For Padmé

[bring_balance]

Anakin hasn't slept.

When he finally returns to Padmé's apartment in the dark of night, he thought that he might try, but now he's sure he won't. He tires to quiet his thoughts and to meditate, but that doesn't work either.

So for hours, Anakin sits on the couch outside of Padmé's bedroom, running over the events of the night in his head. The Chancellor truly was a Sith Lord. He'd lied to them all, been responsible for the deaths of so many...

And Anakin had trusted in him and believed him more than anyone. He knows that as soon as Padmé awakens, he'll have to tell her about it, but for now, he just sits, alone with his spiraling thoughts. And before he knows it, the sun is rising and he feels no more settled than he did when they'd left the throne there in the clearing.

Comments

[nabooqueen]

"It's not that I don't believe you," Padmé says softly. "But if you first dreamed about me after you found out I was pregnant back home, and you've been having the same dream since you arrived here, I think they must just be dreams. I'm not pregnant anymore, and the medical care here isn't that primitive."

"If you're that worried about me dying in childbirth, though, that seems like a problem with an easy solution," she adds. She wants to have children, actual children some day, yes, but she wants to get that look off Anakin's face even more. And if his dreams are true, well. She would prefer to avoid that fate, if at all possible.

[bring_balance]

He's considered this. For months, he's thought that perhaps these were just dreams, nothing more. Things have changed for them in Darrow, but he still isn't sure if they should trust it.

"Perhaps," he answers, and there's an unease to his tone that isn't usually there, "but I don't know if that's a chance we can afford to take. I... I only wish there was a way to know for sure, if they're only dreams."

[nabooqueen]

"Obi-Wan might know something, if you asked," Padmé says, because they actually can ask him about things like this now. She has no idea if he'll know anything or not, but as far as Jedi in Darrow go, he's their best shot. Unless...

"Or I suppose we could ask Rey and Ben what happened in our future," she adds, suddenly reluctant. They will know. Padmé's not entirely sure she wants to know the answer.

[bring_balance]

"No," Anakin says immediately, "I can't burden them with this."

He can't imagine going to Rey, especially after what happened last night. He nearly lost himself to his rage as he came to terms with the scope of the lies he'd been told for years.

"But Obi-Wan... he might be able to offer guidance."

He remembers the night he'd arrived in Darrow, waking up from the nightmare, and before realizing what had happened, Anakin has thought about how he couldn't say anything to Obi-Wan about any of it.

But in Darrow... things are different. Anakin is beginning to see that. Perhaps he won't just get the same Jedi platitudes about death and attachment.

[nabooqueen]

"So we talk to Obi-Wan," Padmé says, "and then we go from there. We'll figure this out, love, I promise. If nothing else, I'm certainly not at imminent risk of dying in childbirth. We've got time."