Chapter 7: Anakin's Worst Nightmare
Setting to Chapter 7: Takes place in Coruscant at Padme's Senate Apartment Complex and Anakin has a premonition about Padme dying in childbirth.
In downtown Coruscant at the Senatorial Apartment, Padme Amidala Skywalker and Anakin Skywalker were standing out on the veranda. Padme was standing by the rail, brushing her hair while Anakin stood by the entrance door of their room.
He was watching her and she said, "Ani, I want to have our baby back home on Naboo."
Anakin didn't say anything. He just stood there in silence with a smile on his face as she turned around to face him.
"I can go early and fix the baby's room," Padme said as she turned back around. "I know the perfect spot right by the gardens."
Padme stopped brushing her hair and Anakin said, "You're so beautiful."
"It's only because I'm so in love," she said with a smile.
Anakin laughed and said, "No, it's because I'm in love with you."
"Are you saying that love has blinded you?" Padme asked in her teasing voice.
Anakin chuckled and said with a grin, "That's not exactly what I meant."
"It's probably true," Padme said with a smile and kissed Anakin on the cheek.
Meanwhile, in the Senatorial Apartment, Anakin was having his premonition about his wife.
Padme was lying down on a med table, giving birth and there's a baby crying and Padme was crying, too.
Padme groaned and said, "Anakin, help me!" She started to scream and Anakin woke up from his nightmare.
Anakin looked at Padme and got up out of bed and went to the living room. Padme sensed that her husband wasn't in bed with her.
"Anakin?" Padme asked.
No response.
Padme slid out of bed and found him sitting in her living room.
"What's bothering you?" she asked him.
Anakin looked at her and smiled, "Nothing."
He wrapped his arm around her and looked at her Japor Snippet necklace he gave her when he was nine years old, onboard the space shuttle that Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan was on and she was with them, along with the Queen, who he didn't know at the time was her.
He picked it up and said, "I remember when I gave this to you."
"Anakin," Padme said gently. "How long is it gonna take for us to be honest with each other?"
Anakin looked away and said, "It was a dream."
"Bad?" she asked.
Anakin nodded and said, "Like the ones I had about my mother, just before she died."
Padme caught her breath. She did not expect for him to have a bad dream about her. She knew he had dreamed about his mother's suffering and torment for weeks. The dream finally made him go against the advice and orders of the Jedi...and he arrived too late. He had never forgiven himself. Padme thought he never forgiven the Jedi Order, either. She looked at him and waited.
"Tell me," Padme said as she stroked his arm.
"It was only a dream," Anakin assured her and looked away as he got up.
'If it was a dream, why are you so upset?' Padme thought.
She did not say it to him because she knew it would likely upset him more. She waited patiently for him to explain.
Anakin could feel her patience and her love.
"You die in childbirth," Anakin said flatly.
"What about the baby?" Padme asked as she put her hand on her stomach.
Anakin shook his head and said, "I don't know."
"It was only a dream," Padme said, but she did not believe it because she knew Anakin's premonitions had been right too often.
Anakin moved closer to Padme and took her in his arms. "I won't let this one become real."
"This baby will change our lives," Padme said. "If the Council discovers you're the father, you'll be expelled."
"I know," Anakin said as he held up a hand.
"Do you think Obi-Wan will be able to help us?" Padme asked.
"We don't need his help," Anakin said. "Our baby's a blessing, not a problem."
'It's both,' Padme thought, but she was too tired of chasing the same thoughts around and around in her head. She moved closer against Anakin, letting him hold her.
(End Chapter 7)
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