It was in the early hours of the morning that you opened the door to Anakin's room.
Anakin was still asleep, chewing on the teddybear in his arms, and snoring.
He could have been mistaken for an angel in this state. His expression so careless and free, for once not contorted by horrifying nightmares. He looked at peace.
You crouched down next to his bed.
"Happy Birthday!" you whispered and snuggled him into your arms, accidentally pushing his bear off the bed.
"Yes, happy birthday to me!" Anakin yawned, even looking a bit shy in his sleepy state.
You made space for him to get out of bed and moved towards his dresser. You were about to pull out a drawer when Anakin interjected.
"I want to dress myself today! I don't need you to do it anymore, Ma."
A bit taken a back you stepped aside to let him access it himself.
"If you decide against something please put it back where it belongs after you've taken it out!" you stressed firmly and with the worst case scenario already in mind.
You hadn't forgotten about the disaster he had caused last year when he decided he didn't like strongany/strong of his clothes anymore. You'd found shirts stuffed behind furniture for weeks after you'd made done with the mountain of clothes on his floor.
You left Anakin in his room to do his bidding.
In the time it took him to dress, you'd already turned on the stove and done the rest of the dishes.
When Anakin eventually did walk out of his room, he was a walking talking fashion disaster. The sleeves of his black shirt were too long and flowery, his pants were a shrill combination of the rainbow (they must have been a gift by someone else, you certainly would not have bought them) and he wasn't even wearing any socks.
He looked utterly adorable.
You had to fight hard with yourself to stifle your snort. You knew he'd take offense to that. You'd allowed him to pick out his clothes on his own, so you would keep your thoughts to yourself, at least today. Tomorrow was another story.
But on the other hand you weren't a fashion expert either.
"Can I watch some holo-tv?" Anakin asked, already excited for the new episode of his favorite show.
"Sure, birthday boy. Just let me look for the- ah! There it is!"
You fished the remote out from behind a couch pillow and activated the holo-tv.
"Catch!" you called and threw the small remote into Anakin's direction. Which of course he he did.
You stepped out of living room and switched course for your own chamber, quietly opening and then closing the door, however, only just enough so that you could still hear what Anakin was doing in the living room.
Most of the time you were wearing plain clothes like you had on Tatooine for the majority of your life. Partly out of comfort and the sense of home these clothes brought you but also because you'd rather spend your money on beautiful clothing for Anakin than for yourself. You just had to pretend that sticking out like a sore thumb weren't bothering you and that the stares didn't make you feel ashamed - and then any day was a go.
You looked once again behind you to make sure that only the smallest slit was open, before stripping yourself out of your sleep wear until you were only left in your underwear.
However, today you would be dressed like any other woman on Naboo would be. Only a bit hesitant took out a piece of soft lilac-blue fabric out of your closet and pulled it over your head. The dress was strikingly similar to the slowly darkening sky in the afterglow of the sunset. Perfect for today.
Still plain by Naboo's standards but not as 'abhorrent' as your usual clothes. For once you didn't feel like an imposter but instead rather nostalgic for a world you couldn't ever see again. Just because your one good dress reminded you of the clothing you had once upon a time admired on the statues of the Ancient Greeks.
But this wasn't the time to waste water over wasted feelings.
With another grab into the closet you pulled out the two carefully wrapped presents you had been hiding from Anakin for about two months. You looked down at them lovingly, sincere in the hope that he would like them and not be disappointed.
You stuck them underneath your arms, the boxes waggling just enough to give you a bit of a scare and now holding them tighter. You carefully, walked up to the door step by step and carefully waggled your foot into the space of the door you'd left open only to have Anakin immediately spring up at you the moment you stepped back into the living room.
Luckily it would be years until he'd be tall enough to grab anything from underneath your arms, however, that did not mean he wouldn't try to use the Force instead. You should have expected it, you sighed internally before letting go and allowing the gifts to fly into the air and then into Anakin's grubby little hands.
You only grimaced a little bit but you shook it off quickly. If you showed discouragement like you had yesterday, you certainly wouldn't be able to help him deal with his powers. You truly were proud, not quite without fear, but proud nonetheless.
"Good job, Ani!" you cheered. Followed by a simple gesture of your right hand with that you finally gave him the go to unwrap his presents.
You walked through the open space towards the kitchen, pulling out the bowls and spoons out of the cupboards. Then after having turned around once more to see what Anakin was doing, you also checked on the present the merchant Ahsala had given you for Anakin yesterday. He'd get to have that later, you decided with a chuckle and closed the cupboard again.
"Ma! Look, look!" Anakin screeched happily.
Tucked into his hands was a small yellow N-1 starfighter including a miniature astrodroid in the fighter's cockpit. A perfect copy of the starfighter ten year old Anakin Skywalker would have flown during the Battle of Naboo.
You smirked. That was one way to use your knowledge of the Star Wars Universe to your favor. So far there hasn't been a birthday where he hadn't gotten anything from you he didn't adore - some would call it cheating, however, in front of Anakin you would merely call it 'motherly intuition' with a cheeky smile.
"Don't you want to see what's in the other one?" you asked with a nod towards the other box Anakin hadn't yet unwrapped.
You'd found a small second hand droid during one of your trips into the inner city and immediately known that that was the one. It would need a lot of work done and wasn't the best give to any normal five year old - however, Anakin wasn't any other five year old.
And you couldn't wait for him to see it.
"I want to open it later, because then I can be excited longer."
You couldn't really fault that logic. Especially since he didn't know that there was another present hidden in one of the cupboards.
You filled two bowls with the steaming stew (thank the Maker for the technology here, on Earth it'd would have taken way longer for it to heat up!), put the spoons into them, and walked up to the couch where Anakin was sitting. There you placed the bowls on the table.
You walked back to the refrigerator to get a bottle of blue milk as was customary.
This was one of the many times you wished for a serving droid. But this was life, you grumbled with a huff.
"Blow on it first, Ani," you reminded him first after having sat down. Then you yourself began to eat. Force, had you missed this! It was the taste of home. The taste of your mother's cooking you'd always secretly loved but had never admitted to. Just like you'd never admit to anyone but yourself that you did miss Tatooine and the family you left behind on there.
After both of you finished your breakfast and brushed your teeth, you suggested to Anakin that if he found some socks maybe the two of would visit the nearby playground. That got him going into his room at incredible speed.
You turned the holo-tv off and stepped into your clean set boots. You only had the choice between the pair you had already worn yesterday and this one, so you'd have to make do. You barely stopped yourself from deciding which of his shoes Anakin should wear, he probably wanted to make that choice himself.
It didn't take too long before you were outside of the apartment building, walking hand in hand along Naboo's beautiful landscape. More fields and flowers than you'd ever seen in the entire time you'd spent on Tatooine, sometimes you still marveled at their foreign beauty-
"I'm tired of walking."
"Hold on just a little while longer, Anakin. See the tree over there?" you asked and pointed about twenty meters further into the distance. "If we turn around that corner, we'll be there."
Now he was the one to stride ahead and trying to pull you along behind him.
The first incident already took place when the moment you turned around that corner, Anakin halted in front of some rose bushes. He was about to reach out towards them, possibly to rip a rose or to push a hand inside, when you softly pulled him back. You weren't going to take that chance.
"Anakin, don't. Look at the thorns," you chided before tugging him towards the big sandbox with a climbing frame on top of it.
Unlike you Anakin did not like the sandbox or the sand, especially after he accidentally stepped on sandcastle you had been building together for over half an hour. But at least that freed you from having to build a sandcastle more than once today, you thought after having consoled and brushed sand off of him.
Luckily for you he enjoyed the swings.
"I'm flying! Higher, Ma, higher!" Anakin cheered.
"Yes, Ani! You're flying!" you said and gave him another push.
And then your work comm beeped.
You stepped a bit behind Anakin as not to accidentally get hit by him, and checked who it was that thought to bother you. You couldn't wrap your head around the people unable to even comprehend the simplest of boundaries. If you said you were unavailable for this week then that was the way it was. What was so hard about it to understand?
You were already about to decline the call when you realized who it was that was calling you. Not one of your low-level clients you could ignore or force to reschedule.
This was a big fish and you would have to take this call.
You couldn't let this call go unanswered but you also couldn't take it here where Anakin could hear. Where Anakin could not be seen.
You turned your head towards Anakin, your hands already nervously fiddling with the comm. He was swinging happily completely unaware of your inner conflict.
"Ani, I'm just going over there," you pointed to a bench in the distance. "To take a call for a second. Then we'll go home and have some cake with Mrs. Rediei! It's not going to take long, so please, stay here."
Anakin only gave you an enthusiastic nod in response as he swung higher and higher on the swing, a gleeful smile on his face.
You gave him one last smile before walking off in the opposite direction , your thumb already accepting the call.
You wouldn't have peace for a while, not after this call.
You wouldn't get to spend this week solely with Anakin and your friends like any other person. You would be spending the majority of this week staking out in the Cantinas with other criminals hired by your client, planing how to do your clients bidding.
But did you have another choice? You couldn't get another job, not here on Naboo where they didn't respect you, where you couldn't get a legal job as an off-worlder from the Outer-Rim.
If those people had looked beyond your heritage, your accent, then you wouldn't have to live like this... You wouldn't have to live a life of crime.
This was no better than working for Gardulla. Just as dangerous, just as unethical, just as despicable and illegal! And you weren't even sure if one day you simply wouldn't come home. If one day Anakin would be waiting and waiting for you but you wouldn't-
Sometimes you hated your life.
Sometimes there was nothing you wished more for than just to disappear. Just take Anakin and leave. You hid your eyes behind your hands.
But this was what had gotten you into this mess into the first place, wasn't it?
You pulled your hands away and got up from the hard wooden bench and began walking back to Anakin.
As the playground grew in size, so did the overwhelming feeling of something being wrong. You had never ran so fast in your life. It didn't take long for you to realize why - you couldn't hear, couldn't see Anakin anymore.
"Anakin!"
The swings were empty, the one he had been sitting on still swaying in slowing movements. Your chest tightened. Maybe he just didn't feel like swinging anymore?
You turned towards the big climbing frame with the slide.
He wasn't there either.
He wouldn't have left, you knew that. You'd taught him not to talk with strangers, reminded him over and over again. He wouldn't have left. But with if someone had taken him?
Now you were getting frantic, your breaths kept turning shallow as the vortex in your stomach grew.
"Anakin!" you called out, desperate and your heart pounding.
There were other dangers in the world besides the Jedi and the Sith. Other kinds of evil... He could already be lying in a ditch somewhere, crying for you, hurting- No you couldn't think like that. You couldn't.
Then you heard it. A noise that sounded like-
"Ma!"
"Anakin!"
Anakin's yell was coming from the bushes you had walked by earlier. You did not hesitate for a second before crawling into them. Ignoring the painful scratching of thorns was surprisingly easy when it came to the safety of your child.
The first thing you noticed when you saw Anakin were the streaks of dirt were all over his face. There were also quite a few pink gashes on his nose and his forehead, you noted, most likely or the thorns. Patches of grass and moss clung to his clothes and in his arms he was holding a small white kitten that was very much struggling in his tight embrace. But he was safe, he was alive. He had only been following the cat. Like any other child would. He hadn't been taken away...
"This is why you left the playground?" You were stuck between crying and laughing hysterically. You tried to wipe away the stray tears that were rolling down your stinging cheeks but it only proved to be futile. You couldn't stop crying.
"I'm sorry, Ma. I'm sorry! Please stop crying! I just saw the cat and it was like it- Like a call! I had to follow it!" Anakin tried to explain, while holding the cat even closer to his chest.
"Oh you had to?" you questioned, slowly taking the small kitten out of Anakin's arms and into your own. It almost weighed nothing, as light as your own datapad. It concerned you.
"Yes, I had to!" Anakin insisted and crossed his arms again, now kitten-less and pouting.
"Anakin. Anakin, listen to me. Don't you ever do something like this again. I told you not to leave, didn't I?" You crouched down further to his height, pressing your forehead against his.
"Yes, Ma but-"
"Ani, you need to think about how what you do affects the way other people feel. To everything you do there is a reaction. It's important to remember that, okay?"
"Are you angry at me?" Anakin asked quietly.
"This isn't me being angry. I'm only- I'm just trying to make you underst-" you sighed.
"Nothing is as important as you are for me. Nothing. Those minutes when I couldn't find you were the worst I ever underwent, Ani. But I am not angry."
Anakin nodded tearily and took your unoccupied hand into his own.
"I understand and I am sorry."
"Then," you began. "You will also understand that we'll have to take your new pet to the doctor, right? So how about you and I come out of these bushes now and go home? I'd like that very much, Ani."
He smiled at you, his grin already missing some his baby teeth and his hair completely tussled. It was the sweetest little smile one could ever imagine.
AN:
Writing this chapter took way longer than any other chapter. Mostly because I've already written some chapters that happen after this beforehand and then I just couldn't find the words to write this one and instead preferred writing on the future ones lmao
(I've already gotten quite a bit of teenage Ani and of course already the ending)
Anywayyy, I hope you liked this one and aren't to cross with me for the long wait :)
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Fun bit of trivia: Before I wrote the original Kuebiko One Shot, I was actually writing in a story where the Reader was reborn into the body of Palpatine's mom and was very much torn between throwing baby Palps into the closest river and burdening the Jedi with them.
But that was way to cracky for my taste and then I started writing Kuebiko lmao Because I sure do love Angst.
arispuffer: I'm a dumbass, I responded to you in the wrong story oof Either way, I'm very happy that you're enjoying this so much!
the guest: Thank you for reading „Kuebiko" and „Misgivings and Misdeeds" and for taking the time to comment :) It really made my day!
