First Anniversary

"I can't believe it's been a year," Padmé Naberrie Skywalker said, her voice breaking like sunlight into the clouds of worries over the activities on Muunilist, the place where intelligence pointed at as a major staging point for the next Separatist offensive.

They both sat as they did a year beforehand, out on the waterfall meadows, Anakin Skywalker using his cloak as a blanket on the grass. Except now they were husband and wife, not two young people in the first stages of love. And now the galaxy was ablaze with war. The secrecy of their forbidden union along with their onerous duties in the Senate and on the battlefield permitted only a brief leave on Naboo to celebrate the first year of their marriage. Naturally they'd returned to the Lake Country, a place that now held special meaning to the both of them.

Padmé's hair was long and loose, free of the colorful ribbons she had worn before. She wore a rose colored outfit with the skirt hung low on her waist and the decollete top cropped generously above her exposed abdomen. Anakin had lost some of the boyishness in his appearance; his shoulders were broader, his voice had deepened, the remainder of baby fat on his face had melted into a defined jawline. Padmé had noticed new scars on his body from the last time she had seen him.

"Me neither," Anakin said, his gloved artificial hand absently pulling at the grass beside him. "This place is as beautiful as I remember it." He grinned. "Even the shaaks are still here."

"Remember how you pretended to be hurt after you fell off one of them?" Padmé chuckled.

"I remember you on top of me." Anakin's grin grew lascivious. "How about when we first tried to find a spot out here, only to have a couple of shaaks go at it right in front of us? I don't think I ever saw you so flustered. Not even after we first kissed."

Padmé laughed heartily. "That was so embarrassing!"

"It was embarrassing then. Now, things are different." He gave his wife his most seductive gaze.

"I'm glad they are," Padmé replied coquettishly, sidling close enough to her husband so that their hips and legs touched. "We just missed the Glad Arrival Festival, as we just missed it last year. There's a fair here with music, dancing, food, games, and wares."

"It's all right. I think of this as our place."

"Me too."

They lay down together, watching the drifting white puffs in the blue sky, breathing in the fresh spring air. She put her arms around him, cuddling up to his chest so that she could hear his heartbeat. "Nothing would give me more joy than to bear your child," she said.

Touched, he lay his cheek on top of her head. "There is nothing in the universe that I would want more."

"A little boy to be your shadow," she mused. "A little girl to spoil."

He looked down at his wife increduously. "Spoil?"

"Yes, I said, 'spoil,'" she said teasingly, tracing her finger on his uniform's leather tabard. "I know you. Any daughter of yours will have you wrapped around her little finger."

Before he could protest, his mind's eye produced the image of a little version of Padmé, melting his heart and his resolve with large, imploring brown eyes. He smiled in acquiescence and silently the pair enjoyed a moment of brevity.

Then he became serious. "Padmé, our family--you, me, our future children--will be important to the future of the galaxy. I know it. I can feel it."

She arched her eyebrow. "Important in what way?"

"Destiny has a way of finding all of us. It has a special talent for finding a Skywalker."

Padmé looked into his eyes and realized he was as certain as he'd been as a child predicting their marriage or as he'd been a year ago when he knew his mother was in danger. It sent a chill through her spine.

But they folded into each other's arms and savored the moment of peace.