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There is smoke billowing from the Jedi Temple. Padmé watches it from her apartment window, torn between wanting to jump in a speeder and find out what’s going on for herself and knowing that she’ll be no help if she goes there. The Jedi have enough people to worry about without a Senator arriving – even one who is more skilled with a blaster than most people care to notice.
It began at noon. The sun is starting to set when there is finally movement on her balcony. Padmé hangs back, her fingers curling around the white blaster in her hand. Then she recognizes him and almost trips over the hem of her dress as she hurries across her apartment, desperate for the feel of his arms around her.
‘We have to go,’ Anakin says, barely pausing to return the embrace she offers him. ‘I mean it, Padmé. Grab anything you feel you cannot live without. But do it quickly.’
That was the other thing most people didn’t realise about Padmé; there were very few things she cannot live without and it took her less than five minutes to pack them.
She catches Anakin’s eye as they hurry back to her balcony. ‘What’s happening?’
Anakin wraps his arms around his waist and stares at her with eyes that look like they’ve seen a thousand horrors since they last met.
‘The Chancellor’s taken over the Senate,’ Anakin tells her, in this horrible monotone kind of voice. ‘He ordered the Clones to attack the Jedi. The Temple –’ He inhaled sharply. ‘Everyone’s dead, Padmé.’
He says it like it’s some kind of question. Like he’s begging her to tell him that he made a mistake and actually everything’s going to be fine. Or maybe it’s just that he can’t bring himself to believe it. The Jedi. His whole family. Gone.
Padmé presses her hand against her stomach, willing herself not to throw up. She wants to grab his robes and ask how this could have happened, how could they all have just let this happen but she knows that’s unfair.
This is happening. In fact, it’s already happened. And the last thing Anakin needs is her expressing her confusion over it.
‘What about Obi Wan?’ she asks, her voice very small.
‘I-I don’t know,’ Anakin admits. Tears are falling silently and tragically down his cheeks. ‘He’s not on Coruscant. He was’ – a sob erupts from his, shaking his whole body – ‘attacking General Grievous. With a battalion of clones.’
The same clones who had turned their weapons on the Jedi.
‘Oh Ani,’ Padmé begins, reaching out to rest her hand on his upper arm, but Anakin turns and sets off towards the balcony in a very business-like manner that doesn’t leave room for sympathy.
‘We need to get away from the Capital,’ he says, holding out his hand to help Padmé into the passenger seat of his speeder before hurrying around the other side to get behind the controls. ‘I was thinking somewhere on the lower levels, a little out of the way, just while we figure out what to do.’
‘That sounds…’ Perfect hardly sounds like the right sentiment. Neither does like a good idea. ‘I know a place,’ Padmé says, her voice sounding very far away, even to her own ears. ‘There’s a public housing section outside the city. It…wasn’t successful so almost all of the cottages are vacant now. They’re surrounded by paddocks and maybe some farms.’
Anakin flicks a few switches, pulls on a lever and Padmé feels the slight pull in her stomach that means they’re in the air.
‘Just tell me how to get there,’ he says, staring directly ahead of him, his cheeks shining with tears. He doesn’t bother to wipe them away.
Padmé directs him, feeling suddenly cold the lower they fly, watching as the high-rise buildings become shorter and shorter until she can see the horizon no matter which direction she looks.
Anakin seems tense; his knuckles white on the steering wheel, his back ramrod straight, sweat slightly dampening the curls around his forehead.
‘Do you sense something?’ she asks. ‘Are we being followed?’
She has a blaster – two – in her bag but he shakes his head, his lips pressed firmly together.
He lands the speeder in front of a cottage she points out. She stumbles out of the speeder, her limbs feeling stiff and clumsy despite not having being in the air that long at all. She shields her eyes against the setting sun with her hand and breathes in the smell of grass and dirt and isolation. There is nothing but silence around them, so heavy it seems like it is pressing in on her, stifling her breath. It feels like they are the last two people in the galaxy.
She turns to check on Anakin, only to find he’s still in the driver’s seat. Then he lurches up, falls to his knees in the dirt and vomits for what feels like forever.
*
They settle into their humble cottage. Padmé finds a small grocery store they can walk to and there’s some things they can forage from the paddocks.
Padmé has lived with Anakin before, that time he was protecting her on Naboo. This is not like that. Back then, Anakin was energetic, light, alive.
Now she feels like she’s living with Anakin’s empty shell. He barely moves, most days just making the trip from his bedroom to a chair in the living room that faces a window. There’s nothing to see outside; no one ever passes by, but Anakin spends whole days gazing at nothing.
They’ve been here for four days when Padmé starts to notice another part of Anakin’s day.
She wakes up with a start, initially unsure about what brought about her abrupt return to consciousness. She props herself up on her elbows, bracing herself and listening intently for any sign of a disturbance. One of her blasters is under her pillow and she knows Anakin sleeps with his hand on the hilt of his lightsaber. If anything were to happen, they’ll put up a good fight at least.
She is about to dismiss it as nothing when she hears the unmistakable sound of someone being violently ill.
Anakin brushes her off when she asks him about it later. She lets it drop but she doesn’t forget. Then, like clockwork she is woken up at almost the same time every morning, listening to the same pitiful sound.
Padmé isn’t stupid. She knows about Anakin and Obi Wan. She’s convinced that the entire Jedi order would know about them too, if they had known that they needed to look.
On the fifth day, she goes to see him. He looks wretched, hunched over the toilet, his forearms resting on the seat and sweat soaking through the back of his tunic.
‘Anakin?’ Padmé asks, standing in the doorway, her fingers drumming against the wood, not quite sure how to ask this. Not quite sure if she even wants to ask this. ‘You don’t think you might be –’
‘Please don’t say it,’ Anakin says, that familiar half-cry in his voice that always reminds her of an animal in unspeakable pain. ‘Please, I don’t…’
The retching starts again. Padmé sits down beside him, curling her legs underneath her body and gently rubs her hand up and down his back. She winces as she feels the violent heaving of his muscles and at how her fingers keep catching on his ribs, clearly distinguishable even through his tunic and fights back tears because they both know that she isn’t the person Anakin wants to be supporting him through this.
It took almost an hour for Anakin to feel well enough to leave the fresher and the whole time, she doesn’t say it.
*
The vomiting – Padmé has to stop herself from thinking of it as morning sickness – doesn’t stop. Anakin’s exhausted and more often than not, his cheeks are wet with tears.
His scent changes. The pomegranate and ash scent that she can almost taste on his skin starts to smell sweet and milky.
Padmé doesn’t say anything, but she buys some pregnancy vitamins at the store and starts slipping them into Anakin’s tea, just in case.
*
There are tests that would confirm Anakin’s pregnancy for certain, but Padmé didn’t think to bring any with her as the fled her apartment.
Two months after they’d arrived in their little abandoned cottage, she figures they don’t need to worry about it anymore. It’s noon but Anakin is only just emerging from his bedroom, his curls sleep-rumpled and his Jedi tunic doing nothing to disguise his swollen belly. If anything, it seems to accentuate it, his belt sitting just above the beginning of the curve.
Neither of them has spoken about it. Padmé doesn’t know if now is the time to start.
‘How are you feeling?’ she asks after a while, because it feels almost rude just to ignore it.
Anakin slumps into his usual chair and ducks his head. Padmé wonders if he’s ashamed. He doesn’t need to be, but she knows it can’t feel great to be a pregnant Omega without an Alpha. Especially not an Omega who had sworn an oath to the Jedi Order.
‘It was only a matter of time,’ Anakin says quietly. ‘I’ve felt it growing for weeks.’ He offers her a tiny smile. ‘Almost as long as I’ve been tasting vitamins in my tea.’
Padmé doesn’t know what to say. Congratulations hardly seems appropriate given the circumstances. She realizes that she doesn’t even know how Anakin feels about the fact that he’s going to have a baby.
He really should be going for check-ups, scans to make sure the baby is developing properly and that everything is progressing as it should. Padmé doesn’t even know how they’d get an appointment these days, so she guesses they’ll just have to take the changes in Anakin’s body as a sign that the child is healthy.
‘Are you happy?’
As soon as the words are out of her mouth, she regrets them because that’s not what she meant, that’s not what she meant, that’s not what she meant.
Anakin gives her a look that suggests he feels sorry for her.
‘I’m sorry,’ she says, hiding her face in her hands. ‘I didn’t – I don’t – I was just wondering –’
So much for being a smooth-tongued Senator.
‘You’re wondering if I wanted a baby,’ Anakin says, mercifully.
Padmé uncovers her face so she can see him. Anakin is looking down at his belly as if he’s slightly stunned by its existence. It worries her that he’s looking at it as if it barely belongs to him.
‘I’d never really thought about it,’ he says softly, before curling into himself and closing his eyes.
*
Padmé goes into heat. It’s not unexpected; quite the opposite really. Her heats are usually regular, one every twenty-eight days, and she figures that stress has been holding them back until now.
‘Must be nice,’ Anakin says, perhaps a little jealously as he watches Padmé pace up and down her bedroom, feeling that moving has to be more helpful for her horrible cramps than lying helplessly on a bed.
Padmé wonders if he means it. If he had the choice, maybe he wouldn’t be having a baby.
If he ends up having one, that is. Padmé can’t bring herself to say it out loud – can barely bring herself to even think about it – but if he doesn’t start eating better, she’s scared he’s going to miscarry.
In the past few weeks, Anakin’s usual tan complexion has grown chalky and pale. There are deep, bruise-like circles under his eyes and his tunics hang loosely around his shoulders, even as they pull tighter over his belly. The baby is taking everything Anakin has and Padmé doesn’t want to think about what will happen when he has nothing left to give.
She is hardly an expert but she remembers some things from the reproduction classes she had to sit through in school. Anakin’s pregnancy is probably high-risk in general, all things considered. He’s an Omega without his Alpha and beyond that she can only imagine the amount of stress he’s feeling in general. She knows he’s struggling without Obi Wan. They’ve never spoken of him and Padmé worries that if she even tries, Anakin will finally succumb to the deep well of pain inside him.
Some things hurt too much to even think about, let alone say out loud.
Anakin hasn’t shown any indication that he’s happy to be pregnant, but Padmé knows him well enough to know he’ll be devastated if he loses the baby. He may be a Jedi – maybe the last Jedi for all Padmé knows – but he never was very good at letting go of his attachments. And this is the last thing connecting him to Obi Wan.
Anakin can’t do much to alleviate her heat – he doesn’t have a knot and even if he did, he’s in no state for sexual intercourse – but he lies with her and wraps his arms around her waist as she cries and sweats.
As soon as it’s over and she can think straight again, Padmé wakes up early and makes a breakfast of eggs and fruit salad for the both of them.
‘I can’t,’ Anakin says, when she sets a mug of tea on the coffee table and offers him some food. He’s sitting on his chair with his knees pulled up to his chest and his chin resting upon them. Soon he’ll be too big for that position to be comfortable.
‘Ani,’ Padmé says softly. Speaking at anything more than an almost whisper feels like it would be disrespectful. ‘You need to eat.’
‘I eat.’ Anakin doesn’t take his eyes away from the window.
Padmé squeezed into the chair beside him. ‘Okay. But you need to eat more.’ When Anakin’s bottom lip merely trembles, she adds, ‘Please Ani.’
He takes a few shuddery breaths, his eyes very bright, before he parts his lips. Padmé scoops up some scrambled eggs and slides them onto his tongue. It takes a very long time for him to swallow.
She lifts the fork again but Anakin holds up his hand. ‘No.’ He swallows thickly. ‘I mean, I will, just... give me a minute.’
She’s heard of Omegas just fading away when they lose their Alphas. As she looks at Anakin now – a shadow of who he used to be – she wonders if that’s what’s happening here.
Anakin exhales slowly. ‘Okay,’ he says, and opens his mouth.
She gives him more eggs. Then some fruit and then eggs again. He whimpers slightly, placing his hand on his belly for the first time Padmé can remember.
She wonders if he wants to talk about it. If Obi Wan were here, they’d be talking about the baby a lot. Obi Wan’s Alpha instincts would be running rampant at the sight of his pregnant Omega and there would be no one in the galaxy who would be more worshipped or cherished than Anakin. Maybe deep down, that’s what Anakin needed.
‘Were you trying?’ she asks.
It’s kind of rude but then, she doesn’t really know what’s appropriate anymore.
Anakin shakes his head. ‘No. It was an accident.’
Padmé notices that he doesn’t call it a “mistake” and that gives her some degree of hope.
‘And I take it that Obi Wan didn’t know?’
Anakin lifts his mug, blows on it gently and takes a tiny sip. ‘No. I didn’t even know until we arrived here. I never had the chance to tell him.’
‘Had you been, you know, together in that way for long?’
For the first time in a long time, a ghost of a smile washes over Anakin’s face.
‘Since I was twenty,’ he said softly. ‘One day, he told me he loved me and we just…kind of went from there.’
It looks like the memories warm him up from the inside. His eyes soften for a moment before he opens his mouth for more eggs, a little more eagerly this time.
*
They’re attacked. Padmé’s fairly certain it’s just bad luck; two clones speed-racing around the public housing facility, taking advantage of the abandoned roads when they just happen to notice that one of the cottages isn’t abandoned.
Anakin’s flawless. Springs into action like no time has passed, like he’s been preparing for this moment his whole life. And in a way, Padmé supposes that he has.
His movements are graceful, intuitive, even at what must almost be his sixth month of pregnancy. It’s like his lightsaber is a natural extension of himself. It’s only when he turns around, the clones lying dead at his feet that Padmé sees that there’s no emotion in his face, no light in his eyes.
He’s just going through the motions.
*
‘It hurts,’ Anakin whimpered.
He’s lying on his side, his arms braced around his belly, crying out as pain rips through him.
It’s not real labour, Padmé’s fairly certain of that. Anakin’s only seven months pregnant by her best guess and the cramps aren’t getting any stronger or closer together. It’s just his body practicing for the real thing.
What she’ll do when the time comes, she has no idea. She doesn’t know how to deliver a baby, let alone help take care of one. And she has a sneaking suspicion that Anakin isn’t exactly going to be in a good place when the baby arrives. She’s predicting a crash, one she just hopes he’ll recover from.
‘I know,’ she says soothingly, gently rubbing his back. Anakin takes one of her hands and presses it to the curve of his belly. She winces with him as she feels his muscles contract, making everything hard and tight. ‘It might help to talk about something else. Something nice.’
It feels like an impossible task. What nice things are left in their lives?’
‘He called me “dear one”,’ Anakin says, his eyes shining with tears. He gazes at Padmé with the same childlike desperation he wore on the ship away from Tatooine. ‘Obi Wan.’
Padmé cards her fingers through his hair. ‘That’s really sweet. I know you were very precious to him.’
Anakin relaxed into her touch. His eyelashes brushed the skin under his eyes as he blinked.
‘What would he think if he saw me now?’
‘He’d be proud,’ Padmé says without a doubt. ‘Look at what a great job you’re doing. Even after everything, you’re carrying so well.’
‘I miss him,’ Anakin whispers, tears dripping down his cheeks. ‘I wish he was here.’
‘I know.’
What she doesn’t say is So do I.
*
Anakin is very close to his time when it happens. A speeder lands in what Padmé has started thinking of as their front yard.
She doesn’t stop to think, rushing to her bedroom to grab her blasters before positioning herself at the front door, ready to protect Anakin who she’s sure is too pregnant to protect himself.
She tries to remember everything Anakin has ever told her about fighting. Was it better to wait for your attacker to come to you or for you to go to them? She can’t say but judging by everything she knows about Anakin – at least, the Anakin she used to know – he wouldn’t wait.
She tears open the door, spreads her weight across both feet, positions her blaster and –
Promptly drops it. Actually, drops to her knees herself because she is looking at Obi Wan Kenobi.
He looks a little beaten-up, more than a little exhausted and absolutely frantic.
‘Padmé!’ The word sounds like a broken prayer. ‘Where’s Anakin? Please tell me he’s here.’
Padmé nods. ‘We – We thought you were dead.’
Obi Wan waves his hand impatiently as he makes his way over to her. ‘I almost was. It’s taken me this long to sneak back onto Coruscant without being detected. I need – Anakin –’
‘He’s inside. Obi Wan –’
‘I know.’ Obi Wan runs a harried hand through his hair. Padmé has never seen him look so out-of-sorts. ‘Something’s wrong, I can sense it. His Force Signature’s changed, he feels different, I sensed it as soon as I entered the atmosphere. I just hope –’
Padmé doesn’t need to turn around to know that Anakin has appeared behind her: The expression on Obi Wan’s face says it all. It goes from relief, to joy, to realization, and then to some un-nameable mixture of love, protection and all-consuming happiness.
‘Anakin,’ he breathes. ‘Oh, my love, look at you.’
Anakin lets out a broken whimper, practically falling into Obi Wan’s open arms. Obi Wan holds him close, kissing every part of him that he could reach, gently rubbing the place where their baby was growing.
‘I missed you,’ Anakin says, sounding like he might break apart with the intensity of the emotion.
‘And I you.’ Obi Wan kisses him passionately, fiercely, like a claim. ‘But I’m here now. And I’m never leaving you again.’
And Padmé may not be Force sensitive, but she swears that she can feel like everything might become okay once again.