Anakin is a young boy she meets when she starts volunteering at the community youth centre her senior year of high school. He quickly proves to be an IT virtuoso (Padme is headed to Harvard, and has already advised — not interned for — the democratic candidate in her district's congressional election, but she is complete and utter shit with computers. Ani helps her with her 12th grade computer science project— as in he does 90% of the work — and saves her 4.0 GPA. Ani is 11).
Ani does not remember his father, and can barely remember his mother, as she flits from place to place holding down jobs, trying to keep him fed and in school. Padme wonders what this kid would be able to do if he had more than the youth centre's measly resources at his disposal. Ani is the sweetest kid. (Padme starts a state-wide youth campaign to lobby the congressman she helped elect to introduce legislation targeting funding for community youth centres, on a completely unrelated note).
She also introduces Anakin to Obi-wan Kenobi, her civics teacher who shares Anakin's philosophical tendencies, because she will be in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 5 months and somebody needs to look after this kid. Obi-wan takes, almost immediately, to Ani, contrary to what he likes to say, (they snark constantly. Unrelatedly, Obi-wan almost assaults a snobby 14 year old dick for daring to bully Ani about not having a dad. Ani actually assaults a student who calls Obi-wan a "sanctimonious son of a bitch". Later when she is trying to patch him up he explains that Obi-wan is his "sanctimonious son of a bitch". That's another thing, somebody will need to rein in his self-destructive tendencies when she's gone. And no she is not devoting an inordinate amount of time to orchestrating the life journey of one, Anakin Skywalker).
The kids and other volunteers throw her a farewell party the day before she leaves for move-in day. Ani is there, a kid she has grown oddly attached to. She worries about him, she hopes her Kenobi-Skywalker scheme will work. And she wonders about the things Ani will do in his life. And rather selfishly she also wonders whether she will see him do those things.
(or see him again).
