had no choice but to pick up his old habit: dreaming of Padmé.
"Nothing, master," Anakin replied in a cursory way, his hand, a moment ago so intensely sketching Padmé's portrait, suspended above the current page in mid-air.
Obi-wan moved closer, his hand fingering the tip of the notebook, "Is that…"
But Anakin slammed (as much as he could slam a small book) it closed, fast. "Padmé, yes," he muttered, his master shaking his head.
"It's been years since we met her," said Obi-wan, "And you still haven't forgotten—"
"Wish that I could, master," interrupted the Padawan, sighing. "Wish that I could."
XXX
Her eyes
The sparkling rich orbs he almost lost himself in…
The meaningful, sometimes serious, yet paradoxically inviting brown eyes…
Showing her various emotions, whether excited (like that time he won the Podrace), melancholy (the time they had to, reluctantly, part for his Jedi training, her for Queen Duty), or…
…Blank.
Like today during the Bodyguards meeting in Padmé's lavishly decorated apartment …
Sure, Obi-wan had told him (yada-yada, master) not to focus on the negatives, that Padme was, indeed, glad to see him after all those years, but deep down, in his mind, Anakin knew she barely showed 'gladness' at meeting him.
And the look of mischief…of longing…that he had sent her, or tried to…
The relationship between them was obviously professional.
Sighing, the Padawan settled down on Padme's sofa, pulling out his trusty notebook and a pencil and started to sketch in the eyes of the woman he loved, now grown 'more beautiful' for a Senator than in his every waking dreams…
XXX
Her skin
Her linen, rainbow dress, revealed a shade of tanned white, flawless as if chosen by an artist…
A view that, when compared to the magnificent lake, left him breathless.
Smooth and soft to touch…
Tracing her back sent his visions and senses reeling...
Unconsciously leaning in to kiss her, right there, by the Lake, on the balcony…
Yet she did not seem to resist.
Blissful seconds of his first kiss passed, before Padmé, realizing what they, a Padawan and a Senator, were actually committing, pulled away.
Gasping, saying that 'She shouldn't have.'
Implying that 'They shouldn't have.'
All he had to say for her, (Oh, Anakin!) was a guilty sorry sentence, emotions interrupted, time rushed…
But…
So she did feel something…
Too awkward to converse anymore, Anakin, leaving Padmé alone with her thoughts, no less conflicted than his, retired to his room, a pencil and the notebook in hands, ready to finish the rest of his drawing.
XXX
Her smile
A wide grin, greeting him, brighter than the Mustafar system…
A soft curl of her lips that could bring rain to Tattooine…
A cheery toothy smile burning down the fire in his eyes, lightening up the day and jumbling up his heartbeat…
Making him laugh…
"Ani!" He still remembered with joy, of the moment she ran through the grass, her voice heavy with worry and fear that (very unlikely) the Shaak he had ridden on had caused him some unimaginable harm. "Ani, are you all right?"
Her giggles when he rolled around, grinning, to face her were priceless.
Rolling on the grass had never been more pleasurable.
Nor did seeing her loosen up, carefree smile of (perhaps) her—taking off the solemn, stressed Senator mask—true self…
XXX
Her lips
Warm and delicate…the first kiss they shared haunting him nonetheless…of the rest, the return of finishing that kiss.
Not at the moment, not when he couldn't believe his ears at the words pouring through her lips, seconds before they were pulled out of the cave and into the arena, the site of (what some might say) certain death.
"I've been dying a little bit each day since you came back into my life…I truly, madly, deeply, am in love with you…"
And her lips leaned in closer to his, touching for the second time before deepening into a passionate kiss.
She loved him.
Padme, a high-class Senator, actually had feelings for him, the 'little boy she always remembered on Tattooine…'
Well, he was a little boy no more.
She loved him….
XXX
"So that's how you finished the rest of the portrait?" asked Padmé, beaming at her Jedi.
Anakin smiled. "And now I've got you, the real you…"
Padme laughed softly, "You know, this isn't yet the best birthday present I've gotten."
He raised his eyebrows, surprised. "What, who gave you a much better present?" his tone half joking, half-mocking.
"A long time ago," she held his hand, squeezing it gently, "On a planet called Tattooine, I met a young boy, a very talented Podracer and pilot, whom I've never imagined I would meet, a few years later, as a Jedi Padawan, his height now towering over me—"
The Senator felt a squeeze return to their joined hands.
"—and a very handsome—"
Her husband couldn't help grinning in agreement, while Padmé continued, after a slight pause, inspecting Anakin's face, in her story-telling voice.
"—one at that. Before I knew it, we got married, the happiest days of my life, until I discovered an even better news, a present he'd given to me, a blessing."
Padmé fondly caressed her stomach, aware of the little life growing and developing inside her.
"Our child," said the couple at the same time, exchanging smiles.
"Our child will change everything."
XXXX
"Luke," called Ben Kenobi, stopping the farm boy at the exit of his house, "If you don't wish for a lightsabre, take this. It's what your parents would have wanted you to have."
Luke hurried back into the room, hand reaching out to grab a piece of torn, yellowed notebook paper from his future mentor.
"What's this, Ben?" he asked, smoothing out the paper to reveal a sketch of a stunningly beautiful lady, with braided brown hair, same colored lively eyes, tanned white skin, and a welcoming smile.
The answer Ben gave left him dizzy in revelation and epiphany of his blurred childhood, so forcefully clouded by his down-to-earth uncle.
"Your mother, Luke," repeated Ben in his calm, sincere voice. "It's your father, Anakin's, sketch of Padmé Naberrie Skywalker, your mother."
My mother, though Luke, dazed. I actually knew what she looked like, so striking and attractive…
When the image of the sketch, which Luke kept in his shirt pocket during his adventures, came to mind again, he was staring, face-to-face, at the Princess of Alderaan, her complexion and features so similar to that of…
The same shade of brown hair and eyes, the same shade of tanned white skin…
…of his mother…
So immersed in his thoughts was he that the sentence she asked him sounded as if coming from far away.
Him…and a princess?
Related?
No, it possibly couldn't be.
After all…
What more surprises were there?
A/N: My first Star Wars (A/P) fanfic.
Thank you all so much for stopping by, reading, and/or reviewing
Love and peace out,
Your ever humble fanfic writer :)