The Loyalty of the Dark

Chapter 11

"It was a dream," he finally said.

Padmé accepted his words with a slow and serious nod: "Bad?"

"It was—like the ones I used to have about my mother before she died."

Another slow and even more serious nod. "And?"

Anakin looked down at their hands, slipping his fingers between hers, before looking up at her face: "And....it was about you."

"Alright," Padmé said softly as Anakin looked back down at their hands, "it was about me." And then she waited. Waited for him to be able to tell her.

When Anakin finally managed to speak again, his voice was raw and horse with barely contained emotion: "It was....about you dying. I couldn't—I can't stand it."

He couldn't stand to look at her anymore. Anakin looked back out at the city, at the stars, at the floor, trying to find anything he could bear to see. He ended up closing his eyes.

"You die in childbirth." There the words were out.

Anakin felt Padmé tense. He could almost see her move her hands to her abdomen in a protective manner.

"The baby?"

"I don't know...." Anakin shook his head, trying to clear his mind. Trying to find somewhere to store the pain.

"It was only a dream," Padmé said, as her hand gently brushed his cheek, prompting him to open his eyes and look at her.

"I won't let this one become real."

"I don't think it would."

"You don't?" Anakin asked, looking at her in surprise.

"This is Coruscant, Ani, not Tatooine. Women don't die in childbirth here, not even the twilighters in the downlevels," Padmé told him. "It must have been....some sort of metaphor, or more to it at least. Or maybe Eclipse's story is getting under your skin."

"No, those nightmares are different. This wasn't that sort of dream, Padmé, I wouldn't be out here if it was. And my dreams are literal. I wouldn't know a metaphor if it bit me. I couldn't see the place you were in either, you may not even be on Coruscant."

"Then perhaps I was on Naboo," Padmé suggested. "I was thinking I could go there, have the baby in secret to protect you, allow you to stay in the Order."

"I don't want to stay in the Order," Anakin told her, putting a figure under her chin so she would look into his eyes and know how much he meant every word he said. "Don't protect me, I don't need it. We have to start thinking, right now, about how we're going to protect you and our child, because all I want is for us to be together."

"And we will be," Padmé reassured him. "There must be more to your dream than death in childbirth, it makes no sense."

"I know, but I can't begin to guess what. I—I can't stand to think about it. And this on top of whatever Vader saw—"

"I'll be careful, Ani."

"Careful may not be enough. What are we going to do?"

"We are going to be happy together," she told him, kissing the palm of his hand and repeating his words from earlier that day, before Eclipse had collapsed and broken the moment.

"But we—we can't just....wait. I can't. I have to do something."

"Of course you do," Padmé said, smiling foundly. "That's who you are. That's what being a hero is. What about Obi-Wan? Couldn't he help us?"

Anakin shook his head immediately. "No. We don't know what he'd do, he suspects enough as it is, if he found out...." he dropped off, shaking his head.

Padmé gently hugged him as Anakin pulled her to his chest, burying his face into her hair. All he could do right in that moment was soak in the peace of her Force presence, silently enjoy the feeling of her in his arms.

"I will not let you go away to have our children in some alien place. I will not let you face my dream alone. I will be there for you, Padmé. Always. No matter what."

"I know it, Ani. I know," she replied resting in his embrace for another moment before gently pulling away. "Come upstairs, Anakin. The night's getting cold. Come up to our bed."

"All right, all right," Anakin said, though he gave one last look to the skyscape outside, pausing for a moment as his eye caught on something. The Jedi furrowed his brow, trying to study the small speck of black in the darkness that was on the roof of a building not far away. He was unable to shake it off once he was back in bed and ended up drawing out a datapad.

He was rewarded with Eclipse's beacon glowing on top of a roof. The same one he had just been studying.

Anakin fell asleep staring at the unmoving dot, wondering what the Sith apprentice was up to.