Chimeran Dreams
A One-Shot by Trinity Day

Summary: Anakin and Padmé take some time to dream about their future and their new family. A RotS missing scene.

Disclaimer: Star Wars, along with all the characters, planets, creatures, etc., belong to George Lucas, Lucasfilms and probably some other people and corporations that are very definitely not me.

Author's Note: I have not read the RotS novel, so if any of this is covered in it... well, you'll just be getting my version of the events. I hope you enjoy.

Posted: Friday, August 5, 2005 (Happy Birthday, Me! Know what would be a nice birthday present? Reviews!)


Anakin Skywalker could fall asleep listening to his wife talk about plans for the future, for their family. It wasn't because Padmé was particularly boring; far from it, such talk made Anakin feel more at peace with himself than he had felt for a very long time, perhaps even since before the Wars started.

"Ani, are you even listening to me?" Padmé sounded torn between being annoyed and amused. Sure enough, when Anakin opened his eyes, Padmé's mouth was twisted into the upside-down smile that she only got when she was trying her hardest not to laugh and failing miserably. It was a look Padmé reserved for Anakin alone; she was too much of a politician to lose control of her emotions under most circumstances.

"I'm listening," he told her.

"Don't you have anything to contribute?" Padmé asked. "It is your baby, too, after all."

"I should hope so," Anakin teased.

"Ani," Padmé squealed, hitting him across the chest.

Anakin laughed, catching her hand and pulling her down beside him as gently as he could, considerate of her pregnancy. "I didn't realize my contributions were necessary," he said. "It sounds like you have the baby's entire life planned already."

"I'm not that bad. Am I?" Padmé second guessed herself. It was hard not to recognize the truth in Anakin's words. After all, she had done nothing since Anakin had arrived home except for talk about what they would do once the baby arrived.

Anakin didn't answer. He wasn't sure there was a safe answer.

"If I'm bad," Padmé decided, evidently thinking that Anakin's silence was answer enough, "then that's only because I've known about the baby for months now and haven't been able to talk to anyone about it. I haven't even told my parents yet!"

"You haven't?" Anakin asked, pulling himself up on the bed. He knew how close Padmé was to her parents, their busy lifestyles aside, and didn't want Padmé to feel that she should have to hide this from them.

Padmé shook her head before resting it in the cradle of his shoulder. "It would have been too complicated. They would have wanted to know what I planned to do, when I planned to go home, if I planned to resign…" She trailed off, even the thought of such complex questions tiring her out. "Besides, I think Daddy deserves to know first."

She kissed the soon-to-be-daddy even as Anakin wondered, yet again, that in a few short months he would be a father. A father. Of all things.

"I still can't believe…"

He didn't need to finish the sentence; Padmé knew what he felt. She kissed him again, a little more firmly this time, pressing her hand against his jaw and leaving her forehead leaning against his even after their lips parted.

"You are happy about this, aren't you?" Padmé asked, the uncertainty seeping into her voice.

"Of course I am," Anakin answered quickly. It was the truth, after all. "I just can't believe we're having a baby, that there's a new life growing inside of you." He rested his real hand on her swollen stomach, using the mechanical one to prop himself up.

Padmé mirrored his actions, also propping herself up by the elbow, placing her other hand on top of Anakin's, guiding it slightly lower on her belly. "Have you given any thought to names?"

Anakin neglected to ask when he would have had the opportunity to give any thought to a name, having only learned about the pregnancy a few hours earlier. He knew Padmé was simply trying to broach the subject without being accused of having the baby's entire life planned out. Again.

Instead, he questioned her wording. "Names?" he asked, putting an emphasis on the pluralization that Padmé hadn't.

Padmé smiled at him indulgently. "We don't know if it's a girl or a boy yet. Unless you—" She made some strange gesture that didn't really mean anything, but Anakin knew to stand for his Force powers.

He tried. Anakin didn't expect any results, but he still tried to steady his breathing and look at Padmé through the Force instead of his own eyes.

Just as he had expected, it didn't work. "Sorry," he apologized. "I see you and I see something—" This time it was his turn to make an unspecific gesture, slightly annoyed that he couldn't find words to describe what he felt. "But I can't tell."

Padmé didn't seem too disappointed. "It'll be a surprise then. Maybe it's better this way."

"Do you think you can survive, not knowing if we're having a girl or a boy? Not knowing what clothing to buy, what type of toys to get, whether you will be sitting on the bride or the groom side when they get married?"

Padmé ignored Anakin's teasing, except to roll her eyes. "But names. Do you have any idea for names?"

"No," Anakin said hollowly. He was beginning to feel inadequate when faced with Padmé's plans. He had put no thought into the possibility of having children, no planning into their future as a family whatsoever, while Padmé so obviously had put so much thought into both.

Padmé bit her lip nervous, although Anakin couldn't figure out why. He gave her another teasing smile and began to stroke her stomach, drawing small circles with his thumb. "As long as you're not thinking Palo," he said, hoping the drain the tension from both of them.

"You don't want our son to be Palo Skywalker?" She didn't relax as much as Anakin had hoped, but at least whatever her concern was, it wasn't too terrible.

"No."

Padmé's face grew serious again so quickly that Anakin thought he must have imagined her lightheartedness a second earlier. "I was thinking, for a girl, maybe, what do you think of Shmi?"

Shmi.

Mom.

It was only after Padmé gave his hand a prolonged, comforting squeeze that Anakin realized he'd stopped tracing patterns on her skin. When he spoke, his voice sounded raw even to his own ears. "I don't know if that's a good idea."

"It was just a thought," Padmé was quick to say.

Anakin struggled to explain why the idea of naming his daughter after his mother filled him with dread. He knew it was irrational to worry that she would share the same fate as her namesake. He knew it was merely superstition passed on through old stories he used to hear from spacers on Tatooine. He knew there were valid reasons to keep from recycling names, but he couldn't think of a single one at that moment. He also knew that none of these perfectly valid (yet unknown) reasons were quite why his stomach currently felt the way it would after walking away from a crash he shouldn't have survived, the slow and queasy realization that by all rights he should be dead from the accident.

But Padmé knew him well and didn't require an answer. "We won't do it," she declared, her voice taking on some of the royal authority she never lost completely, not even alone with her husband. "I just thought you might want to. I'm sorry. We'll think of something else."

Anakin wanted to apologize, but found he couldn't. He settled for a slight smile as he relaxed against the headboard. Padmé leaned her head on his shoulder again. To have her that close to him, to be able to touch her again after so many months apart was bliss.

"Is there someone else you want to name her after, then? Or him, I guess," Anakin said graciously, even though he was convinced the baby was a girl. He might not be able to blame a vague Force vision for his certainty, but that didn't mean he was going to change his mind, especially not in front of Padmé.

Padmé shook her head. "The Naboo don't as a rule name children after others. They feel it puts too much pressure on them, trying to live up to expectations. Children ought to be free to develop as their own persons, unique and special in their own way. I just thought you might want to do it anyway."

"The Jedi feel the same," Anakin said, "though I think it has more to do with letting go of the past than fear of giving a child a complex." He wished he had remembered that first, to give Padmé a reason for his earlier panic.

He should have remembered that first.

"Do you want to find out what we're having?" Padmé asked. "I can make an appointment if you want me to. I know you say it has to be a girl, but if you want I can find out for sure. I can prove you wrong sooner, so we don't have to wait until he's born."

It was all too much information, too many decisions, too fast, too soon. Anakin didn't have an opinion but didn't want to disappoint his wife. Padmé was radiant, her face glowing with excitement having the opportunity, finally, to talk with her husband about her pregnancy while Anakin himself just sat there like a dunce, unable to keep up with anything and failing miserably the one time she asked him for his input.

Anakin was overwhelmed. He focussed on the one thing he knew for sure, the one thing he was able to tell definitively despite the confusion.

"You're beautiful You know that, don't you? You're so beautiful, Padmé."

And she was, especially now that she was having a baby. Padmé, who had always been a vision as long as Anakin had known her, positively glowed now.

Padmé wasn't able to keep a smile off her face—she never could when Anakin complimented her—but she chided him nonetheless. "Ani, you can't always say that if you don't like the conversation. You don't have to answer now if you don't want to. I'm perfectly happy with it being a surprise."

"But it's true," Anakin said. "And I'm not just saying that to change the subject. I know our daughter will be as beautiful as you."

"Our daughter?" Padmé questioned.

"I think it's going to be a girl." He had said as much earlier and wasn't about to change his mind now. "A girl, as beautiful as you, with lovely, long hair that she will be able to do up in complicated styles just like her mother"—he fingered Padmé's own hair to underline his point, her soft curls tickling against his palm—"and gorgeous brown eyes, like yours, ones that you can just lose yourself looking into."

Perhaps Padmé knew what he was doing, because she asked, "My eyes? I was hoping maybe yours. You have beautiful eyes."

"My eyes? Maybe," Anakin gave her that much. "But your wisdom, then. Your heart, your generosity."

"In that case," Padmé responded though neither of them was talking solely about the future and their child anymore, "Your heart, your passion."

She rested her hands on top of his chest. He took it, pressing her palm to his lips. "If that's the case," he added, "then she would never be a politician. She'll be much too smart for that."

"She won't have the patience, you mean," Padmé replied, too used to her husband's dislike of politicians to take offence.

"I have plenty of patience," Anakin retorted. "I wouldn't be able to stay away from you for months at a time otherwise."

"You won't have to for much longer," Padmé whispered. "Just as soon as this war is over, we'll be able to go to Naboo and live a normal life as a normal family at last."

Anakin didn't say anything; he just pulled Padmé closer to him. Leaning her head on his shoulder, still holding hands, they stayed like that for several minutes.

"If she isn't allowed to be a politician, what will she be, then?" Padmé asked after the silence stretched as long as to was going to go.

Anakin shrugged, causing Padmé to reposition her head. "A pilot?"

"No." Padmé vetoed that suggested quickly. "Too dangerous."

"If she's anything like me, she'll be too good to get into any trouble. Flying isn't dangerous, not if you know what you're doing."

"What you do is reckless and dangerous," Padmé corrected him. "I watch the news, Ani. Every time I hear your name, I have to hold my breath for fear that they will announce you have committed another death defying feat of acrobatics in that fighter of yours. Only this time, it hasn't defied death, that you've crashed, that they don't even know what happened to you." Her voice was on the verge of breaking, Anakin could tell. He smoothed her hair to comfort her.

"That's not going to happen to me," he whispered, "and it's not going to happen to Leia."

Padmé recognized what he was trying to do, and it comforted her as Anakin hoped it might. Lifting her face so that she could look into his eyes, Padmé asked, "Leia?"

Anakin shrugged again, but only lifted his shoulder very minutely this time, remembering his wife's comfort. "You don't like it?"

"It's pretty," Padmé said, "But I thought you hadn't thought of any names yet."

"I haven't. Not really," Anakin said, which was true. But while they had been talking about the future, one part of his head had been thinking the matter over, coming to its own conclusions without him having to consciously give the matter any thought. "It's a story my mom use to tell me. I always like that name."

"Leia," Padmé tried out the name, letting it roll off her tongue in an exaggerated manner. "Le-ia. It is very pretty," was her final verdict. "I like it. Do your stories have any names for boys, or are you still insisting that we are going to have a girl?"

"Are you certain you don't have names picked out?" Anakin asked. "You have the rest of their lives planned, after all."

"Ani," Padmé complained.

"We don't have to name her that if you don't want to. If you have another name picked out, we can call her that, instead."

"She's your daughter, too," Padmé said sternly before laughing at herself. "Your child. I am not conceding that we're having a girl, not yet."

Anakin grew serious "I've missed you."

"Me too."

Anakin gave her a proper kiss that time, fully on the mouth and not the hands or any other part of her head. Padmé responded eagerly; she obviously had missed her husband as much as he'd missed her. The conversation, it seemed, would have to be finished in the morning.

Anakin Skywalker got less than three hours of sleep that night before nightmares jarred him from his rest and kept him awake until morning.

The End