So this chapter is based on the episodes: Heroes on both sides and in Pursuit of peace (3x10 and 3x11) in the Clone Wars animates series. Enjoy and thank you so much for the reviews - they're lovely to read :D
Senator Amidala
The senate chamber was still a place that baffled Anakin. Even as a Jedi, he had stood watch and felt utterly useless as debates raged back and forth. And clearly, in his opinion, there were some who shouldn't have a say. Many that showed their ignorance or selfish goals by their stance on the war and on people's lives.
Padme had scowled at him when he'd said that. Everyone deserves a voice that is listened to, she'd argued. Even if it's callous or selfish it should still be listened to, then weighed up against the other voices.
He still didn't agree.
But it wasn't often that Anakin got to watch his wife at work like this. He stood, arms folded and leaning against one of the entrance ways into the senate floor. The debate that raged on made him want to throw something at the smug, sheltered people that called for more, more, more.
He couldn't imagine that any of them had any true experience of fighting. Of what it was like to be on the front lines, to know the clones weren't just there to fight and fall but had names and personalities and-
He almost turned away. Almost got straight in his old Delta 7 to fly out and help as he once had.
But there was Padme and Luke and the new baby. The one that Padme carried even now as she floated her pod closer to the Chancellor, determined to be heard. Ten days had passed since they'd last been in the senate chambers and the bounty hunters had come. Ten days and she was back, jaw set and eyes narrowed as she battled those who weighed lives by credits.
"I'd forgotten how good she can be," Ahsoka whispered to him.
He hadn't heard her sneak up. He wasn't sure if that meant she was getting very good, or he was getting sloppy.
Probably a mix of the two.
"I saw Luke at the temple," she offered. "He seems to be getting bigger."
"He'll start school soon," Anakin murmured. "Yoda wanted to see him again before he left for the outer rim."
"We're no closer then?"
To working out what had destroyed the Jedi? "No," Anakin said as Senator Organa added his argument to Padme's. He almost debated it, as if he hadn't driven himself half mad with it for weeks when Luke had first arrived. "What about you, Snips? Home for a while?"
She beamed at him. "I'm to bolster my training. Master Yoda was impressed by what I had learned while being away. Master Windu…" she hesitated. "He complimented my battle strategy," she finished with an almost forced cheerful note.
He'd probably had her for too long for Master Windu to find anything too complimentary to say. He was half surprised she'd gotten anything out of Yoda.
Although, Yoda did seem to genuinely have a soft spot for Luke. Probably because the kid looked angelic enough and didn't have an angry bone in his body.
Would the baby be like that? Looking like butter wouldn't melt but actually just another boy that would view the entire world as a place to practise daredevil stunts? Anakin wasn't entirely sure he could handle two of them. Or a girl who loved daredevil stunts. Force, if she looked like Padme, he wouldn't know what to do half the time.
What if the baby was stubborn? Luke had an odd variant of it, easily talked down and ideas explained, but there were a few moments when he dug his heels in and absolutely refused to be moved.
Stars, what if the baby was just as stubborn as Padme?
"I don't understand this," Ahsoka murmured, breaking his thought process. "Nothing they are talking about makes any sense. Why are we even at war? I know the Separatists are evil and they're lead by the Sith but-"
"They don't see it," he said softly. "Clones dying. Worlds ravaged by war. It's too distant."
Not that it excused them. At all. If Anakin had his way, a lot of the Banking Clan would be dropped in a red zone with nothing but a blaster and a comms device and left to it for a month. See how concerned about credits they were then! But wars needed to be funded, troops needed to be moved and fed…
"It could just go on though, right?" Ahsoka asked curiously, staring up at him with her big eyes. "I mean, we produce clones, they produce droids."
"What are we meant to do?" Anakin asked. "Just give in? Let the Seppy's win?" He winced at his toned and rubbed his eyes. "It feels never ending," he admitted. "Worse here in some ways. I have no idea how to win that fight," he said, waving a hand at the senate chamber. "Sometimes…sometimes I think that all this debating just means we stand and do nothing."
Ahsoka hummed in agreement, then flashed him a smile. "She might win it for us," she said hopefully as Padme's pod returned, the discussion now at an unresolved end.
From the look on Padme's face, he doubted it.
Xxx
She was quiet that evening. Even Luke attempting to eat Aldaraanian spaghetti didn't seem to cheer her up (though Anakin guessed that might have been because she at least had the foresight to see what a monumental clean-up operation he was creating!)
Padme was still quiet when they went to bed and he cupped a handover her still flat stomach, half wishing that the baby was bigger so that he could see it, feel it. That he could reassure himself all was there and everything was all right the way he could with Luke.
The next morning, she was gone. Urgent business from the woman who had wondered days ago if she should step back in her role.
It made him grin.
Luke however had suddenly decided to trigger some dramatic gene hidden somewhere within. Nine more days until he joined at the new school and his son was sulking. He sprawled on the sofa and glared at Anakin. And when he wasn't doing that, he was trying to persuade Anakin that school would be useless anyway because Luke wanted to be a pilot and Anakin could teach him that. Then the sulking would happen again and then Luke would decide that he should go to school in Naboo because there he could already specialise in piloting and follow that career path.
Then they returned to sulking.
Stars, Anakin was starting to wish that Luke had never even heard of what a pilot was. By 1400 hours he had given up and was escorting his son to visit Padme because words were her thing and Anakin was running out of ways to say no.
Well…pretty much say no. Saying no to Luke was hard. Especially when Anakin could almost see Luke's logic.
Still, all of that went out the hatch door when he talked to the reception droid.
"What do you mean not in?" he asked, baffled.
"Senator Amidala left Coruscant this morning for a diplomatic mission in Mandalore," the droid repeated helpfully.
Mandalore?!
She'd gone to Mandalore. With their baby?
He was pretty sure she should have run that past him. Mentioned it at least.
"I could take us to Mandalore if I was a pilot," Luke pointed out in the lengthening silence, shooting the droid a helpful smile.
Anakin held out a warning hand to his son who (thankfully) seemed to interpret that correctly and remained very quiet.
Xxx
By the time she came back the following day, he was furious.
"Where have you been?" he asked as she walked down the landing ramp. Behind her, a slightly sheepish looking Ahsoka was staring at the sky as if that would make him ignore her.
"I was visiting a friend-"
"Who?"
Padme whirled around to face him. "I was meeting Mina Bonteri."
Who?
It must have shown on his face that he still had no idea who she was talking about. Padme rolled her eyes muttered something under her breath as she continued to stride towards the senate entrance.
"Master-"
"Obi-Wan is looking for you," Anakin said, without sparing Ahsoka a glance. "When he said you were to learn from Senator Amidala, this is not what he meant."
His voice was harsher than he intended and, for a second, she shrunk back a little, all wide blue eyes. But then he expression firmed and she simply stalked off in a way he would have been proud of had it not been directed at him.
"Is Luke at home?" Padme asked as he caught her up in a few long strides.
"Ah, now you care about where our son is-"
"Don't you dare do that," she snapped, whirling around to face him. Her brown eyes were alight with anger and her face was pale. "I went to see if I could make peace with the Separatists. And I might have found a way. A lasting resolution to ensure our son doesn't have to grow up in war. Again. So don't start that, Anakin."
And with that, she stormed off, leaving him gaping at her back.
Xxx
He didn't follow her in. Didn't think that would be wise. He lingered long enough to see that she was with the Chancellor and then left, jumping in the speeder to collect Luke.
Meeting with separatists? An old friend? Stopping the war? He didn't know if his wife was just insane or that effective that she thought she might be able to do all she set out to.
Inside the temple, Luke was watching the younglings as they concentrated on the blocks they were hovering. Each child, younger than Luke was frowning in concentration, dressed in the Jedi training garb. Luke looked fascinated as he sat quietly.
"Ahsoka said that Padme visited the Separatists," Obi-Wan said quietly coming to stand by Anakin. He folded his arms as he watched the younglings. "She's quite the force to be reckoned with."
"She's pregnant," Anakin said dully.
He could feel the amazement in the force. "With…" Obi-Wan nodded towards Luke pointedly.
"I…She's not far along. We'll find out later if there's… more. But…The timing doesn't seem right," Anakin said with a shrug. "She didn't even tell me she was going." He studied Luke, all smiles and sunshine as the boy peered at the class. "We're insane," he decided. "Bringing a child into this. Another child. Didn't exactly do well with Luke the first time around. Or this time," he added thoughtfully.
Obi-Wan sighed. "I…I'm afraid that, in this, I have little advice to offer."
"You don't have any advice to offer," Anakin muttered. "She takes too many risks," he snapped seconds later. "I don't…there'll be three of them. How do you protect three people all the time?"
"Perhaps you should trust Padme. Then you'll only have to protect one each."
"My wife just went to Separatist space without a guard-"
"But with Ahsoka."
"A padawan," Anakin dismissed. "Yes, a talented one and she will be a great knight one day, but still. One guard."
Obi-wan eyed him up in a way that usually meant that Anakin was lacking in some way and stars, had he forgotten how much he hated that. It made him clench his jaw and need to block himself in to avoid disrupting the younglings practise.
"Luke," he called tightly. "Come on."
His son scrambled up and meandered over, his gaze still mostly on the younglings and their practise routines.
"Padme is very capable-"
"Not married, no opinion," Anakin said sharply. "Come on, Luke."
xxx
Walking through the district wasn't something that Anakin often did, but delaying getting home seemed wise. Besides, the weather for Courscant was actually pleasant as they walked through the evening crowds. There was a Cerean couple and a Rodian child running ahead of its mother. Above, the holos silently broadcasted the news updates and advertised various products at the local mall.
Anakin would bet that a few levels below they didn't bother to use any form of advertising. It always seemed so strange to him that if you found a gap in the sidewalk or jumped down from the bridges that you would end up in a completely different world, far more impoverished and desperate.
He wondered if Luke had worked that out yet.
"Look," Luke said pointing at a RGC Airspeeder, and yes, apparently oblivious. "That Devaronian looks younger than me and he's piloting."
"She," Anakin corrected as he glanced over at the traffic. A human woman walked by and hid a smile, apparently hearing Luke's whine. Anakin winced and then looked down at his son who was almost tripping over his own feet as he kept his eyes on the traffic lines.
Somewhere in that blond head and beyond those innocent blue eyes, his future self lurked.
He was learning to ignore it. That was all they could do, Yoda had warned. They were taking precautions and Luke was being regularly seen by members of the council now to check that his mind wasn't overwhelmed, but Yoda himself admitted that he'd never seen anything like it in his life time.
He wondered what he would have done in that future. Probably have let the boy fly so that he could run if needed.
Anakin hated that. Luke should be protected and safe and never have to worry about planning an escape. Absently, he brushed a hand through the still baby soft hair and then held Luke by the shoulders, kneeling so that they were of a height.
"Thirteen," he said firmly. "That's when legally we can look at you learning how to fly. And that's with me using every loophole in the book. Thirteen. I promise."
Luke glanced up again and then huffed. "But that's ages away," he whined. "Bet you weren't thirteen."
No. "Outer rim worlds are a bit more lax," he said with a grin. "Maybe we can sneak in a ride or two there once the war is over."
Luke tilted his head, but Anakin wasn't sure what it was that had stirred the boy's curiosity. Then: "Did you grow up on Tattooine?" Luke asked slowly.
Force, he did not want to have this conversation. "You know I lived there for a while," he said, trying to dodge the question a little. He stood and gave Luke's shoulder a gentle push to indicate that they should keep on moving.
"No piloting laws there," Luke hinted.
It would have made him smile if they'd been talking about any other planet. "We're not going back there," he said firmly.
"But-"
"Luke-" Anakin started, turning to look down at his precocious offspring when suddenly the entire quarter shook. He pulled Luke in close automatically and had his lightsabre in his hand when all of the lights died.
Around them, people gasped and he could feel the rising panic. The lights continued to disappear across the district like a tidal wave that never seemed to end. Even in the distance, the lights were vanishing. The traffic, usually controlled by the signals was suddenly without co-ordination and the lights from the vehicles provided some of the only sources of light.
Slowly, Anakin ignited his weapon, more to use as a light source than for any combat. Against his chest, Luke was peering around, but he didn't sense worry from his son.
He got that from his mother, Anakin decided.
"Jedi!" someone shouted hopefully.
"What is it?" another asked.
Anakin could only shake his head, eyes on the traffic. Pilots in Coruscant had short enough patience that if one of them broke the traffic lanes there was the instant risk of chaos. Below would be worse, he realised looking down at the bridge he and Luke were standing on.
There was a distant scream and an explosion, not far away. It lit up the district making Anakin's eyes water at the sudden change.
"Get inside," he advised as he gripped Luke's shoulder and steered the boy forward. "The traffic's the danger at the moment."
"What is it?" someone else called.
"An attack," one volunteered. "The war. The Separatists. They've come for us."
So much for Padme's plans for peace.
Xxx
His wife was furious.
She stood in the chancellor's office arguing when Anakin walked in. The chancellor looked a little taken aback and genuinely relieved to see Anakin walk in.
"Senator Amidala," the chancellor said in a tone that suggested this was not the first time he'd tried to halt her tirade. "I understand that you are disappointed, but this attack surely shows that the Separatists were not as honest as you were lead to believe. Their offer of peace-"
"Was genuine. I was there with Mina. They feel as trapped by the war as we do," she said and Anakin was astounded by how loud she was getting. "This is a ploy. Someone wants the peace talks to fail."
The chancellor glanced at Luke. "I do hope that neither of you were hurt," he said in a gentle tone. Padme blinked at him as if baffled and then turned. Her expression instantly crumpled and she held out an arm to Luke. Their son instantly went over and leaned into her, his little face suddenly sombre, as if he hadn't still been pointing out that he could probably navigate in the dark without signals.
If Anakin had been half as bad as Luke then he owed Obi-Wan a bottle of Corellian brandy. A big one.
"You okay?" Padme asked, stroking Luke's face. Their son nodded earnestly.
"The lights went out," he said slowly, glancing between the adults. "Dad got us back here," he added with a proud little smile and stars, it was embarrassing that such praise could make Anakin almost puff with glee that his son was boasting about him.
"The power's down everywhere that we could see. We were walking back from the Jedi Temple," Anakin offered.
"Our main power station was bombed," the chancellor said in a sad tone. "We are re-routing to back up generators, but seven of the districts relied on that power. We have reports coming in of injuries and further explosions."
"More bombs?" Anakin asked.
"Accidents," Padme said, holding Luke to her. "Air speeders going off course, looting in the lower levels. They know the security feeds are down too. Some minor riots have broken out."
Riots?
It shocked him, even though he had no idea why. Coruscant's poverty divide was extreme to say the least.
"It is being dealt with as much as it can be," the chancellor said, sitting down heavily in the chair behind his desk. He stared out across the dark city and Anakin could see the occasional flash that denoted a weapon being fired. "I did have hope, Padme, I truly did. If anyone could bring the Separatists to us for peaceful negotiations, it would be you. But I fear this has gone too far."
Padme didn't look at him, but stared out of the window and Anakin would almost have given up Artoo at that moment to know what she was thinking. Oddly, everything felt strangely fragile and uncertain between them and he was still angry but she was angry and he could feel neither of them would back down from their point of view.
When he looked over, the chancellor was watching him thoughtfully. He seemed to stir when he realised that Anakin was looking at him and sighed. "It is late," the chancellor said. "We reconvene tomorrow. You should get some sleep. All of you." He nodded at Anakin. "I assume that you will be able to handle an airspeeder even in the chaos to get the senator home."
Luke immediately perked up and Anakin couldn't manage to suppress the groan.
Xxx
"Are we going to talk?" Anakin asked as Padme came out of Luke's room. The ride home had been awkwardly silent as Anakin had finally snapped at Luke to stop his incessant pleading for a chance at the controls and Padme had glared at him the whole ride back while Luke had watched everything outside the airspeeder and refused to look at Anakin. They were lucky that their apartment wasn't far away and it had taken some concentration to get them all home without incident. Thankfully, a few of the back-up generators had already switched back on so the traffic wasn't as bad as it had been when he and Luke were walking.
Padme folded her arms. "About your temper?"
"About you going off and-"
"Oh, as if you wouldn't have done exactly the same thing," she snapped, dropping her arms and stalking past him. Anakin followed, pressing the controls to shut all the doors he could to try and ensure that Luke didn't hear what was clearly going to be an argument.
"I am not pregnant," he pointed out. "That's my child too," he added, pointing at her stomach. I get some say-"
"I am not your baby machine," she snarled (actually snarled!) at him. He gaped at her, baffled as she seemed to nod to herself and then continued to the rooms they used to host when they had company.
"Don't make it about that," he said, once he'd recovered. "You should have at least told me-"
"So you could stop me?" she asked, and he stopped as he saw her get out some bedding from a cupboard he hadn't even known existed. "That's what you would have done, isn't it?"
"I'd have gone with you," he muttered and watched as she dumped the bedding on the wide sofas. He was starting to get an inkling as to what was about to happen.
"And Luke?"
"If it wasn't safe for Luke, then it probably wasn't safe for the baby," he pointed out in what he thought was a reasonable tone.
"So now I'm a bad mother?"
"I…" he stared out at the windows, sure that there was a way to win this. And almost as sure that she was being unreasonable. He hated arguing with her sometimes. It was her damned job to win arguments.
"There," she said, once she'd finished making up a bed on the sofa. "You're sleeping here tonight."
"Why?" he shot back in a nasty tone. "Do you need to be able to sneak away in the morning again?"
"Hardly difficult," she said, in an equally cruel tone. "You have nothing to get up for at the moment."
And with that parting shot, she slammed the door.
He stared at the bedding for about ten seconds, swore and then stormed out of the apartments.
Xxx
By the time sunrise came, he was in the lower levels supervising what had to be the twenty second arrest of the night. He'd already been in the destroyed power grid and seen the carnage there. Five bounty hunters had tried to make a profit that night and the residents had quickly ratted them out in sheer disgust. The lower levels had been harder to deal with; desperate people always were because Anakin knew what it was like to feel so hopeless that you would seize any opportunity and damn the consequences. There were a few that he purposefully ignored, but some needed to be arrested and taken to cool down before they incited others.
It was a long and foul night. Not made any better by the fact that when he returned home, Padme had already left and Luke was sitting with Captain Typho, playing some racing holo game.
"It was the only way to get him to leave it alone," the captain muttered when he saw Anakin in the doorway. "The senator went in early."
Of course she had.
"You all right?" Anakin checked with Luke. His son nodded, eyes glued to the holo as he threw his whole body to the left to make the turn on the projection.
"I need to sleep," Anakin muttered.
Captain Typho said nothing but nodded, as if he'd been expecting it.
"Gregar?" Anakin said as he opened the door that would lead him down to the bedroom. He waited as the man glanced over questioningly. "Thank you," he said, with a pointed look at Luke.
An amused smile crossed the man's usually serious features. "Don't thank me yet," he warned. "I may have swapped one obsession with another."
Anakin almost smiled.
Xxx
He slept for most of the day, surprised by how tired he was. He'd been awake for longer on missions, but somehow fighting with Padme and worrying about her exhausted him more than anything else. He ordered food, ignoring the slight balk inside at the expense of it.
The game that Typho had introduced Luke too proved interesting enough that he gave his son a few games. Luke won the first and was obnoxious about it, but he took losing the next three pretty graciously. He even crawled over and demanded that Anakin show him how he'd done the barrel roll at one point.
He found himself enjoying the evening, despite everything. Luke was in his lap as they flew together on the holo, both holding the controls and Anakin would occasionally pull food over using the force in a way that he was sure every Jedi Master in the universe would have an issue with.
One day, he thought as he tilted him and Luke almost to the floor as they tried a tight bend, one day he and Luke could be doing this for real. Him and his grown-up son, flying together.
He was surprised to discover that part of him couldn't wait for it.
It was fortuitous timing that he shut off the holo just before Padme's speech was broadcasted. The force was working in his favour and Luke let out a surprised yelp of delight at seeing his mother on the holo news.
"…Tekla lives in a district that rarely has electricity and running water as a result of the war. Her children can now only bathe every two weeks and they have no light in which to read or study at night."
Anakin paused and then sat back down, drawing Luke onto his lap again. He knew Tekla, she was one of Padme's aides who was often a smiling, calm presence and who occasionally commed him when Padme was working too late or was upset.
He hadn't known. Hadn't even sensed that something was wrong. And he didn't know if that was because he was so wrapped up in his own issues, or if it was because, for her, that was simply life.
"The republic has always funded these basic services," Padme continued on the screen, "but now, there are those that would divert the money to the war with no thought for what the people need to survive. If not for people like Tekla and her children, who are we fighting for?"
Anakin rested his head on Luke's, staring at his wife. Strange in way, that he'd always been so aware of what the front lines were like that he'd never given a thought to issues like she spoke of. People being deprived in order to fund the war, people being left helpless and unprotected just so that more clones could be produced.
"My people, your people. All of our people. This war is meant to save them from suffering, not increase it. I support our brave soldiers, whether they come from the clone factories or from any of the thousand systems loyal to the republic. But if we continue to impoverish our people, it is not on the battlefield that Dooku will defeat us, but in our own homes. Therefore, it is our duty and our responsibility to preserve the lives of those around us by defeating this bill."
Stars, he'd never felt so proud of her. Standing there, her face so determined, it occurred to him that usually Senator Organa made these rousing speeches. Stars knew what had meant it was Padme doing it, but…by the force was she so good at what she did.
"Does mom need help defeating bill?" Luke asked, sounding a little unsure of the wording.
"I think she's doing fine on her own," Anakin said softly. "She…the senate want to spend money on more clone soldiers for the war. They have to pass a bill which means they have to agree on that idea."
He was pretty sure that was how it worked. Obi-Wan's distaste for politics hadn't exactly made it easy to pick these things up.
"And that takes money away from people?" Luke asked slowly.
"Mm."
"That's stupid," Luke decided. "Everyone should be able to have a bath whenever they want. Water's…water's everything."
Spoken like a true desert raised boy.
Xxx
When Padme finally got back, she was clearly exhausted, but it didn't seem to stop her from gearing up for round two. (Round three? Stars, it was bad when he lost count of where they were up to in their fights!)
"We saw you," Luke announced, dressed in his pyjamas and looking deceptively sweet. "On the holo."
It seemed to knock any fight out of her. Padme blinked down at Luke and then smiled at his proud look and wow, was Anakin glad he wasn't the only one that reacted like that when Luke was pleased with them.
"You did?" she asked, and he was startled to see how bright her eyes were. How long had it been since she'd had a proper sleep, he wondered?
"You were right," he added and she looked at him, stunned. "Not about not telling me where you were going, but…it's the hidden cost, isn't it? The suffering that no-one thinks of in war. No-one except you, apparently."
She stayed still, staring at him as if he were a walking dream and it made his heart ache. Slowly and carefully, as if she were fragile, he gathered her close and felt her almost collapse into his hold.
"You need to sleep, "he murmured to her. "A proper sleep."
She nodded without argument.
Xxx
"Mina was killed," she said quietly as they lay there in the darkness. It took a moment for the meaning of the words to sink in and Anakin winced before he reached out for her.
"You don't even know who she was to me," Padme said, resisting.
"Your mentor," Anakin said quietly. "I…the name didn't mean anything the other day, but I remembered…it was one of our early arguments about the Separatists. You said that they had some valid points and talked about her."
It was clearly the right thing to say. She softened a little and let him draw her close. Unbidden, his hand found her stomach where their tiny child lay, growing. He smoothed his thumb over her skin, lost in thought for a moment. "Did…was it good? Seeing her again? Even if after…"
"It complicated things," she admitted slowly. "To see her and talk to her… sometimes it's easier to think we're fighting a war that's good versus evil. Jedi versus sith. Yet…they think we're corrupt. And the more I witness of the banking clans and the cloning factories…I feat we're being held to ransom. I fear…what if the senate is being corrupted? What if there is no good side to this war?"
He didn't know how to respond to that. The war as a Jedi had been simple. Jedi versus Sith. There were no shades in between. Stepping away from the order and seeing it with new eyes…"Do you think it would be as bad if force users weren't involved?"
She was silent. Thinking. "Maybe not," she admitted eventually. "But I know the ethos of the Sith. I cannot believe that anything that they do is good. Maybe that's the only thing that gives me hope at times that we are truly on the right side. And Luke's future…" she trailed off and Anakin frowned into her hair.
"An empire," he whispered.
"We have a senate and so do the separatists," she whispered back. "How do we go from democracy to dictatorship, either side?"
Either side? It hadn't occurred to him that the galactic senate could dissolve into the Empire that Luke had once spoken of with such fear.
"I want…there's nothing I want more than to keep our children safe," she said and her voice wobbled. "But…what if we run from this and hide away and we end up in Luke's future? In a galaxy where we cannot protect our children?"
It was on the tip of his tongue to say that nothing would stop him from protecting them. Except, in Luke's future, something had stopped him. Something had made him fail terribly.
"I think…maybe…we have to fight now," she said and he could feel her tears. "Take our risks now. Otherwise all we'll end up doing is running with our children and… I don't want that for them."
He stared at the window over her head. The security screens were on so he could see nothing outside but darkness. It felt oddly fitting. "You think I should go back out," he said.
"I think that's your choice."
He stroked her stomach. The due date was roughly gonna be two months after Luke's birthday. Probably not the twin that they had missed. She was only six weeks along. Plenty of time before the birth.
But Luke…
"I want to go," he admitted. "I…it's different now. I see things differently and I think that might be useful to the campaign. But…Luke…he's been abandoned enough times."
And you, he wanted to add. So vulnerable and such a target.
"I'll be here," she promised. "And you can pick and choose when you go. And there's the holo. He was fine when you went to Geonosis."
"Except for refusing to acknowledge me on the holo and the screaming fit he had," Anakin snapped.
"He'd have had the 'fit' whether you'd been there or not," Padme replied sharply. "He's stronger than we give him credit."
That wasn't the problem. The problem was that Anakin didn't want his eight-year-old son to feel like he had to be strong.
"I'll think about it," he mumbled. "You need to sleep. You're sleeping for two."
"Not how it works," she sighed.
"Humour me."
