I'd love to know what you guys think of this AU. Leave a review if you want to, I love feedback, lol. Thanks for "Life" for your review. There'll definitely be more Anakin/Padme on its way, hahaha. :)

Coruscant High: Chapter 4

As it turned out, they had the next class of the day together. Anakin promptly forgot about his experience in gym class and thanked whatever gods existed on Coruscant. He tried to hide his excitement from Padme though, because he wanted her to see his maturity, his calm control. Oh, who was he kidding? He'd crawl down the hallway – every hallway – for a chance with her.

Padme was goodhearted, Anakin could tell almost instantly. It showed in the way she greeted every student she passed, in the smiles she gave out so freely. He followed her into the fifth classroom and sank into the seat beside her, blushing as he put his heavy books on the desk. The rest of the classroom quickly filled in with students, and Anakin spotted Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon by the door. They waved at him.

Anakin kept looking. He saw Asajj in the far back left corner, glowering at a small communication pad in her hands, and she didn't look up. He didn't know why, but he looked for Palpatine too and couldn't find him. Feeling strangely disappointed, Anakin sank back in his seat and glanced at the front of the room.

The philosophy teacher must be late. No one stood beside the large wooden desk (what a strange choice for such a modern school).

"Look far enough, you did not."

"Aaahhh!" Anakin shouted and jerked sideways in his seat at the sudden appearance of a small green alien at his side, not much higher than his knees. Huge ears filled with tufted white hair flicked forward on the small head. The creature's eyes, large and green, regarded him with open amusement.

"In this class, learn to look before you ask, you will," it chuckled and tapped a gnarled wooden cane on the gleaming white floor.

Beside him, Padme laughed. "Master Yoda, isn't it against the rules to frighten your students?"

"Hm, Miss Padme? Not so good, my hearing these days," Master Yoda smiled warmly at her, his wide lips crinkling into a thousand wrinkles. How old is he? Anakin wondered.

The old alien puttered up the aisle until he reached the front and turned, leaning heavily on his cane. "To class, welcome to another day are all of you," he intoned. "Philosophy in a galaxy, hard to find the truth it is. Agree, do you?"

No one in the class dared to raise their hands for a moment, as they all mentally rearranged the question in their minds. Finally Qui-Gon lazily raised his large hand. "I think in a galaxy of this size, it might be hard to say something is true for everyone."

"Hard, yes," Yoda chuckled, the sound like creaky ice scraping across a speeder's windshield, "but impossible?"

No one answered. Anakin slid a little further down in his seat when Yoda's gaze passed over to him. This was too much for his first day; didn't the teacher know he was new?

Yoda smiled. "Much fear, I sense in all of you. Afraid to give the wrong answer. But do wrong answers exist?"

Padme chewed on her lip and finally slipped her hand up. "Absolutely they do, Master Yoda. There is right and wrong in this galaxy. I know, I've helped my parents with the refugees on our planet. Every day, wrong things happen to decent people all over the galaxy."

Anakin sat up a little straighter, captivated by her sudden fire, her passion for everything. And he agreed with her. It was wrong how some people could coast through life without a care, and others had to scrape by to survive. He thought of his mother, aged prematurely by years of hard labor just to feed her family. I should com her tonight.

Asajj spoke up from the back of the room, her silky voice mocking. "Or maybe that's just the way of the universe, dearie. Eat or be eaten. The natural order of things."

"Yeah," a thin sliver of a human boy with shaggy dark hair added. "And who's to say those refugees hadn't done a bad turn to someone else before? Maybe it's the universe's way of payback."

Obi-Wan scowled, the look surprisingly out of place on his perfectly spaced features. "And maybe this class is the universe's way of proving you don't know what empathy is, Sate."

Sate's beady dark eyes flared. "Aw, the sheltered little rich boy from Stewjon thinks he knows about the woes of the galaxy."

"Enough, that is," Yoda, who had been calmly watching, now roused himself with a low rumble, and Sate instantly stopped speaking. His shifty eyes flicked from Padme back to Obi-Wan as he sank into his seat. Anakin noticed that Obi-Wan never took his own gaze away from the smaller boy, and the look in those blue eyes was stunning. His left hand had bunched loosely into a fist.

I wouldn't want to be on his bad side.

The rest of the class passed without issue. Yoda arranged them into groups of four and requested that each group determine working definitions for right and wrong. Anakin was elated when Padme asked him to join her, Obi-Wan, and Qui-Gon. He didn't say much, but just the feeling of being surrounded, accepted, and wanted was enough for him.

He was making friends. Maybe this school wouldn't be so bad after all.

Obi-Wan jostled his arm as he reached for Padme's datapad. "Sorry," he grinned at Anakin. "So, you like it here so far?"

He heard Asajj laugh and thought back to gym class and winced. Obi-Wan noticed and leaned closer.

"You okay?"

"Yeah," Anakin hedged. "It's just the school is so big. Back on Tatooine, our school was a hundred students, tops. Here…"

"Six thousand seventy-three," Obi-Wan chuckled. "And three campuses to hold us all. No wonder you look like a lost baby rugger. Don't worry, you pick it up very quickly."

His confidence was catching. Anakin smiled back and nodded, and then Master Yoda was calling the class back to order to share their discoveries. Just before he moved reluctantly back to his seat, Qui-Gon laid a broad hand on his shoulder. "Anakin, you should join us after school when you've settled in a bit. I think you'd enjoy our little philosophy club."

Anakin paused, confused. No one had ever mistaken him for that kind of student before. He smiled nervously and stalled for time. "A philosophy club?"

"Yep," Obi-Wan said as he moved past Anakin. "We call ourselves Philosophers of the Jedi Order. I call it PoJo. It's kind of a fancy name for such a small group, but Master Yoda's the sponsor. He's got a thing for weird names." He moved easily down the thin aisle to his seat by the door. Qui-Gon followed him closely.

Something had twitched in Anakin's mind when he heard the name. It sounded strange on his tongue and vaguely familiar. "Jedi?"

Padme smiled. "We're named after the famous order of philosopher-warriors in early galactic history. You know, the ones who claimed to use the Force to solve the galaxy's problems."

"Oh, yeah, the Force." They had named themselves after a bunch of crazies? Anakin remembered hearing about them, a brief mention in his history textbooks on Tatooine. He hadn't paid the closest attention to be honest. Much more time was spent on the podracer doodles in his notebook.

"We'd love to have you drop in," Padme said, staring up at him, her large brown eyes bright and so, so warm. He wanted to swim in them. That was impossible, but he wanted to try.

"I'll see what I can do with my schedule," he promised her, his mouth going dry at the corners. With his heart pumping fast, he fled back to his desk and buried his nose in his textbook when Padme sat down across from him.

Unseen by the students, Master Yoda's wizened smile broadened across his ancient face.