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“What part of ‘grew up on a desert planet’ do you not get?” Anakin asks bitterly.
The Jedi padawan is not fearful of many things, Padmé’s noticed.
He barely flinches when faced with an assassin, doesn’t blink when fired on by the enemy, and flies like a madman into deep space; but when they step onto the boat which will transport them to her childhood home, he is petrified.
He tries to shrug it off as nothing when he catches Padmé giggling, but now he’s just making excuses for being scared of a few feet of water.
If the threat to her person persists, she will have ample time to change that. Her family home is on a lake, she’ll be damned if she doesn’t get him to swim at least a little.
“That doesn’t mean there aren’t places to get your feet wet.”
“On Tatooine it does. Any water there, at all, is meant for harvesting. See any water not in a filtration container system, it’s probably a mirage you’re swimming in.”
She laughs outright. She knows he’s not being intentionally funny, he never is when he talks about his home planet, but she can’t help it. The new image of Anakin kicking around in the sand won’t leave her head.
Anakin grumbles and stalks off.
She will teach him to swim before the end of this stay on Naboo.
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Padmé swims alone the first few days.
It is refreshing to be back in the bright, clear blue water of the lake. The pools on Coruscant, no matter how luxurious, cannot compare. There’s something about the life of the place: the plants and animals below the surface.
She likes the weightlessness of the water around her. It feels like flying, in its own way. It has just as many wonders too; the trick is to open your eyes.
Sunlight on water creates stars of its own: above and below the surface.
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Each time Padmé swims Anakin stands watch from the dock. She thinks it is absolutely pointless for him to be there at all.
“If an assassin does appear while I’m swimming you won’t be much help as my knight valiant,” she remarks one day as she dries herself. “In the end, I’ll have to save you from drowning.”
“The assassin won’t know I can’t swim,” he argues weakly. “They’ll see a Jedi on guard duty and wait for a more opportune moment.”
“Do you even want to learn?”
He shrugs noncommittally.
“There are entire planets made up of oceans. What if you are assigned a mission on one of them?”
He shrugs again. “I’ll figure something out. I always do.”
His staunch refusal to get in the water continues to baffle her.
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In the evenings she reads and he watches the skies.
Padmé wishes she could relay stories of the constellations above him. She wants to share her night sky with him, the way he shared Coruscant’s with her, but the myth and lore of Naboo rarely reached beyond its moons. If there were more, she did not study them in youth; she became immersed in politics instead.
Now her politics have trapped her here, in this place she loves, with this man she can’t explain her feelings for.
“Nothing can happen between us,” she reminds herself frequently. The reminder, however, does nothing to stay the pace of her heart. It’s only gotten worse over time.
When she doesn’t think about how much she yearns for his touch, it doesn’t bother her. But in the evening, under the light of his beloved stars, she can’t help it.
He turns around to face her and smiles.
She quickly looks back to her holobook. (Gods, if only the Jedi Council had sent someone else with her.)
Every day has been a fight to control her rapid descent of falling in love with Anakin Skywalker.
She hazards another glance over the top of the holobook; Anakin’s attention returned to the sky.
Padmé wants to share stars with him, but the only ones she knows are the fractured lights made inconsistent by changing tides.
And instinct keeps telling him to keep his head above the surface.
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The longer they stay on Naboo, the more Padmé notices Anakin’s habits.
He doesn’t like being still, for one; being on guard duty while Obi-Wan is on the front is killing him. He fidgets if he is in one place for any great length of time. His other, more subtle, habit is how much he stares.
His nature is to always be on the move, but he slips so easily into gazing that no one notices he’s stopped. He is something of a contradiction.
She can’t make him out.
Sometimes she catches him staring at the lake, almost in the same manner he stares at the sky.
He looks at them both as if they are not real: like he can’t believe they exist. For a boy from a plant where water is scarce, it is understandable. But for the man, who has been to dozens of systems and hundreds of worlds, it is mystifying.
He spends so much time seeking out new places, Padmé suspects he forgets to explore the ones he’s found.
Being trapped here on Naboo is as much a gift as it is a hindrance to him, even if he isn’t aware of it. If they were anywhere else in the galaxy, she might join him – chasing the horizon – but here on her home world, a place she loves dearly, she will help him break through the surface.
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Intentionally, Padmé arrives late for her morning swim.
She is determined to get Anakin in the water, and she thinks she’s figured out how. If he won’t come in willingly, she will send him in unceremoniously.
Like every other day, he stands at the end of the dock, looking out across the lake, arms behind his back. It is her opportune moment.
She is not a tactical advisor, but she is fully aware of her opponent’s advantages against her: he has nearly twice her size and her strength, he has the reflexes of a Jedi Master, and he almost certainly will sense her coming.
She has few assets working in her favor: speed and surroundings; his position is precarious, at best. Even so, the odds do not favor her victory.
She must take him by surprise, or not at all.
Mustering her strength, Padmé charges down the pier at her intended target. The collision with his hulking body hurts her shoulder; it wouldn’t be a true battle without some causality. She ignores his protests and keeps shoving until she hears the glorious splash indicating her triumph.
But her conquest is tainted. Anakin disappears beneath the surface for longer than Padmé anticipates. They are agonizing seconds as she waits alone for him to reemerge.
When he finally breaks through the water, he thrashes about wildly.
It might have been funny, if Padmé’s heart hadn’t just stopped.
“What the hell, Padmé?! You could’ve drowned me!” coughing and spluttering, he shouts at her from the water.
The fact he is angry with her means he is alright. She allows herself to breathe easy again and gracefully dives in after him. In no time at all, Padmé is at his side, grabbing for his wrists.
“Relax you’re fine. Quit flailing about like a newborn mon calamari, Anakin. You’ve made it into the water and you’re still alive.”
“Barely.”
“Oh, hush. Look, you’re already keeping yourself afloat.”
Anakin is pleasantly surprised to already see himself perfectly treading water.
“The rest is just as easy. It will come naturally, I promise.”
He gives her a dubious look, but lets her lead him out into deeper waters. Desert boy, or not, she will teach him to swim, and open his eyes to see her stars.