Chapter Twenty-Eight

It was a loaded question, one that was steeped in curiosity but also threaded with mild trepidation. Though much had changed since during his brief stint beyond shadows and Anakin no longer possessed the uncanny foresight he'd had while still an all-seeing immortal, he hadn't become any less perceptive in the aftermath, especially where it pertained to Padmé. His connection to her was as visceral as ever. He had known as soon as she cut him off from sharing their happy news with the children that something was unsettled for her. She was keeping something from him. He eyed her attentively, his gaze probing.

"I didn't think that you were still harboring doubts about the pregnancy," he murmured finally when she failed to answer his first question.

"I'm…I'm not," Padmé stammered, "At least, not in the way you assume."

Anakin relaxed a bit with her explanation, but he continued to regard her in tense expectation when he asked softly, "Then what is it?"

Padmé had been practicing the conversation in her head for days now. In her private musings, she always imagined herself calm and rational as she itemized all the reasons for her decision and why the proposed course made the most sense. She had to be poised and steadfast when she presented her argument. After all, she couldn't convince Anakin to see her side if she wasn't filled with conviction herself.

But now that the time had come, she felt anxious and fidgety. Her palms were clammy. Her heart fluttered wildly in her chest. She was reminded quite vividly of how she'd felt when she first had to tell Anakin of her pregnancy with Luke. She had kept that secret from him for weeks, so filled with dread and apprehension over the prospect of telling him about the pregnancy that she had hardly slept. She had known that his reaction would be bad and that he wouldn't be agreeable to it.

She was expecting a similar reaction this time as well. But this time, it wasn't a matter of Anakin not wanting to be a father, but his desperation and determination to make up for all the perceived mistakes he had made with Luke and Leia. Lemé, in essence, was his opportunity for redemption, his chance to be a father again. She was about to ask him to give that away. For that reason, Padmé resolved within herself not to take anything he said or did personally. After all, she was essentially asking him to give up his child. Hurt and anger would be very reasonable reactions.

With that in mind, Padmé sat down beside Anakin on the bed and carefully gathered his hands between her own before she met his eyes again. "You know that I love you, right?"

Anakin stiffened anew and groaned before resolutely tugging his hands free from her gentle hold. "Padmé, in my experience, no good conversation between us has ever started this way," he grunted wearily, "You're stalling. Just tell me what you're thinking."

Despite his grim reply, however, Padmé refused to barrel in. "We've had a rough couple of weeks, don't you agree?" she sighed.

"Yes, we have. A rough decade actually," he amended with meaningful emphasis. "I'm ready to put it behind us."

"I am as well. But we're not off to the best start, are we?"

"What do you mean?"

"Our lives are still very unpredictable. We don't even have a permanent place to live, and now we're planning to bring yet another child into the middle of all that."

"Right." His blue eyes sharpened as a sudden thought occurred to him. "Are you implying that you want to change that?" he uttered, partly in shock and partly in dread.

"No, I'm not saying that! It's just that…with Luke and Leia, we were young and foolish," she argued, "We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into or what it would mean bringing up children in our chaotic lifestyle. Now we know better."

"What are you trying to say?" he asked, growing more agitated as the seconds passed, "You don't want to have another baby?"

"Yes, I want her!" Padmé exclaimed so vehemently that he slumped with relief, "I love our daughter, Ani. I want her very much! That's not the problem!"

"Then what is the problem? Why are we having this conversation?"

"We can't raise her," Padmé declared softly.

The explosion of emotion she had been expecting didn't come instantly. Instead, Anakin regarded her with a blank stare, as if she had just spoken some incomprehensible language. She might have laughed at his comical confusion if the situation weren't so severe.

He blinked at her. "What?"

"You heard me. We cannot keep her."

"What are you talking about?"

"She's not even born yet, and her future has already been plotted out for her! That's hardly fair!"

"That's a given. She's not an ordinary child, Padmé," Anakin reminded her gently.

"She is ordinary to me, and she was forced to grow up much too quickly! Her path has been decided for her, but she has her own hopes and dreams and insecurities just like everyone else! She deserves not to have all of her choices stripped from her before she's even had a chance to determine who she is, Anakin!"

"Who she is has already been written, Padmé."

"No. She became who we told her she had to be."

He stared at her intently as understanding gradually dawned. "You don't think we can give her a normal life, do you?"

"I know that we can't," she confessed miserably.

"Are you sure you're not being reactionary?" he considered aloud in a careful tone. He reached over to lightly brush his knuckles over the smooth curve of her cheek, noting the ageless perfection of her face…perfection that Lemé had restored. "She changed you. You had an incredible connection with her and now that it's gone maybe you're wondering if you did something to drive her away. Maybe you're blaming yourself because she withdrew from you."

Padmé shook her head in denial and turned away, though it was evident that he had touched a nerve with the observation. "That's not it," she said, "She never came right out and said it, but I know we prepared her to be a protector from the start. We groomed her for that life! She didn't get a choice…like I didn't get a choice and you didn't get a choice. When does it stop?"

"She's a celestial being, Padmé. She never had the choice. It's her birthright."

Her jaw knotted stubbornly and crossed her arms, as if preparing for a fight. "I don't accept that."

Anakin digested that revelation calmly and quietly despite the violent churning anxiety taking place in his gut. "If she doesn't stay with us then where do you think she can go? I thought you said you didn't want her trained by the Jedi."

"I haven't changed my mind about that."

"Then what are you suggesting? Someone has to train her."

"That can wait until she's older…when she decides, if she decides."

Anakin dropped his head forward with a longsuffering sigh. "It doesn't work that way, Padmé!"

"Why doesn't it?" she challenged, "Because the Jedi say so…or because you do?"

Anakin squelched the impulse to throw up his hands in mounting frustration. "Think for a moment! She will have incredible power like no one has ever known," he explained as calmly as he could manage, "From what you've told me, she is already time-traveling, and she hasn't even been born yet! She will need to be taught to harness that power and control it or she'll be a…"

"…a what?" Padmé snapped, "A threat? Will she be viewed in the same manner that you were?"

"Is that what you're afraid of? That she'll be ostracized somehow?"

"As her mother, I am obligated to protect her."

"From whom?"

"From everyone!" she cried wildly, "Even us!"

"You're making assumptions. We can't simply pretend that there is nothing special about her!"

"Being attuned to the Force is not what makes her special!" Padmé snapped.

"You know I didn't mean it that way!" he snapped back, "Stop making me into the enemy! I'm trying to understand!"

"I know," she muttered, her anger dissipating as quickly as it flared, "I know…"

"How is this supposed to work, Padmé? If you're adamantly against her being trained, what's going to happen in the meantime?"

"She will live her life like every other little girl in the galaxy," she replied as if it were the simplest solution in the galaxy.

Anakin fought the impulse to shake her. "How is that supposed to happen if she's not with us and she's not with the Jedi?"

"Owen and Beru," Padmé said, "I was thinking that we might entrust them as her guardians. They could raise her as their own."

For the second time Anakin reacted as if he couldn't comprehend the words coming out of her mouth. "You're joking."

Padmé dropped her head forward with a crestfallen sigh. "I'm not."

Finally, it came then…the flash of white-hot resistance and fury that she had been anticipating all along. Anakin's expression hardened into a cold, infuriated mask. He scooted from the bed and rolled to his feet in one fluid motion. She watched as he began stiffly pacing the small confines of his medical bay, gesticulating wildly as he did.

"Let me see if I understand you fully on this. You're telling me that you don't believe we can give our daughter a good life…that we'll somehow rob her of her childhood or something? And, to prevent that, you want to give her away like she's some housewarming gift to my brother and sister-in-law?" he reiterated, as if he found her proposal too ludicrous to comprehend, "Is that what you're saying to me?"

"You needn't make me sound so thoughtless, Anakin! If you don't think this is difficult for me—,"

"—Is it difficult?" he bit out accusingly, "Otherwise, why are we having this conversation at all?"

"They would make incredible parents to her, and you know it!"

"We would make incredible parents!" he volleyed back angrily. Anakin wisely reined in his temper before it could flare too fiercely, and he said something he might regret later. He paused to take a fortifying breath, recentering himself before he spoke again. "This is completely absurd! How did we get to this place? Why are you contemplating this at all? It's a crazy idea!" He hesitated to say that she was crazy, but the sentiment was implied in his incredulous tone.

Padmé maintained a calm façade despite his impassioned response. "I've turned this over again and again in my mind! We can't give her what she needs, Anakin…what I know that she wants but never felt she had the right to ask for because of who she is and what she was born to do!"

"You mean I can't give her what she needs! We both know that's why you're saying this!" He glared at her in a mixture of acrimony, mistrust, and anger. "Do you mean to punish me? Are you proposing to send Luke and Leia away from me as 'protection' too?"

"Now you're being absurd! This is not about you! This is about what's best for Lemé!"

"And sending her away is what's best? How do you imagine that is true, Padmé?"

"What kind of life do you imagine she'll have as the daughter of Anakin and Padmé Skywalker?" she asked him softly, "What kind of scrutiny do you imagine she'll live under or the expectations that will be foisted upon her once the Jedi learn what she can do? It will be the same scrutiny and expectation that you lived under as a child! Evidently, if my suspicions are correct, it was the same scrutiny and we perpetuated that! If you can change the future, then why can't I?"

The indignation fizzled out of him abruptly. "That's not fair," Anakin mumbled.

"But it's not untrue either," she countered. "You didn't spend time with her like I did. You didn't talk to her. You don't know her. I do. I owe her something better. I will give her something better!"

"So, we won't put that pressure on her," he suggested wildly, "We'll give her the life that you want!"

"That's the problem. That's not something we both want. In your mind, she has a destiny to fulfill, and you can't see past preparing her for that path!"

"Why is that a bad thing?"

"Why does it have to be the only path?" she flared.

They were going in circles. The more he tried to argue, the deeper she dug in her heels. He would never convince her that her thinking was fallacious, not when she'd had stark evidence of her fears coming to fruition again and again. She had been unable to prevent that existence for herself or for him or for Luke and Leia, but she was determined to succeed on Lemé's behalf. Anakin suspected that Padmé would go through whomever she needed to in order to see that goal through, even him.

"I can't agree to this," he uttered in soft devastation, "I won't." When he noted the reflexive tightening of Padmé's jaw he added, almost angrily, "And if you dare try to tell me that I don't get a say in this decision…"

"—You get a say," Padmé interrupted before he could go on a full rant, "Of course, you get a say. I respect your feelings, Anakin."

"What does that mean? You've already made up your mind about it!"

"It's the right thing to do," she insisted but her reply merely incurred his grunt of disgust. "Can you not take a moment to consider how unbelievably painful this is for me? I hate it…all of it. I don't want it to be this way! I wish it could be different…but I must think about what she needs, not what I need."

"Do you understand what you're asking me to do?"

"Better than you think," she replied, "She's growing inside of my body right now. I am the one who will feel every kick and flutter she makes. Yes, I know what I'm asking you, Anakin. But I am asking…because it's important to me. Will you truly deny me?"

Rather than answer the question, he decided to end the conversation instead. Padmé found his icy reaction disheartening but not at all unexpected. She had anticipated that he would have a difficult time with her proposal, especially because she knew that he had placed an abundant amount of hope on being able to make up for everything he had missed with Luke and Leia. Lemé would be his last opportunity to be the father that he had wanted to be from the start. Padmé understood that he needed time to come to terms with the loss of that dream on his own but that didn't make his emotional withdrawal any less hurtful.

To Anakin's credit, he didn't go out of his way to avoid her, nor did he treat her with contempt. In keeping with the promises that they had made to each other very early in their marriage, he didn't run away or shut her out completely. He still slept in the same bed with her at night, but physical contact and conversation was minimal at best. He was also careful to present a united front to their children.

Like Padmé, he felt that Luke and Leia had been through enough recent upheaval, and he had no desire to add to that. They were in full agreement that their children needed stability and consistency more than anything. For the most part, Luke and Leia seemed impervious to the discord between their parents. They seemed secure and happy, so Padmé tried to take comfort in that knowledge.

As for Anakin, he became more distant and withdrawn as the days elapsed. His lapse into resentful silence persisted even after he was recovered enough to finally be discharged from the medical center, so much so that the task of finding a home for their family mainly fell to Padmé. She had little option except to elicit Ahsoka's help in the search.

In the meantime, Padmé tried not to grow impatient with him. She knew he was grappling with understanding her viewpoint and, quite possibly, acceptance too. Eventually, he would come around to her way of thinking. It was an extremely rare occasion when Anakin denied her anything, but even rarer when she asked him. For that reason, she didn't fear that the conflict would rip apart the foundation of her marriage. Yet at the same time, she couldn't imagine how she and Anakin would ever get past it either…not when they were clearly on opposite sides of the argument.

Heartbroken, she confided her feelings in Ahsoka, who immediately wanted to pull Anakin aside and give him a piece of her mind in the most aggressive way possible. While Padmé was grateful for unflagging Ahsoka's support, particularly because her feelings about Padmé's decision weren't all that dissimilar from Anakin's, the last thing Padmé wanted was for Anakin to feel pressured. Further, she didn't want for him to be at odds with Ahsoka on top of everything else.

The tension finally came to a head several weeks later when Padmé, with Ahsoka's assistance, finally settled on a house for the family on the planet of Alderaan. It was a modest family home, tucked away in a remote mountain valley more than 100 kilometers away from the city of Kathou. The house was a hidden gem that would allow the family to keep a relatively low profile while also providing them with the permanent abode that had been lacking for the past decade.

However, the property's greatest selling point was its untamed, sprawling acreage and the utility shed located half a kilometer from the main house. Padme liked the obscurity the house provided. Luke and Leia, on the other hand, were intrigued by all the possible adventures they could have. When they learned that there was a lake situated less than two kilometers from their new home, they were sold. After Padmé and Ahsoka had finished giving an impromptu tour of the grounds, Luke was more than a little eager to begin those adventures.

"Can Leia and I go for a swim?" he asked excitedly.

Before Padmé could produce a hedging answer, Anakin was already replying. "There's plenty to explore close to the house. I don't think it's such a good idea for you and Leia to go wandering around on your own right now."

"But why not? It's been quiet for weeks now. Abeloth is contained. You said so yourself!"

"I said Abeloth is contained for now, emphasis on the for now."

"If anything happens, the Jedi Council will know about it," Luke argued stubbornly, "They will warn us."

"Nothing against Master Yoda and his connection to the Force, but I would rather not place your or your sister's well-being in his hands. Abeloth should not be underestimated," Anakin reminded him, "Just because she's been beaten, that doesn't mean that she's no longer a threat."

Leia interjected just as Luke started to offer up a retort, "But it's not fair! I don't want to spend my whole life hiding from her!"

It was evident from the expression on Anakin's face that he was entertaining a number of curt responses to that sullen exclamation. He settled with a slightly less vehement albeit not entirely diplomatic reply of, "I don't care about being fair! I care about keeping you safe!"

"But you haven't let us do anything in weeks!" Leia whined, "This is starting to feel like punishment!" She threw a helpless glance at her mother, but quickly recognized she wouldn't get any support from Padmé either. Leia emitted a low growl of frustration, just barely managing to refrain from stomping her foot willfully. "We won't even go that far! If something goes wrong, we'll sense it in the Force and come straight home. I promise!"

"That's very reassuring," Anakin deadpanned, but before Leia could mistake his sarcasm for genuine permission he added flatly, "but the answer is no. It's too dangerous."

Sensing that the budding disagreement had the potential to become a full-on battle of wills and possible screaming match, Ahsoka quickly volunteered to accompany the children before Anakin and Leia could truly butt heads. "They'll be fine," she reassured both Anakin and Padmé when they started to protest, "I won't let them out of my sight for one second."

Anakin bounced a glance from Ahsoka to his children's pleading faces and back again. "Alright. Fine!" he sighed grudgingly, "You can go…" But before Luke and Leia could erupt into victorious cheers over being granted that small bit of freedom he added, "…on two conditions." Both children regarded him balefully and with accompanying theatrical groans. "You stay in Ahsoka's sights the entire time and you have to be back before nightfall. No questions asked or you don't go."

They both agreed to the stipulations but not without a measure of grumbling about how they were not infants and how insulting they found it that they were being treated as such. They were especially indignant because they had proven rather definitively how strong they were in the Force and that they could fend for themselves. After all, they had managed to cross over into an entirely different dimension on their own. Their parents were being overprotective, not to mention annoying and ridiculous too.

Both Anakin and Padmé watched the children scamper off with Ahsoka scurrying to keep up from behind, shaking their heads in mutual chagrin over their churlish grumbling. Anakin grunted to himself, his irritation with them momentarily surmounting his apprehension. He glanced at Padmé with a woebegone expression.

"Sometimes they give me a headache," he mumbled, "Must they turn everything into a heated debate? Why can't they simply do as they're told for once?"

The look Padmé shot him after that statement aptly communicated how laughable she found it to hear those words coming out of his mouth. She shrugged. "Luke and Leia have never done as they were told. Not once in their entire lives. I think it's part of their DNA code."

Anakin side-eyed her at the tacit jibe. "They get that from you, not me."

She snorted a surprised laugh over his unexpected teasing. "I believe you're quite mistaken." The smile that they exchanged faded much too quickly and the wall of tension that had risen between them gradually began to re-erect itself. "How are you feeling?" she asked, watching him lope to the nearest stool and practically collapse onto it. "It's been a hectic few weeks. Has this been too much for you?"

His recovery following his inexplicable injury had been swift and nothing short of miraculous. While Anakin's medical team on Corellia had assured Padmé that such an injury usually resulted in permanent disability and years and years of rehabilitative therapy, Anakin had stunned them all when he walked out of the medical center without any lasting adverse effects at all. Not even a limp. He was as vibrant and virile as he had always been, at least physically. Emotionally and mentally, however, he had been left devastated.

That devastation was apparent in the wan smile he offered Padmé following her question. "The Force is with me."

Her forehead crinkled with an admonishing frown. "That's not an answer, Ani."

"I'm tired, but it's not anything I can't manage," he confessed finally.

An unsettled silence fluttered between them before Padmé gained the courage to break it once more. "I'm glad you're feeling better," she whispered, "I'm glad you're talking to me again."

"I don't like giving you the silent treatment."

"And yet you do it so well."

Anakin ducked his head in chagrin. "I'm sorry about that. I didn't want to fight with you. I needed time to think."

"And have you?"

"It's all I can think about, Padmé," Anakin admitted gruffly, "I just don't know if I can talk about it."

Another pall of silence ensued. Yet again, Padmé powered through but wisely shifted the conversation to more neutral territory. "Do you like the house? You didn't offer much input on what you wanted."

Anakin responded with a noncommittal shrug. "It has walls and it's not on a desert planet in the middle of nowhere. These are wins in my estimation."

"How do you feel about settling on Alderaan long-term? I thought it was a good compromise since we decided not to return to Naboo."

He answered with yet another shrug. "It's nice."

Padmé made a face and scoffed. "Please try and restrain your enthusiasm, Ani. You're overwhelming me with your boundless excitement," she teased dryly, "I thought for sure I would sell you on the work shed at least."

Despite his determination to remain neutral with her, Anakin's lips twitched with an answering smile. He stubbornly repressed it. "This house seems to have everything we need," he remarked, "except room for a nursery." He studied her with impassive blue eyes. "Seems like there's no point in discussing it further if you've already made up your mind."

"Do you have a better idea?" she sighed plaintively.

"The best idea. We keep her."

"And what happens when the Jedi come for her or some unknown enemy targets her, or Force forbid, Abeloth learns of her existence?" Padmé argued, "What then?"

"You don't think I can protect her?"

"I think you would do your best, just as I would do my best," she replied, "But I also think these last few weeks have proven that there are some circumstances that are far beyond our control. And our children, despite our best intentions, will always be in danger."

"You're right," Anakin agreed, "But we're not contemplating giving Luke and Leia away to family because of it!"

"Believe me, I would hide them away in a heartbeat if I thought for a single second they would stay put!" Padmé retorted, "But we both know the effort would be futile."

"You do have a point," he sighed grudgingly, "But, even knowing all of that, I still want to keep this new baby with us."

"And you think I don't?" Padmé flared, "I already told you that this isn't a choice I want to make, Anakin. It's a choice I have to make. Besides, don't act as if we wouldn't eventually be forced into having this discussion one way or another! How long will it take before the Jedi convince you that you're a danger to her and you hand her to them?"

Anakin stiffened at the implied accusation. "That is not true at all!"

"It happened with Luke," she reminded him, "You didn't believe you could give him what he needed so, you entrusted him to the Jedi! Who's to say it won't happen again? Even now, you're blaming yourself for everything that happened! I'm blaming myself too! You have the same fear I do! Admit it!"

"Yes! I'm afraid! I want to protect her just as much as you!"

"That is all I am proposing," Padme argued, "I don't understand what the difference is between giving her to Owen and Beru and giving her to the Jedi."

"The Jedi will train her."

"Owen and Beru will love her," Padmé countered sharply, "Which means more to you?"

"How do you imagine this is going to go, Padmé?" Anakin sighed in defeat, "We give Owen and Beru our child and then pretend like she doesn't exist?"

"Of course not! I want us to be in her life, but from a safe distance."

"How long is this arrangement supposed to go on? Do you just expect to pop in one day and yell, 'Surprise! We're your real parents!'?"

"I…I haven't thought that far ahead," she stammered.

Anakin rolled his eyes in aggravated disbelief. "Is that supposed to reassure me?" His irritation with her abruptly gave way to self-deprecating guilt. "Would you be contemplating this at all if I wasn't who I am?"

"I'm not considering this plan because of who you are, Anakin," she said, "but because of who she is." She closed the distance between them in tentative steps. "I've spoken to your mother about this. She gave me some very good counsel."

"Let me guess," he muttered sarcastically, "She agrees with you?"

"She understands my motivation. She knows what it feels like to want to give your child something better, something that is beyond your capability to give them."

"My mother was a slave, Padmé! She gave me to the Jedi so I could be free and reach my fullest potential," Anakin argued, "But I will always believe that I would have been better off staying with her. No one will ever convince me otherwise!"

"And yet look at all you were able to accomplish because you didn't stay with her."

Anakin deflated, without an argument for that line of reasoning. His shoulders stooped heavily with aggrieved defeat. "I don't want to do this."

"I don't want to do it either," she agreed, her tone weary with resignation, "But it's the right thing."

"You don't understand! I swore that no child of mine would ever be raised on Tatooine," he muttered, "That place is a rancor's den! And you're asking me to just leave her there!"

"We will make sure that she has everything she needs."

"Like distant benefactors?" Anakin wondered sardonically, "What's not to love about that?"

"Like her parents! We will still be her parents…but that won't be publicly known! We will still be a part of her life!" She found the courage to reach out to take hold of his hand. Her heart contracted painfully when he didn't immediately withdraw from her touch. She squeezed his slim fingers. He squeezed her fingers back. "Anakin, please… I don't want you to despise me for this," she whispered.

Anakin stared down at their clasped hands. The image blurred and wavered with tears he fought valiantly not to shed. "I could never despise you," he vowed gruffly, "I love you…so much that it causes me physical pain. But I am angry and frustrated right now."

"With me?" Padmé ventured timidly.

"With everything," he evaded, "With the situation. I feel cornered, which I don't enjoy. You say it's a choice, but it's not really." Before she could stammer out a defense, he added softly, "But I do understand why you feel as you do, and I don't resent you for that."

"Thank you," she whispered.

"What about Luke and Leia?" The question was a tacit acquiescence on his part though neither of them acknowledged that fact. "What are we going to tell them? Are we going to tell them? Or is this pregnancy to be kept a secret from them too?"

"I think we've kept enough secrets from them. Don't you?"

"Agreed. But how do we explain that their sister is to be raised as their cousin? If that's not convoluted, I don't know what is."

"Simple. The daughter of Owen and Beru Lars will likely attract far less attention than the half human, half god child of Anakin and Padmé Skywalker, don't you think?"

"I suppose you're right about that," he mumbled.

"I don't take any joy in being right. Trust me."

Anakin forced himself to ask his next question. "When do you want to tell them?"

"Tonight. After we've eaten. We should tell them then."

He groaned inwardly when he realized that the moment was only hours away. "How are we supposed to do this, Padmé? Spend an entire pregnancy preparing for her and then…?"

Anakin trailed off into silence, unable to complete the thought aloud but Padmé knew what he was asking her. How were they supposed to prepare mentally and emotionally to give away their child? How were they going to bridle the numb grief that was sure to follow that heartbreaking decision? Padmé didn't have the answers. In fact, she didn't even want to consider the answers to those difficult questions at all. Not because she didn't know the answers, but because she did…and she knew the aftermath would be nothing short of devastating. But she would never see it through if she allowed herself to dwell on that reality. So, instead, she focused on the logistics of her plan, and she recounted them to Anakin in matter-of-fact detail.

"I'm going to hide this pregnancy," she explained, "That will be easy enough living out here. No one will know except our immediate family. It has to remain secret from the Jedi. That means Obi-Wan too."

"He's going to be hurt that we kept this from him," Anakin warned.

"If he knows, he will invariably inform the Jedi Council. I won't tolerate their interference, Anakin."

A muscle ticked in his tightened jaw, signaling his growing tension but he said nothing and jerked a terse nod for her to continue. "I've discussed this with Beru already. She and Owen are waiting to hear from us. As soon as we're all in agreement, she is going to announce her 'pregnancy.' When the times comes for the birth, you and I will travel to Tatooine and…"

"I get the gist," Anakin interrupted in a monotone before she could finish, "You've thought of everything. It's almost like you're delivering a package. So neat and clinical."

"You sound as if you think I'm heartless," she muttered.

"Not heartless. Just efficient."

She glanced away from him and swallowed roughly. "We're all efficient in our own ways, Anakin. I'm trying not to think about it too deeply because if I think about actually giving birth to her or holding her, I won't…"

"…you won't go through with it," he finished for her softly when her words failed.

"Right," she choked. Anakin nodded but he didn't say anything in response, couldn't even meet her eyes right then. Padmé gripped his hand harder. "We are going to be in her life, Ani. We will still be her family. That's what I keep telling myself. That is what keeps me sane." Tears welled and spilled over when he kept refusing to look at her. "I don't want this to come between us," she wept, "Please…"

He surprised them both when he suddenly lifted his hands to gently cradle her face. "I love you, Padmé. Nothing at all will ever change that. I'm not worried about me, or us. I'm worried about you…what this is going to do to you…if you'll eventually blame me…"

She leaned into his touch, shutting her eyes briefly in respite. "I won't blame you. I don't. Do you blame me?"

He was slow to shake his head in denial, but he did it. "I just wish things were different."

"Does this mean you're agreeing to my plan?"

"Did I really have any other option?" he countered.

Padmé didn't want to ponder that answer too closely either because she didn't like the idea that she might be superseding his will and so she said with forced enthusiasm, "She is going to know that she is loved, Anakin. By them and by us."

"Do you promise me?" he demanded firmly.

She didn't hesitate to reply, "I promise you."

He finally broke enough to draw her fully into his arms then, needing to hold her against him as much as she needed to be held. "Do you think she'll forgive us…that she will ever understand why we did it?" he asked when he was finally able to swallow past the acrid well of tears gathering in his throat to speak.

"We will help her understand when the time comes."

Padmé clung to him as she said the words. She wasn't at all sure if the statement would prove true or what the outcome of her decision would be in the long run. She thought about Lemé's cryptic warning to her only a few weeks earlier. Nothing is set in stone, Mama. The future is a very fluid thing and it's always changing.

Yes, it was. She was changing it this time. And that was Padmé's exact intention…to change the future, to alter destiny, and to give her daughter the life that she deserved. That was her sole motivation for everything. Whether or not she would prove successful in that endeavor was yet to be revealed, but Padmé Skywalker was counting on it.