Title: Not Enough
Author: Jmaria
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Joss and George own all . . .I own jack and squat.
Spoilers: Season 6, Episode III
Summary: Some times, what is not enough must be used to get through.
Pairing: FfA #1794 Dawn / Padmé Amidala

Not Enough

Nothing she said or did could bring him back to her. She had lost him when she needed him the most. It was too much, and yet not enough. Padmé closed her eyes. Her Ani was still a good man, but he had gone down a dark path that she could not follow. It hurt to breathe, more than it had when she had hidden her love for him, when she had confessed her love to him.

A slip of a girl, moved around the medical bay, doing her best to be a soothing presence. She was in reality, far older than the woman who was beside her struggling to give her child life.

"Padmé, you have to be strong. You have to live for your child, it can't survive on it's own," the girl's long braid fell over her shoulder, obscuring her face from the Jedi who watched over the Senator.

"Ani . . ." Padmé whispered through dry, cracked lips.

"No, you have to be strong for your child -"

"Children," the medical droid corrected.

"Go tell them of the situation," the woman snapped at the droid.

"Yes, milady."

Dawn Summers leaned over Padmé, trying to focus her energy into healing the woman. All these years, countless eons of existence had given her time to learn her gifts, her key-ness, or as Xander would have called it, her potential. She hadn't aged much since her seventeenth birthday. It was a lonely life, and she didn't like to make many connections, but now for the first time in years she felt herself drawn to this woman.

"You have to fight, Padmé. You have to hold on, you have to live. Why is it every strong woman I've ever met goes to pieces when a guy dumps them, it never fails!" the last bit of her remarks were not intended to reach anyone's ears.

"He did not dump her, Milady. He has turned to the dark side," the Jedi said softly from beside her. "She is dieing of a broken heart."

"Still, loverboy going all homicidal is not a valid reason for her to give up on life," Dawn snapped, taking her frustration out on him. She sent out soothing thoughts to the woman, the droid telling her it was nearly time to deliver the twins.

"A girl . . .Leia. A boy. . . Luke," Padmé said brokenly, tears swelling in her eyes as the first twin came out.

Dawn could feel her slipping, the second baby quickly followed. She squeezed Padmé's hand in hers.

"Padmé, the hardest thing to do in this world is to live in it. You must conquer your pain and raise these babies. You have to live for your children!" Tears clouded her eyes as she tried to convince the woman that there was something worth living for. Padmé ignored her, her eyes locking on Obi-Wan's.

"Obi-Wan... there... is good in him. I know there is... still..." With that, she slipped away.

"No, dammit!" Dawn said harshly.

"The children will be safer this way, He would come after them if she lived," Obi-Wan said quietly, "She knew that."

"So it's okay for her to just give up on life? In all these thousands of millions of years worth of knowledge and growth, the races still believe it's okay to give up, to not fight? Your ancestors would be ashamed."

"It is for the best."

"My ass it is." The fire was slipping from her voice, a cold ache filling her chest numbing her to all of the sensations she had felt vibrating she had felt from the now dead woman. "Peace does not come to those who idly wait."

"Nor does it come from a reign of terror," Obi-Wan said quietly.

Dawn cradled the little baby girl in her arms. Her eyes blinked open gently. Dawn smiled at her and her brother. Luke and Leia. She slid her gaze over to the Jedi who stood beside her.

"They will fight, they will live for her."