A/N: Hey I'm back to make some stuff up about the Force and deface your star wars canon. So ENJOY THAT

It is not long after Anakin and Shmi are sold to Watto that the nightmares start. He complains of being tired and that he cannot sleep, and he struggles to stay awake while working in Watto's junkyard. The first time Watto catches him asleep, he's whipped for it. It's the first time Anakin is beaten, and he cries. He doesn't understand. All Shmi wants to do is help, but she doesn't know how to make his nightmares go away or help him sleep through the night. At first, she thinks it's the change. It's the first time Anakin has slept in his own bed in his whole life. It's nice for Shmi, and for Anakin, the way they can pretend they have their own space, their own lives, but it's tough for Anakin. After that first night, in fact for a few weeks, Anakin climbed back into Shmi's bed, and at first, Shmi loved the way it felt for Anakin to be close. Sometimes she would wake and wonder what had happened to him, before she remembered. He was fine, in the other room. Asleep. She could feel him, as if he were a part of her.

But the nightmares don't stop after more than a year. And they're continuous. More than a year they've been Watto's, and lived in Mos Espa, and by all accounts they've adjusted to their new lives. But Anakin falls asleep during the day when he's supposed to be working, and can't sleep at night, and he's becoming self-conscious. He doesn't want Shmi to worry -worry about the nightmares, worry that Watto will punish him for falling asleep, even though most boys his age, even slaves wouldn't be working the way Watto works him yet -and so he tries to hide it from her. She still knows. She wakes with him, even if he doesn't get her, listens to him breathe heavily. She tries to go to him, a few times, but unless he's crying, really upset and scared, he just says: "I'm sorry, Mama. I didn't wanna wake you up."

But this night Shmi is sound asleep. It's not too hot and they're safe for the night. On the moisture farm they had to worry about getting caught in the storms, or the Tusken Raiders, or off-worlders coming to cause trouble for the Hutts. Here in Mos Espa, even in the slave quarters, they just have to worry about themselves. When she wakes, she notices how quiet it is, and thinks that maybe Anakin is finally sleeping through the night. Maybe he's finally overcome whatever has been bothering him. Maybe he's grown out of the nightmares, and Shmi can stop worrying that there's something more insidious going on.

There's a hiccup of a sob beside her ear, and her heart sinks. Sitting up, she looks over to where Anakin is standing, barefoot and tired looking. He clutches the stuffed bantha Shmi made for him for his first birthday (a little gift Match had delivered on a supply run to Mos Espa a few weeks after they were sold –he seemed relieved to see that they were okay, alive, even happier than they were before) to his chest. "Ani?" Shmi says. "What's wrong?"

"Mama," he says. "I had another bad dream."

"Another?" Shmi sighs. Too much to ask for her son to sleep through the night. He climbs into her bed without another word and lies down next to her. Shmi runs her hands through his fine blond hair.

"Can I tell you what it was about?" he asks quietly.

"Of course, Ani," Shmi says softly. "You can tell me anything." Anakin hiccups again and turns over in bed to get more comfortable. He kicks her by accident, and his feet are ice cold. He's shivering. Shmi maneuvers around him to get a pull the blanket from underneath of him and drapes it over his trembling body. She brushes a kiss against his forehead. "Tell me, Ani."

"You," he says quietly. "I don't want you to die."

"I won't die, Ani," Shmi promises, her blood running cold. "Is that what happens in your dreams?"

"Yes, Mama," he says. "And I dream about other things too."

"Like what?" she asks, though she isn't sure she wants to know.

"Me," he says, even quieter. "You don't love me anymore. You wanna hurt me." His voice quivers. "You love me right, Mama?"

"Of course I love you," she says. "I would never do anything to hurt you."

Anakin nods. "I know, Mama," he says. "I'm sorry. I'm just scared."

Shmi lays her head next to Anakin's and gently tips his chin up to meet his eyes. "Don't be sorry, Ani," she says. "You are allowed to be afraid. But you don't have to be afraid of me. You are my whole heart." She takes Anakin's hand and places it over her heart so he can feel its steady pulse. She places her hand over Anakin's heart. "My whole world."

"You're my whole heart too, Mama," he mumbles, his eyes drooping, and his breathing steadying out.

He sleeps for a little while, but he wakes up several more times throughout the night. Each time Shmi wakes with him, draws him closer to her. He wakes up shaking, trying to be as quiet and still as possible. It's too much for Shmi to bear, but she doesn't do anything but be quiet and strong. Hold Anakin in her arms until he quiets again.

Once he wakes up and whispers for Shmi in the dark, and Shmi is right there, holding him still. "Mama," he says. "Watto's gonna hurt me tomorrow." The room is quiet and grows quieter. "I don't want Watto to hurt me."

She wants to say he won't, that she will protect him, but she knows that she can't. She knows that Anakin might fall asleep tomorrow when he's supposed to be working, and she knows that Watto has hurt Anakin in the past for doing just that. And Shmi can only do her best to keep Anakin from being hurt. Sometimes, it means letting him take a few lashes so she can be around the next night hold him while he sleeps. "Why do you think that, Ani?" she asks, and her voice is nearly lost in the thick air of the room.

"I saw it," he says. "In my dream. Bad things happen in my dreams."

"They might not happen in real life," Shmi says.

"But they do," Anakin sobs. "Mama, my bad dreams happen in real life."

And what could Shmi say to that? The Force showed her Anakin before he was born, and she's heard stories about Jedi and witches who could tell the future. She's met her fair share. But Anakin –dreaming of Shmi's death and worse. She tries to reassure him but her voice is lost in the magnitude of the lie. Instead she says, "Just try to sleep." And he does, for a few more hours until sunrise.

His dream about Watto comes true. Shmi is in the junkyard when she and Watto spot Anakin asleep on a pile of broken droid parts. Watto spots him a half a second before Shmi does and he grunts irritably and flutters over to him. He yanks Anakin up by the collar of his shirt, and shakes him awake.

"Hey!" he grumbles. Anakin blinks groggily as Watto drops him roughly back on the ground. His lip trembles but he doesn't cry. He slaps Anakin across the face. "You don't sleep when you supposed to be workin' for me, boy?" Anakin nods. He smacks Anakin again. "Teach you some respect."

"Yes," Anakin mumbles. Watto raises his fat little hand again. "Master," he quickly adds.

"Get back to work," Watto grunts and he flies away, back to whatever Watto did while Anakin repaired his junk and Shmi cleaned his house.

Watto, Shmi thinks bitterly, as she picks her way across the cluttered rows of scrap metal and half-put-together droids towards Anakin, doesn't have enough patience to deal with human four year olds. She doesn't share her feelings with Anakin. Shmi only picks him up and brings him outside into the sunlight so she can look at where Watto hit him a little more clearly. He must not have hit Anakin very hard –there's not even a red mark where his hand met Anakin's face –but Anakin still crying, so Shmi kisses his cheek.

"My dream," Anakin says. He's trembling again, but it's a particularly hot day on Tatooine, and he's drenched in sweat. "It came true."

"That's Watto's fault, not yours," Shmi grumbles, readjusting the collar of Anakin's shirt. Anakin smiles up at Shmi. He looks exhausted, but Shmi thinks he's still too shaken to fall asleep again. She wipes the tear tracks from Anakin's face. "Will you be okay, Ani?"

"Yes, Mama," he says very seriously. "I'm okay."

The silence is heavy, and Shmi can feel Anakin thinking about his other dreams, the ones about her dying, about her hurting Anakin, but she doesn't want to bring them out into the open, doesn't want Anakin to know his dreams bother her, upset her, worry her. They don't. They're just dreams. One of them should believe it, and it should be Shmi. That's the way the whole galaxy works. Little boys have bad dreams, and their mothers tell them that there's nothing to be afraid. That dreams pass in time. That she is there to protect him from the krayt dragons that lived under his bed.

If only.

Anakin's dreams don't stop. He tells Shmi about them. They become more vivid, but less agonizing. He starts dreaming of other worlds. Of other stars.

"I dreamed of a whole world made of water," he tells Shmi, his hand small in Shmi's as they walk through the streets of Mos Espa to Watto's junkyard. The suns are rising behind them. "Is that real? Can we go there?"

Shmi laughs lightly. "I have no idea if there are such worlds," she answers truthfully. "But when I was a girl, I used to dream about travelling through the galaxy."

"Can we go there, Mama?" Anakin asks again.

"Maybe one day," Shmi answers. That's what she dreams of now. Not of the stars. Just of Anakin. Giving him everything he needs, everything he desires. "When we leave Tatooine, would you like to go to a waterworld first?"

Anakin nods, looking up at Shmi excitedly. "Yes, Mama," he says enthusiastically. "And a world with lots of plants, and then we can come home."

"Back to Tatooine?" Shmi asks. She considers him for a second, his feet kicking up clouds in the dusty streets. The square clay buildings that go on for miles, and then nothing but sand. It's all Anakin has ever known. The suns beating wildly against his skin. Tatooine would never be Shmi's home. It may always be Anakin's, even if he longs to see the stars. "We don't have to come back here once we leave, you know?" Not that Shmi can envision a future away from this place. Even if Anakin can.

"But then, where will we sleep, Mama?" he asks like it's the most obvious thing in the world.

"With the stars," Shmi says to herself. Anakin stops and looks up at her, his eyes wide.

"You can sleep in space," he whispers.

"Of course, Ani," Shmi says. "You know, I've been off-world."

"Where the stars live?"

"Yes, where the stars live."

"Did you sleep there?" he asks. Startled by it. "Wasn't it loud?"

"No," Shmi says, taking Anakin's hand again, and walking. The suns are almost up, and more and more people are crowding into the street. She's more concerned with losing Anakin in the crowd than being late for Watto. "It's quiet. Just you and the starship, and your family."

Anakin chews thoughtfully on his lip. "But the stars…" he hums.

"What about them?" Shmi asks, amused.

"They're loud," he says matter-of-factly. "They give me bad dreams. I don't think I could sleep in space."

Shmi laughs again, and then they get jostled by hurried shopper on their way to buy whatever produce is available. "I'm sure you could, Ani," she promises. "We'll just have to see." She says it more like a prayer than a promise. A hope that maybe one day she would hear the stars the way Anakin does.

A/N2: Yes, anyway, this is several days later than I expected because I got very caught up on something that didn't make it into the chapter, and also real life. And I didn't proofread so who knows what this reads like. It doesn't matter. Next week sometime (Wednesday or later) the next chapter should be up, but Real Life includes an intense economics class and accounting class. Anyway, podracing is coming. Very soon. More real Force Usage, coming soon. Anakin being a real person. Coming soon. I think I'm halfway done, but I actually have no idea what chapter I'm on.