"Father and Son"
By EsmeAmelia
AN: Thanks as always to the wonderful reviewers! You guys are awesome!
Chapter 7
As the family sat around the dinner table, they focused their conversation on Han, partly to entertain their son and partly because he could keep them from discussing politics and launching into another argument. Padme tried her best to let her son keep her from thinking about politics as well, but the chancellor seemed to be haunting her mind, which was something even Han couldn't cure.
Han was taking a long sip of blue milk, the rim of the glass resting on his nose. "Careful Han," Padme chided, gently nudging the boy. "You don't want to get a blue mustache."
Han ceased his drinking to grin widely at his mother, showing her that he hadn't gotten any milk on his face...yet. "Mommy, guess what!" he said in an exhilarated voice, as if he just now remembered an exciting truth.
"What?" asked Padme.
"Daddy's on da Jedi Council!"
Padme quickly faced her husband, whose face was scrunching either because he had taken a too-large sip of wine or because of what Han had said. "Really? Ani, you've been put on the Council?"
"Yeah..." Anakin said, with considerably less excitement than Padme would expect.
"Well why didn't you tell me they made you a master?" Padme said with a large smile.
Anakin sighed. "Because they didn't make me a master."
Padme's smile faded. "What? But aren't all members of the Council..."
"Yes," Anakin interrupted sharply. "Until now."
Padme reached across the small table and touched her husband's hand. "Ani, I'm sorry."
Anakin sighed, sticking a forkfull of food into his mouth.
Padme forced herself to give a small smile at Anakin. "It's just a label, Ani. What really matters is that you're on the Council."
Anakin scraped his fork against his plate. "Except that no one in the history of the Jedi has ever been on the Council without being called a master..." he muttered.
"What do you do on da Jedi Council, Daddy?" Han asked.
A bit of life in Anakin's face was reawakened. "Well, the Jedi Council members are the leaders of the Jedi. They make the decisions about who is ready to become a Jedi Knight, which padawanns will be assigned to which masters, who goes on what missions, that sort of thing."
Han's eyes brightened, though Padme doubted that he really understood all that. "Dat sounds like fun! I wanna do it too!"
Padme smiled at her son. "You can't, Han. You're not old enough. Even Daddy is the youngest person to ever be on the Council." She gently poked her son's arm. "Now come on, finish your vegetables."
"Okay," said Han, seeming like he was going to forget about his ambition to be on the Jedi Council within a few minutes.
She purposely didn't mention that Han would never be on the Jedi Council even when he was old enough. Anakin had given Han's blood a midichlorian count when he was a baby - and she had breathed a long sigh of relief when it revealed that Han's cells didn't carry enough midichlorians to ever use the Force. Her child could live a normal life without ever being pressured to give up on everything and join the Jedi.
But his little brother or sister might have difficulties...
Padme suddenly put her hand on her stomach, her food having difficulty making its way down her esophagus. Anakin's biological child would almost certainly be Force-sensitive. Concealing a marriage from the Jedi was one thing, but how would they conceal a Force-sensitive child? The Jedi took Force-sensitive children away from their parents as soon as they were old enough to comprehend the idea of being a Jedi. She swallowed, glancing at her husband, wondering if he would want that for his child.
She knew she didn't.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Anakin and Padme were sitting in bed, Anakin rubbing his wife's stomach with his real hand, gently massaging her skin with his fingertips as he waited for the baby's movement. Padme tried to savor her husband's soothing touch, but try as she may, the difficulties of a Force-sensitive child kept coming back to her.
"What do you think of Luke if it's a boy?" asked Anakin.
"Luke?" asked Padme. "Where did you come up with that name?"
Anakin shrugged, his bare shoulders pressing into his cheeks. "I dunno - it's a popular name on Tatooine. I heard it a lot when I was a kid." He patted his wife's stomach. "And Tatooine ispart of his heritage, even though I wish it wasn't." He leaned back and stretched. "Anyway, Luke Skywalker has a nice ring, doesn't it?"
"Yes...but how do we know his last name will be Skywalker? It would be a pretty dead giveaway that you were the father then."
Anakin cocked his head. "Well...Luke Naberrie also has a nice ring - just not as nice as Luke Skywalker."
Padme playfully poked her husband's arm. "All right, we can give it a Tatooine name if it's a boy - so long as it gets a Naboo name if it's a girl."
Anakin nodded, his hand once more brushing his wife's belly. "Fair enough. Any ideas?"
"Not right now," said Padme, placing her hand on top of Anakin's. She breathed deeply as the child bumped her, once more filling her mind with concern about its Force-sensitivity.
"Anakin..." she said softly after a few moments, "what's it going to be like for Han when he finds out that his little sister or brother can do things he can't do?"
Anakin paused his affection, raising his head to meet his wife, his smile faded. "Padme...we don't know for certain that the baby will be Force-sensitive."
"There's just a very strong possibility," Padme said firmly.
Anakin once more lowered his head to her stomach, faintly kissing her skin. "Padme, sibling jealousy is something all families have to deal with - you said so yourself."
"I'm not just talking about Han," said Padme, her hand slipping off of Anakin's and brushing her own skin. "Anakin...suppose the Jedi discover that I adopted a Force-sensitive child. They'll want to take him or her away to be trained, won't they?"
Anakin swallowed, pressing his cheek against Padme's stomach. "Well...technically they give the parents a choice on whether or not they want their children to be trained..."
"But they put a lot of pressure on them," Padme interrupted.
Anakin frowned, but he gave a slight nod, his skin sliding against Padme's. "Force-sensitive children are very rare...especially considering that the Jedi aren't allowed to have children..."
Padme breathed deeply - the conversation seemed to have put extra pressure on her muscles. She imagined her child being ripped out of her arms, never more to know the love of his or her mother for the sake of the galaxy.
"I don't want our child forced to be a Jedi," she said suddenly, with a volume not normally heard in the bedroom. "I mean, if she or he wants to be a Jedi, that's a different matter, but..." She couldn't finish her sentence.
Anakin raised his head, his eyes betraying uncertainty. Despite the fact that she wasn't Force-sensitive, Padme could tell that he was thinking about his own life, how he was taken from his mother never to see her again until her death. But leaving to become a Jedi had still been his choice.
The Jedi sighed greatly, his face communicating that whatever gains he made, whatever benefits the galaxy had gotten, those years lost could never be recovered.
"Neither do I," he whispered.
