Archive of Our Own ^beta

(“Your name is Nima,” Amu had whispered to her as they were herded into Enildeko’s transport with six other slaves. She was seven years old, old enough that she might have easily been sold away from her mother, but thankfully Enildeko had a young daughter her age. Nima was to be her birthday present. “No matter what else they may call you, your name is Nima Stormborn. You are Leia’s favoured one, you are Ar-Amu’s beloved child, and no depur can ever steal the desert from your bones. Do you hear me, akku?”

“I hear you,” Nima had promised as she pressed her face into her mother’s neck. She had never been on a transport this large before. The ship was loud and ill-made and the jerky movements made her stomach hurt. With each lurch, Nima had clutched Lev’s japor snippet so tightly it left indentations on her little hands. “I hear you.”)

In Basic, the word nim means agency, means having the freedom to choose. Some days, Nima hates Suri Stormborn for being like all the other Tatooine mothers, for being so cruel as to name Nima for that which she will never know. Some days, Nima hates her amu and ena for being selfish enough to die. Some days, Nima wants to set their japor snippets afire and watch the wooden pieces smoulder until the ashes are indistinguishable from the Coruscant grime.

Some days, Nima just cries.

She is called Anissa now. For a masa-dep, it is disappointingly unoriginal. Nima can remember some kids in the Mos Elrey Quarters having long, flourishing Huttese names—names like Kleshki, Otjera, and Sioqon. Anissa is just Ryl for little girl, and while Nima is dizzyingly grateful that her master still sees her as a child and not a woman grown, some whimsical, petty part of her wishes she’d been given a slave-name that actually meant something. Her friend Jana (a name that means singer) was given the name Mariona, or sunflower, and a small part of Nima hates her for it, hates that neither of her names are too heavy or too light, hates that Jana’s amu had the sense not to feed her false hope and her masa-dep at least means something pretty. 

Nima’s master, Yuned Rha, is an important man on Coruscant, a personal aide to the senator of Ryloth, and that is a good thing. Important men do not look at their slaves too closely, it is beneath them, so Nima can wear her parents’ japor snippets without fearing reprisal. It’s a quiet form of resistance, especially considering that her ena’s includes the sign for nim, and she is called Anissa now, but the only ones who notice Nima’s resistance are those who join her in it.

(There's a rumor going around the Quarters that there's a general in the Republic army who was seen wearing the Amarattu, a general who calls himself Sky-Walker and Rain-Bringer, a warrior unfettered and fearless. They say that he’s a Jedi Knight, that he wields a blue lightsaber and calls the slave-clones by the names they chose for themselves. It’s probably bantha shit, but Nima has to admit that even if it is a lie, it's by far the prettiest one she’s heard in years.)

Darth Sidious is in the middle of a rather boring call with Darth Tyranus when the two of them freeze, both of them too skilled in reading the Force to miss the disturbance as it splinters the universe into dozens of new possibilities and forces old ones to fade away into a new reality. Desperately, Sidious searches the Force for the Chosen One, breathing a sigh of relief as he senses the usual blend of confusion, anger, fear, and, ugh, love emanating from the boy. 

Nothing too major, then, Sidious assures himself before turning to berate Tyranus over—something. His stubborn commitment to his political idealism, probably. He was taking the Seperatist Movement much too seriously, this one. Not to worry. Everything is going exactly according to plan...

If there was ever a group of people to convince Padmé to give up on the long-term viability of pacifism, it would be Senator Orn Free Taa and his insipid aides. The Rylothian senator had all but hounded her for a face-to-face for the past week, hinting that he might be willing to back her bill if she spoke to him about it in person, but she should have known better than to hope that this meeting was anything other than a chance for him to reject the proposal to her face. He’s all but oozing smug, patronizing superiority, and it makes Padmé’s fingers itch for her blaster. She’d canceled her weekly comm with Sola for this?

“I do apologize, my dear Padmé,” Orn Free Taa simpers, and Padmé bristles at the presumption that he has even gotten close to earning the right to such familiarity. “But surely you understand that at this juncture, the economic concerns of my planet—nay, the Republic as a whole!—are of the utmost importance. How can we hope to defeat the Separatists if we do not have sufficient funds to defend our great democracy? Furthermore, this is a time of great unrest. I know that you are relatively new to the political game, but by bringing up such, ah, controversial legislation, you risk dividing the Senate at a time when unity is needed most.”

Padmé grits her teeth and clenches her fists. She was elected the Princess of Theed at thirteen, and not two years later, she was leading her people through an international crisis as their Queen without any support from the Senate. She has been a senator for years. Orn Free Taa has no right to be so dismissive of her, no right to be so dismissive of her bill.

Her bill would condemn the continuation of slavery in the Outer Rim Territories, prosecute slavers still active in the Core, and allow a path to full Republic membership for the newly freed worlds afterwards. Her bill is well-written and well-thought out and addresses the more reasonable concerns of the Seperatist Movement. Her bill could bring more than a few Separatist worlds back into the fold, could change the tide of the war. Her bill made her husband cry. Her bill would make sure that no child would ever have to grow up like Anakin had, would make sure that whoever ordered the army of slaves that the Republic is all too happy to accept would pay. Her bill is the best piece of legislation that she has ever written, and it kills her that it will never see the Senate floor because of men like Orn Free Taa.

(Sometimes, Padmé despairs of Anakin’s dim view of the Republic’s Senate. Sometimes, Padmé is frightened by how much she agrees with him.)

“I hardly think that my bill is a controversial piece of legislation, Orn Free Taa,” Padmé replies cooly. There are four young girls, two standard human and two Twi’lek, standing behind the other senator and his party, their heads bowed in subservience. Padmé wishes she could assume that they were regular employees, but Anakin has taught her well. They are too young to have gotten these jobs themselves, too young to be working at all, even considering the rising poverty rates on the planet. 

After a moment, she notices that one of the girls has two japor snippets hanging from her belt. Padmé’s hand involuntarily goes to her pocket where she hides the one Anakin gave her. This girl is from Tatooine. She’s a slave from Tatooine. Looking at her, Padmé’s fury could burn down a city.

“Slavery is already illegal in the Republic,” she continues, her voice hard and unflinching. “This bill only seeks to ensure that those who flout Republic law do not have safe havens in which to do so. What could possibly be controversial about that? Do you mean to tell me that you disagree with the Republic’s ban on sentient-trafficking?” 

Orn Free Taa’s eyes harden. His aides shift uncomfortably. None of the men can see how the four girls behind them look up at Padmé with clever eyes. The girl with the japor snippets at her waist tilts her head, leveling Padmé with a considering look before she shoots her a knowing smirk. Troona, but does the girl remind Padmé of Anakin. Anakin, who has been off-world with Obi-Wan and their men for two months. Anakin, who can only comm her for thirty minutes a week and sounds so, so tired when he does. The girl has the same exhausted wisdom in her green eyes, the same strength in her spine. Padmé wants to know this girl, wants to know her name, wants to know her story, wants to know if she speaks Amatakka, wants to know if she still makes her family’s tzai recipe, even so far from home. 

(Anakin taught Padmé his mother’s tzai recipe in the soft hours of early morning. His hands had rested lightly on her waist and his voice was quiet and content as he’d murmured the instructions, his lips ghosting over the back of her neck. He’d told her the story of Ebra the Prophet, of Ekkreth and Leia and Tena the Unfettered as he guided her hands through the motions and she carefully measured out each of the ingredients, leaning into his warmth and reveling in his closeness.

The recipe is a secret, he’d told her, nosing at her jawline and pressing kiss after kiss to the soft skin behind her ear. Shared between parent and child, between spouse and spouse, between family and family. This was my mother’s recipe and her mother’s recipe and her mother’s recipe and now it’s ours. Tzai connects us. Now, no matter what happens, you can make tzai and know that I will always, always be with you. It’s something no master can ever take away.

He’d kissed her afterwards as they cleared the breakfast table, humming happily into her mouth, his lips spicy and bright.)

Quickly, Padmé reconsiders her priorities. There’s no use in getting Orn Free Taa to budge on the issue. Sitting here trying to convince him that he should care about other sentients is a waste of her time and effort and there are so many other things she could be doing. Namely, getting that Tatooine girl alone. 

Padmé stands, clasping her hands and inclining her head to the senator in a mockery of a bow.

“I’ll give you some more time to think on it,” Padmé tells him, her tone barely civil. She pauses a moment, making eye contact with the green-eyed girl and glancing meaningfully at the door. The girl’s eyes narrow slightly, but she presses her lips together and nods almost imperceptibly. At that, Padmé rallies, turning back to Orn Free Taa. “In any event, I have a meeting with the Healthcare Commission to prepare for. If one of you gentlemen could show me out…?”

“Ah, I’m afraid we are equally as busy, Senator,” one of the senator’s aides replies around a mouthful of food. “But one of our staff will gladly guide you to the exit.”

One of the Twi’lek slaves moves to attend to Padmé, but the green-eyed girl lightly touches her arm and takes her place, walking up to Padmé and bowing low at the waist—but not low enough for Padmé to miss the slightly sardonic glint in her eyes. The girl opens the door for Padmé and silently leads her out of Orn Free Taa’s office. Once Padmé is sure that they are out of earshot, she turns to the her.

“What’s your name?” Padmé asks her, keeping her voice low. 

“I am called Anissa,” she replies. She speaks with a Huttese accent, like Anakin, though hers is a great deal more pronounced. Padmé does not miss the careful way that she answers the question. A lie that is not a lie, Anakin would call it if he were here. Whatever this girl’s name is, Padmé doubts it is Anissa.

Padmé isn’t entirely sure how to play this. Reaching out to the girl had been an impulse on her part, one borne from her longing for Anakin and fierce anger with Orn Free Taa. Now that she has, however, she knows she needs to do it right. She cannot make any demands from the girl— that would only make her look like another master, and that is not anything she ever wants to be. Padmé thinks back to what made the girl stand out to her—the japor snippets—and gets an idea. She stops in the middle of the hallway and steps into an alcove, gesturing for the girl to follow her as she takes a seat on a cushioned bench.

“May I show you something?” Padmé asks her, patting the spot next to her. “It’s something my husband gave me. I think you’ll understand what it means.”

The girl slowly takes a seat and nods warily, a hint of fear in her eyes. The girl can’t be older than twelve. No child should ever have to look so afraid, not ever. Padmé doesn’t know if she wants to scream or to cry, but she smothers the impulse and pulls out her own snippet. Immediately, the girl’s eyes widen.

“That’s Amarattu,” she breathes, looking up at Padmé. “It’s for protection. Your husband gave you this?”

Padmé nods. 

“His name is Anakin,” she tells the girl. Padmé knows that even saying Anakin’s name could cause them both problems, but she doubts that this girl would breathe a word. Anakin says that all marriages are a secret on Tatooine. “He was a slave in Mos Espa before he was freed. He carved this for me when we met.”

“My parent gave me Amarattu,” the girl tells Padmé, forgetting her previous uneasiness in her shock, untying her snippets from her belt to lay beside Padmé’s to point out the similarity. “My mother gave me the mark of Leia. For our name.”

She hesitates for a moment. Padmé waits and aches. 

“My mother named me Nima Stormborn,” Nima tells Padmé, her voice only shaking slightly, and Padmé is in awe of her bravery. “Nim means agency in Basic—my ena carved that sign into the other side of the snippet, right here, see?—and as for Stormborn… well, I had a Nameless ancestor once, and one night she walked out to the desert to—to get some rest, but then Leia found her and gave her back her fire. She named herself Stormborn, because The Mighty One gave her new life, and she became a Grandmother of her Quarters five years later.”

Padmé swallows hard at the story, keeping her smile on her face by sheer force of will.

(“In Amatakka,” Anakin had told her once as they were lying in bed, his arm tight around her waist and his face buried in her hair. He was trembling, Padmé remembers. So very afraid. “We have this euphemism for—for suicide. In Basic it translates roughly to to get some rest. So next time you’re feeling a little tired, could you maybe… think of another way to say it? Only my heart almost gave out and—”

“Oh, Ani,” Padmé had cried, turning over so that she could look at him, cupping his face in her hands. “Oh, Ani, I’m—I’m so sorry. I won’t say it again, I promise.”

“I’m overreacting, really,” he’d muttered, looking down, shame-faced. “I didn’t mean to make you upset.”

“I’m not upset,” Padmé had insisted, pressing her forehead to his. “I love you, Anakin. I love you so much, and if a phrase like that makes you uncomfortable or afraid, I don’t want to use it. Thank you for telling me.”

Anakin had looked back up at her then, blue eyes shining, so beautiful and so dear and so vulnerable that Padmé thought that her heart might burst, that she might die from it, from him.

Thank you, Padmé thought desperately, as if her gods could still hear her this far from home. Thank you for giving him to me. Please let me keep him. Please don’t take him away.

“Angel,” he’d murmured reverently as he kissed her, soft and warm and sure. She’d melted into him, sighing as he brushed his lips over her forehead, her cheeks, her eyelids, her nose. His eyes were wet. Hers were too. He’d pressed another kiss to her lips, fiercer, almost wild as she swallowed his next words. “You must be an angel.”)

“Anakin’s great-great-grandmother was Nameless,” Padmé tells Nima, because she cannot possibly understand but she needs the girl to know that there is someone out there who does, someone out there who can feel the heaviness of such a history. “She named herself Skywalker, for Ekkreth, if I’m not mistaken.”

Padmé watches as Nima mouths her husband’s full name a few times before her eyes light up like her home planet’s twin suns. 

“Your husband is Anakin Skywalker?” Nima whisper-shouts. “The Jedi general?”

Padmé nods, unable to stifle her grin at the sight of Nima’s earnest enthusiasm. The girl grins back, giddy and childlike in a way she hasn’t been since they’ve met.

“Grandmother Laruna says that he calls the clones by their names,” Nima enthuses, her fingers tracing over the grooves of Padmé’s snippet over and over again. “He has a blue lightsaber—blue like water, like life. He wears the Amarattu and speaks Ryl with a Tatooine accent. My friend Jana says he’ll free the slaves, that he’s the Rain-Bringer, that he’s clever enough and brave enough to make the chancellor let us all go home.”

Listening to Nima speak, Padmé is transported back, back to when she was fourteen and scared out her mind, when she was the queen of an abandoned planet hidden away in plainclothes and all of her terror melted away because of one blue-eyed boy who wore his hope like armor. Nima speaks of Anakin as if he is a hero from myth, and as she does her reticence falls away, her voice taking on that melodic, lilting quality that Anakin’s does when he tells Padmé his people’s stories. Nima has attached such meaning to Anakin, such conviction, and Padmé remembers then how Ani had gazed up at Qui-Gon Jinn and aches.

As far as Padmé knows, Anakin has never discussed slavery with the Chancellor. As far as Padmé knows, he only ever discusses it with her, and only in the hazy hours before dawn or in the cold dead of night. Does he know the stories circulating about him? Does he know that there are girls like Nima counting on him to save them?

(Padmé remembers: “I’m a person and my name is Anakin.”

Padmé remembers: “The biggest problem in this universe is that no one helps each other.”

Padmé remembers: “I had a dream I was a Jedi. I came back here to free all the slaves. Have you come to free us?”

Padmé remembers: “I didn’t actually come here to free slaves.”)

Anakin had finished the scanner as they rushed to Tatooine to save his mother. He’d never gotten to use it, had thrust it into Padmé’s hands when they left before he curled up in the ship’s cabin, his low, hitching sobs breaking Padmé’s heart. He’s never asked for it back, so she isn’t exactly sure that it works, but if it does... if it does…

“Nima,” Padmé interrupts, her thoughts going a mile a minute as she formulates her plan. “Can you get away?”

Nima stops short, one dark eyebrow raised. “What do you mean?” 

“My husband built a scanner that can detect your chip,” Padmé tells her. “I know how to use it. If you could get away, just for a night, and come to my residence, I could have it removed. You could be free, Nima.”

Nima stares at Padmé, her eyes wide and disbelieving as she mouths the word free once, twice. She looks down at the three snippets laid between them, one dark finger tracing the sign for her name—nim, which means agency, which means freedom, which means power—and takes one deep, steadying breath before looking up at Padmé.

“My mother is dead,” Nima says bluntly. “My parent too. Even if I was free—” her voice hitches on that word and Padmé’s eyes are watering, it’s all she can do not to cry— “I wouldn’t have anywhere to go. I’d be vikka-terak, and if I was back home on Tatooine, maybe I could make my own way, but on Coruscant—”

(Padmé’s sure that she isn’t an impulsive person, that she’s a methodical, level-headed woman who thinks every course of action through carefully and logically before proceeding.

But Padmé also married a Jedi in a secret ceremony witnessed by droids after only a few weeks of getting reacquainted with him. So.)

“You could stay with us,” Padmé blurts out, blithely ignoring that no, actually, Nima can’t, it could cause a whole host of issues and Dormé might actually kill her this time, but the idea feels right, and Padmé knows that until her bill passes (and it will pass if it’s the last thing she does) this sort of direct action is the only way to help slaves in the Republic. Nima needs freedom and a place to stay and Padmé is in a position to offer both. It’s no-brainer, and Dormé will get over herself if Padmé lets her take a four-week vacation to go on that pleasure cruise she’s been eyeing since before the war broke out. It’s fine. Padmé isn’t an impulsive person. “For as long as you wanted. We’d take care of everything—food, clothes, school, anything you need. Anakin’s planning on returning to Tatooine after the war. Stay with us until we can take you home.”

Nima eyes Padmé with a critical gaze, assessing her veracity. Padmé understands. She’s offering Nima a new life, no strings attached, and while Padmé may hate Orn Free Taa, she also broke bread with him, and Nima has known her for all of ten minutes. But after a long, tense moment, Nima swallows and collects her snippets, securing them to her belt.

“I’ll be at your residence at midnight,” Nima says softly, handing Padmé’s snippet back to her carefully, as if it were made of glass. “We’ll see if the scanner works. And as for the invitation… I’d be grateful for any help you can offer me.”

“Of course,” Padmé murmurs clasping Nima’s hand in hers and squeezing gently. Nima shoots her a watery smile and squeezes back. “Of course.”

At 1:37 Coruscant time, Anakin gets a message on his secure channel with Padmé. He blinks hard, his eyes still gritty with sleep, but the words on the screen don’t change or make any more sense the longer he stares at them.

Your scanner works. We have a kid now. Love you!

Padmé, Anakin muses as he has four consecutive heart attacks, is a very impulsive person.

The room Padmé gives her is beautiful. The walls are painted a pale green (a lucky color, Nima’s ena would have said) and the floors are made of smooth white tiles that shine with flecks of gold. The bed is softer than the one in Yuned Rha’s quarters, though there are three less pillows—not that Nima minds, the four pillows she has been provided with are large and expensive and having any pillows at all is a luxury that’s making Nima’s head spin. 

But how could anyone need four pillows? Two of them have tassels and ruching, which can’t be comfortable for sleeping on. Nima knows that they’re supposed to be decorative and that they go on the floor when the bed’s in use but it just seems like such a waste. But then again, maybe the Naboo don’t consider pillows to be decoration and the fancy pillows are meant to be used. Maybe only on holidays?

Nima stares numbly at the bed for twenty minutes before she realizes that she’s freaking out over the pillows of all things, but dealing with everything else (the room, the apartment, Padmé, the distinct lack of chip in her neck, the fact that she’s going to meet Anakin Skywalker, the Hero With No Fear, who’s an actual real live person, who would have guessed?) feels like too much right now. So. Pillows.

“Are you alright, Nima?” Padmé asks from the door, and Nima yelps, jumping out of her skin at the sudden noise, turning her neck to look behind her so quickly that she pulls a muscle. Padmé’s lips twitch at Nima’s resulting groan, but she doesn’t laugh, which Nima appreciates. “I apologize for startling you. I just wanted to make sure you were settling in okay.”

Nima massages the back of her neck and manages a smile.

“I’m fine, thanks,” Nima replies, and her chest aches a little at the naked relief on Padmé’s face. The senator is so kind. Nima still hasn’t quite figured out what to do with all that kindness, especially from a Core Worlder, but she’s grateful nonetheless. Jana had been worried that Padmé was a chain-gilder, that all this was just some elaborate hoax, but Nima remembers the look in Padmé’s eyes when she spoke of her husband, and she knows that kind of love can’t be faked. She gestures around the beautiful room. “Just, you know, taking it all in.”

“It is a lot,” Padmé agrees, leaning against the door frame. “I suppose after working so long in government I’m more used to it, but I certainly didn’t grow up like this. My room is a bit more understated—Anakin’s orders.”

Nima perks up at the mention of Anakin Skywalker. “What do you mean?”

“My husband is allergic to opulence,” Padmé huffs, rolling her eyes good-naturedly. Nima is transported back five years, back to the days before her ena died and her amu would tease them over a pot of tarmish, all bright-eyed and smirking. “Understandable, of course, seeing as he went straight from the Mos Espa Quarters to the Jedi Temple. At first it was sweet. But then he went on a forty-five minute rant about my pillows of all things and I had to hide them in the hall closet just to keep the peace.”

“The pillows are ridiculous,” Nima argues, flipping one braid over her shoulder and eyeing the offending objects sullenly. “Just decorate with tapestries like a normal person. Those at least can be used as blankets in a pinch. I think I’d get a rash if I tried to sleep on those blue ones.”

Padmé does laugh then, a loud, full-bodied laugh with her head thrown back and hands clasped together, and it’s lovely, all summer. 

“You sound just like him,” she tells Nima delightedly, her dark amber eyes sparkling merrily. “Really, it’s uncanny. Well, it’s your room now, so feel free to stuff your pillows in the hall closet too. Unfortunately, they technically belong to the Naboo government so I can’t let you use them for target practice either.”

“Well, damn,” Nima drawls. “There go my evening plans.”

Padmé laughs again.

“Come on, Nima,” she says, “all this excitement has me famished. I’ve got a room service menu laid out on the kitchen table. You can look through it while I make us some tzai, and then we’ll talk about school.”

“School?” Nima stutters, if only because if she even thinks about tzai before it’s right in front of her she might actually start crying, and she’s been so good about not crying so far. 

“School,” Padmé affirms, her tone falling somewhere between stern and apologetic. “You’re twelve-years-old, Nima, and my ward. I’m legally required to educate you. I won’t force you to go to a school, though I do encourage it, if only because I can afford the nicer private schools and it would be good for you to socialize with people your own age, but your education is important. We’ll look through a few brochures now and tomorrow we’ll schedule tours of the ones you like, but if none of them sit right with you we’ll discuss tutoring.”

Nima flounders. Padmé has already done so much, more than Nima ever would have expected from a Core Worlder. In less than a day, Nima has gained her freedom, a roof over her head, the promise of tzai, and a trip home to Tatooine. Now Padmé is promising her an education. If Padmé wasn’t married to Anakin Skywalker, Jana’s fears of chain-gilding might have actually held merit, but Nima thinks that only a Core Worlder this earnest could have turned his head.

“Thank you,” Nima breathes. “Thank you.”

“Of course, Nima,” Padmé sighs, smiling faintly. She holds out a hand and Nima grabs onto it like it’s a lifeline, her eyes wet. Padmé squeezes her hand once, twice, before gesturing to the kitchen with a tilt of her chin. “Let’s eat, shall we?”

Anakin calls Padmé as soon as he can, unwilling to wait until next week to discuss the fact that Padmé has apparently acquired a child of all things, bribing Rex with a promise of homemade chinaka for him and his brothers if he can keep Obi-Wan occupied for thirty minutes so he can duck into his room. Rex is obnoxious about it, of course, but his dark eyes twinkle gleefully and his teasing smile is infectious.

“Trouble in Paradise, sir?” Rex doesn’t even try to hide the mocking laughter in his tone as he leans back against the doorframe. Anakin shoots him a withering glare as he logs onto his and Padmé’s channel. Ever since Rex and Cody figured out that Anakin and Padmé are married, they’ve been insufferable, bringing up Clovis with maddening frequency just to see him squirm and elbowing him irritatingly whenever he and his wife are in the room together. They’re sure to never to make their teasing obvious enough for others to notice, but it still makes Anakin’s skin itch whenever Obi-Wan stares at them thoughtfully, his confusion evident on his face.

(Anakin ignores how similar his friendship with Rex and Cody is to the friendships between the adults in the Quarters back on Tatooine, ignores how their gentle ribbing reminds him of how Jor and Danu teased Jami after he and Maya went off together to gather herbs and came back blushing and giggling and married. There’s a sort of exhilaration in sharing such a happy secret, and it makes Anakin’s chest hurt a little, but in a good way.

But if he imagines Rex and Cody as Jor and Danu, if he places their faces in his memories of Mos Espa, he won’t be able to look them in the eye anymore, won’t be able to justify being their general, won’t be able to conveniently forget who made them and why. So he ignores that warm feeling in his chest, ignores how he never doubted that they knew that marriages were always secret, ignores those bright, grateful smiles they throw him whenever Anakin uses their names.)

“You don’t have time to be smug, Captain,” Anakin snaps, but the corner of his mouth twitches traitorously. “You have to figure out how you and Cody are going to make a five-minute briefing last half an hour. Or do you want me to slip laxatives into your chinaka?”

Rex laughs. 

“There’s always time to be smug, sir,” Rex replies loftily. “You manage it often enough.”

“Captain?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Don’t let the door hit you on your way out.”

“Yes, sir.”

Rex leaves, still laughing quietly, and Anakin shakes his head with a smile, sending a quick message to Padmé to let her know that he’s ready to talk. Not thirty seconds pass before she’s calling him, and a grin splits his face open as his wife’s face pops up on his screen.

“Hi, Padmé,” he murmurs, drinking in the image of his wife, his eyes roving across the screen hungrily. Her hair is down, and she’s leaning back against the headboard in her room. If Anakin ignores the blue light of the holo, he can almost pretend that they’re in her apartment, tucked away from the world, and not light years apart.

“Ani,” Padmé says breathlessly, smiling softly. He can see her raise a hand to trace his image, and he closes his eyes for a moment to pretend that her long fingers are actually caressing the contours of his jaw like she does in the soft, kiss-soaked hours before dawn. “I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed you too,” he tells her. “I don’t know if I can go another week without seeing you.”

“A week?” Padmé exclaims. She leans forward, jostling the comm with her knee in her excitement. “I thought you’d be on this mission for another three weeks, since the supply run went more quickly than usual.”

Anakin grins and shrugs. “Obi-Wan and I didn’t think our guy would come through, but his info was good. The Council would rather we stay off-planet a little longer, but they can’t think of anything else for us to do. And believe me, Master Windu’s looking.”

“I don’t understand why they don’t want you at the Temple,” Padmé complains, brushing a curl behind her ear. “You’re the Hero With No Fear. Chancellor Palpatine adores you, the Senate trusts you, and the people—”

“I think that’s the problem, Padmé,” Anakin sighs. “Jedi aren’t meant to be—to be revered like that. Obi-Wan says that the Council doesn’t want me on Coruscant until it either dies down or I can prove that I’m not affected by it.”

“Prove you’re not—” Padmé sputters, her eyes sparking dangerously. “What kind of reasoning—”

“It’s fine, Padmé,” Anakin soothes, even though he’s just as furious. But he doesn’t want Padmé to worry, doesn’t want her to get it into her head to confront the Council over their treatment of him like she’s threatened so many times before. “It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine, Anakin,” Padmé says. “You do so much for the Jedi, for your men. You don’t deserve to be—to be dismissed like you’re some sort of mercurial child.”

Anakin takes a second to let that settle. Padmé says things like this sometimes, acts like he’s someone special and important. He didn’t think he wanted that-- the Jedi think he’s some sort of Chosen One, think that he has a great destiny that he’s unworthy of, and the expectations attached to that title are so heavy, are almost too much to bear. But Padmé doesn’t think he’s important because of what he’s destined to do, or even because of what he’s done, even though he knows she’s proud of him for all he’s accomplished. She thinks Anakin is important because he’s Anakin, and though he’s trying not to be so shaken whenever she expresses her faith in him, it still strikes him dumb each and every time. 

Please keep on loving me, Anakin almost begs. In all this chaos, in all this terror, you’re like a homing beacon, like a bright, steadfast star. Only a few things are constant these days: fear and grief and exhaustion and you. Please don’t stop loving me. I won’t be able to bear the rest if you do.

Instead, Anakin takes a deep breath and tries to center himself. They only have thirty minutes together. He’s not going to waste twenty of them crying. Again.

“Speaking of children,” he says instead, raising one eyebrow and staring Padmé down. “Care to explain yourself?”

Padmé doesn’t have the grace to look even slightly abashed. 

“Her name is Nima Stormborn,” she tells him. “She’s twelve. Her great-aunt was a Grandmother of the Mos Esly Quarters and she and her mother were sold to a merchant from Ryloth when she was seven. I found her working for Yuned Rha, one of the senator’s aides.”

Anakin curses.

“Exactly,” Padmé nods grimly. “I went to see Taa to discuss my anti-slavery bill—now don’t make a face, Ani, I knew it was a long-shot but I had to try—and I saw her japor snippets. I managed to get some time alone to talk to her and well—” Padmé pauses, and her tone shifts from indignant to something more tender, “—well she reminded me of you, Ani, and I couldn’t just—I couldn’t leave her there, not knowing that there was a chance that we could help her. We didn’t get to test your scanner, but I know your work, and I knew that you wouldn’t have brought it with you when we went to Tatooine unless you were certain it could locate and neutralize the chip.”

Anakin closes his eyes and breathes out harshly. He’d been so certain that he’d get there in time, that he’d be able to save his mother’s life and free her in one broad stroke. He’d never imagined the horror he’d find—a cold, gruff husband and his mother’s blood spilling through his fingers. Beru had tried to convince him before he left that Cliegg wasn’t a chain-gilder, that he and Anakin’s mother had lived a comfortable, happy life together, for all that they weren’t really in love, but he can’t stifle his doubts. He knows that even if what Beru had said was true, he’d been too jealous to listen to reason then—he had wanted to be the one to free Shmi. He’d worked for years on a scanner that could sense the chip and disable it without risking the life of the patient. He’d waited years to return home to his mother. What did Cliegg and Owen do to deserve seeing his mother live in freedom when all he had were memories of slavery and slaughter?

But he’s still so, so glad that the scanner has been of use to somebody, so, so glad that it freed a little girl. Shmi would have been proud of him for building something so vital, so powerful, and for the first time since he buried his mother, he smiles at her memory. For the first time since he failed her so utterly, Anakin feels like he deserves to be Shmi Skywalker’s child.

“Anakin?” Padmé ask, concerned by his silence. “Are you alright?”

“Of course,” he opens his eyes, blinking away a few tears. “I’m just happy that it worked.”

Padmé hums a little in reply, but they let the moment hang, content to just look at each other. Padmé is so lovely, so kind , and sometimes it’s all Anakin can do not to let his love for her pour out of him, to proclaim it to anyone who’ll listen. Loving Padmé—brave, loyal, clever Padmé who cares so deeply about the slaves on Tatooine, cares so deeply and never expects him to be any different—is the only thing in his life that comes easy, the only thing besides missing his mother and falling short of all that the Jedi want for him. Loving Padmé is falling short of all that the Jedi want for him, but Anakin can’t bring himself to care about that, doesn’t lose one moment of sleep over how much he adores her, over how much he would give up just to see her smile.

“I love you,” Anakin tells her, just because he can, just because the words taste sweet in his mouth. “And I’m proud to be your husband.”

“I love you too, Ani, so much, so, so much,” Padmé murmurs, once again tracing his image on her comm. She lets out a long breath and laughs softly. "Goodness. I’ve missed you more than I expected to, and I’d been prepared to miss you a great deal.”

You hold my soul in your hands, Anakin thinks, looking at Padmé. He could live a thousand lifetimes, traverse a thousand universes, and never deserve her. You hold my soul in your hands and I’ll let you do whatever you like with it. 

“Tell me about her,” Anakin entreats, curling his hands into fists as he tries to reach out for her, regardless of the hundreds of systems between them. “Tell me everything.”

Padmé’s eyes light up. She tells Anakin about a girl with dark hair and smoky green eyes with clever hands and a sharp wit who wears her parents’ japor snippets and calls him Rain-Bringer. Nima, Padmé says, just enrolled in one of the best private schools on Coruscant. Nima, Padmé says, is whip-quick and courageous and already has a plan in place to share the specs of his scanner with the rest of the Rylothian slaves. Nima, Padmé says, is just like him. Nima, Padmé says, can’t wait to meet him.

Padmé, Anakin thinks contentedly, already loves Nima more than life.

In the last five minutes before Padmé has to hang up, she asks Anakin to tell her everything he can about his last mission. He keeps things brief, unwilling to burden her with his anger and disappointment with Obi-Wan, who could be so many things, who could love Anakin so well if he were not so committed to being the perfect Jedi, with the shame and grief roiling in his gut every time he speak to the clones, with the loneliness that dogs his footsteps now that Snips is gone and Padmé is all that he has left. 

You don’t know how miserable I am here, he wants to say. Force, it’s like I cease to exist. I only revive when I get to see you, when I get to touch you, and I’m never with you long.

Anakin says that he loves her instead, and resolutely ignores the look in her eyes that tells him he’s not nearly as subtle as he thinks he is. 

Later, as he makes the 501st their chinaka, he daydreams about the girl Padmé says already believes in him and all that he can be, imagines all the things that that girl will accomplish now that she belongs to herself, imagines rain on desert planets and the warmth of a calloused palm in his, and the memory of his mother’s smile is warm and sharp, a happy sort of secret.

They touch down on Coruscant in the late afternoon, and while the planet looks almost beautiful, the slowly setting sun casting the whole world in an amber glow that reflects off of the many chrome buildings near their landing site, all Obi-Wan can think of is his bed back in the Temple. He understands why the Council is so set on keeping Anakin off-planet—his former padawan has been known to lose sight of the bigger picture, and they can’t risk him getting caught up in his own celebrity—but he can’t help but resent having to do the same. He could be helpful on Coruscant. Obi-Wan is a diplomat at heart, not a general, not like Anakin. But he knows that resentment is useless, so he takes a deep breath and reminds himself to trust in the will of the Force and the Council’s ability to determine it.

Anakin has gone on missions on his own, of course, but the Council has more often than not sent Obi-Wan and his men with the 501st to act as support. Obi-Wan knows that Anakin would rather not be baby-sat and that he’s well aware that Obi-Wan would rather not be a babysitter, but for the most part, the two of them try to enjoy each other’s company and ignore the troubling implications surrounding the Council’s treatment of Anakin and his skills. 

But this last mission—well, missions, because Anakin is good at this and the Council has to scramble to find him more and more things to do—was excruciating. It started out regularly, full of high-stakes supply runs and reconnaissance missions and Captain Rex and Commander Cody teasing Anakin over something that Obi-Wan is still being kept in the dark over, but this past week made Obi-Wan want to bang his head against a wall repeatedly. Anakin has been twitchy, more hyperactive than usual, and Obi-Wan could feel his impatience in the Force. 

At first, Obi-Wan had thought that Anakin might have been homesick, but his former padawan has never loved the Temple the same way. Anakin is at home on a ship, is more at ease away from the eyes of the Council. Obi-Wan can’t blame him, for all that he probably should. But he remembers how terribly Anakin’s first visit to the Temple went, and though he’s tried to impress upon Anakin the dangers of holding grudges, he fears that the Council has done little since to make Anakin feel welcome in the Order. They believe him to be the Chosen One, but Obi-Wan is uncomfortably aware that they wish the Chosen One was someone else entirely. 

He clenches his jaw and scolds himself for thinking such uncharitable thoughts, releasing his feelings of doubt and anger into the Force. His loyalties might lie with Anakin, but being loyal to Anakin means being loyal to the Council. The Masters might be hard on Anakin, but their sternness is born out of compassion and concern. Anakin has experienced more loss than most Jedi, even considering the rising death tolls of the war—his planet, his mother, his padawan… though the first two could not have been avoided. Loss such as his leaves him vulnerable to the Dark Side, and even though Obi-Wan knows in his gut that Anakin would never Fall, the reality is that he is more likely than most to be tempted to. Not for the first time, Obi-Wan thanks his lucky stars that he was taken to the Temple at the correct age. Anakin has struggled with separating himself from his memories of Tatooine and his mother, but he has still handled it with a stoic grace that Obi-Wan is proud of. He hopes that he would have behaved so well if he had been taken to the Temple so old, but he fears that would he have failed.

Obi-Wan sighs, pushing away his negative thoughts and running a hand through his hair as he watched Captain Rex and Commander Cody organize their divisions and leave for their barracks, leaving him and Anakin alone to deal with writing the final report for the Council.

“I’ve never understood these,” Anakin grouses as he rummages through his desk to find the copies he made of the records their informant smuggled them. “We’ve been sending the Council reports twice a week. There’s nothing in here they haven’t read already.”

“Yes, but those reports aren’t given to the Senate,” Obi-Wan explains, mildly amused. Anakin understands perfectly well why they write final reports to present to the Council. He just hates paperwork. Obi-Wan sympathizes. He’d much rather just tell the Senate what they’ve been doing, but unfortunately the Senate’s protocols prioritize written records. “We can’t possibly ask such esteemed servants of the Republic to convene for military briefings at this hour when there are important dinner parties to prepare for. Much better to send the information to their data-pads so that they can all misunderstand what we wrote and demand fifteen clarifying addenda.”

Anakin snorts.

“Orn Free Taa is in fine form this month,” he says, grinning at Obi-Wan impishly. “Fifteen is being optimistic.”

“Up to date on all the newest Senate gossip, are you?” Obi-Wan observes mildly, putting down his data-pad to lean back in his chair. Anakin has someone watching their least favorite senators, and Obi-Wan wouldn’t be so annoyed by it if Anakin would just share the name of his mole. It isn’t fair. Anakin knows all of Obi-Wan’s moles. “Someday I’m going to sniff out your informants you know.”

Anakin shakes his head, eyes twinkling.

“I highly doubt it, Obi-Wan,” he replies, winking. “But I’d love to see you try.”

Obi-Wan laughs, grateful for the return of Anakin’s cocksure attitude and their easy banter. He’s been pulling away from Obi-Wan recently, so subtly that Obi-Wan sometimes feels like he’s imagining it. His former padawan has been careful around him since the war started, wary even, and it’s only gotten worse in the past months. He misses his bright-eyed and talkative padawan, misses how open and honest Anakin used to be with him—not that he thinks Anakin is being dishonest, but he knows that Captain Rex and Commander Cody did something in exchange for Anakin’s cooking and that something was probably acting as a distraction so that Anakin could triple-check their logbook and redo that week’s report. Anakin has been isolating himself, rarely seeking out Obi-Wan over matters unrelated to their missions as if he’s trying to prove something. Not for the first time, Obi-Wan wishes he wasn’t sent with Anakin to be a baby-sitter, wishes Anakin wasn’t working so hard to impress him, to impress the Council.

“I’m proud of you, Anakin,” Obi-Wan tells him, because as much as he agrees with the Council that they should be careful regarding Anakin’s ego, saying it too much might be better than not saying it at all. Anakin has worked so hard, has overcome so much. He deserves to know that Obi-Wan has noticed. “Your service these past months has been a credit to the Order.”

Anakin flushes, pleased. 

“A credit to your training, Master,” he murmurs, looking down at his hands but still unable to hide the proud, happy gleam in his eyes. 

Obi-Wan smiles softly. There he is. 

“Take the night off, Anakin,” Obi-Wan says, because even though he’s exhausted, Anakin deserves a break after working himself so hard. “Go... get a drink or participate in an illegal pod race that I obviously know absolutely nothing about. You’ve earned it.”

“But the report—”

“I’ll handle it,” Obi-Wan cuts him off. Anakin smiles, grateful, and stands to go. “You enjoy yourself.”

“Thanks, Obi-Wan.”

Nima is in her room reading over the syllabus for her robotics class (a class she has no interest in from an academic perspective, but if she’s going to spread the specs for Anakin Skywalker’s scanner, she should know what the specs mean, shouldn’t she?) when she hears Padmé exclaim Ani! and a man’s laughter.

That’s Anakin, Nima thinks. That’s Anakin Skywalker. Anakin Skywalker’s here.

“I’m not freaking out,” Nima tells herself as she puts her schoolwork away and slowly inches her way down the hallway from her bedroom to the entrance to Padmé’s apartment. “I’m not freaking out.”

(Nima was very much freaking out.)

Nima peers around the corner of the hallway to see Padmé in the arms of a tall, blonde man dressed in Jedi robes, his eyes screwed tightly shut and his face buried in her curls as they clung desperately to one another. For a moment, the image hurts so badly that Nima wants to scream until her throat is raw—her ena had held her amu like that, had stroked her hair with one hand as the other wrapped tightly around her waist. 

(Lev Windrider was killed by their depur when Nima was six. She has lived just as much of her life with them as she has without them.)

Nima watches silently as Padmé pulls away to take her husband’s face in her hands.

“You’re tired,” Padmé says, her voice tight. “Oh, Anakin…”

“I’ve been gone two months, Padmé,” he says as she trails off, taking her hands from his cheeks to press a kiss to each palm. “I’m exhausted.”

“How long will you be staying?”

“Tonight or in general?”

“Both.”

“Obi-Wan gave me the night off, but I’m not sure about the rest.”

Padmé hums, standing up on her tiptoes to press a kiss to her husband’s nose, and he wrinkles it playfully in response, making her giggle. Nima considers them. Anakin Skywalker is very handsome, with kind features and a confident bearing. In the late afternoon light, he looks like he’s made of gold, bright and brash and burning, complimenting Padmé’s darker, softer beauty. 

“We’ll worry about that later then,” Padmé sighs, pressing one last quick, firm kiss to his lips before helping him out of his outer robes. Underneath the dark brown robe, he wears a black tunic and leggings. “Right now focus on eating and meeting Nima.”

“Food can wait,” Anakin Skywalker replies, rolling his shoulders and shooting Padmé an excited look.  “I want to meet her first.”

Nima takes this as her cue, carefully making her way into the room. She tries to look like she belongs—which is easier than it was a few days ago before Padmé took her shopping for clothes (which was incredibly fun, if a little tiring, but Padmé had taken her to an ice cream parlour afterwards and told her all kinds of stories about her family while they gorged on candy-coated scoops of chocolate ice cream and giggled like children)—because the two adults orbit this room as if its their own universe, and Nima is trying very hard not to feel like an interloper. 

When Anakin Skywalker lays eyes on her, his face brightens immediately. He takes a hesitant step towards her, his left hand twitching at his side. His eyes are blue, bright blue, and they shine like twin suns. They take her in like she’s something precious, like he can’t stop looking at her, and Nima remembers Padmé telling her that Anakin hasn’t seen another slave from Tatooine since he was nine-years-old. Her heart aches for him. He must have felt very alone. Nima meets him in the middle of the room, and for a moment, they don’t say anything, but eventually he breaks the silence.

“My name is Anakin Skywalker,” he whispers in Amatakka, offering his hand to her. She takes it and he smiles softly. Nima smiles back tentatively. “But you can call me Ani if you like. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“My name is Nima Stormborn,” she replies. He takes a deep, shuddering breath and smiles wider.

“Nima,” he repeats, almost reverently, his voice flowing over the syllables of her name like water. “A strong name.”

“My mother wanted me to be strong,” Nima tells him, because that is something every slave on Tatooine can understand. “Yuned Rha called me Anissa. Enildeko called me Karu. But my mother told me to never forget that my name was Nima. That no matter what else they called me, my name was Nima.”

Anakin nods, his eyes stony and sad.

“You will never answer to a master again, Nima,” he informs her, fierce and unrelenting. His eyes burn like wildfires. “Not as long as I draw breath. You belong to no one but yourself, and your name is your own.”

Nima’s eyes water, and even though she’s been doing so well not crying, she knows she won’t be able to keep her tears at bay any longer. She trusts Padmé, of course she does, but—but for all the kindness and concern and dedication Padmé has shown Nima this past week and a half, the senator of Naboo cannot change what she is—a Core Worlder who Nima can only trust because of her connection to Anakin Skywalker. Maybe one day that will change—maybe one day she will be able to look at Padmé and not feel an instinctive, wretched sort of panic that needs to be pushed aside each and every time they speak. But for now, Anakin’s words, Anakin’s steadfast assurance and quiet strength—it’s what Nima has been searching for since her amu died.

Without thinking about it, she throws herself into Anakin’s arms, burying her face into his chest as she tries to muffle her tears. She distantly hears Padmé’s cry of concern, but Anakin just hushes them both and picks her up, carrying her to the couch like she’s three and not twelve, stroking her hair and humming an old lullaby in her ear, the one about the red-bird and the sunset. It was her amu’s favorite, which only makes her cry harder. 

“I’m sorry,” Nima sobs. “I’m sorry, I’m just—”

“I know,” Anakin soothes. “I know. I—I cried for weeks after I was freed. It’s—I know it’s a lot. It’s alright, Nima, it’s alright, you’re safe here.”

Nima hears Padmé quietly leave the room, muttering something about tzai and blanket forts. Anakin keeps stroking her hair lightly, as if he’s afraid that she’ll shatter if he presses down too hard, murmuring soft, hazy words of comfort as she cries herself out, promising her that it’s okay, it’s all going to be okay, don’t you worry about a thing, you’re free, Nima, you’re free, you’re free, you’re free, and even though she’s tired and scared and so angry, so mind-numbingly furious that she knows what it is to be chained, that her parents lived and died at a depur’s mercy, for the first time in her life, Nima hopes. 

(Later, the three of them have a long talk about where they plan on going from here. The queen of Naboo, who is a quiet but dedicated supporter of the anti-slavery movement, had offered Nima refugee status on Naboo as soon as she arrived, since the senator’s apartment is technically Naboo territory. She has all the rights and privileges as a citizen of the Republic, which means that Yuned Rha can’t take her back through any of the official channels and would have to work incredibly hard to try it through the unofficial channels. Nima is still adamant about returning to Tatooine, and while Anakin promises that they’ll get her home, he can’t give her a timeline and neither can Padmé. If Nima ignores how Anakin skirts the issue regarding what he’s going to be doing on Tatooine once they land—regarding whether he’s going to stay on Tatooine at all—well, she can be forgiven. It’s been a long night, and Padmé builds the comfiest blanket forts ever.)

With Anakin on-planet for the foreseeable future (Anakin tells her Obi-Wan must have done something, because the Council is letting him stay at the Temple for the next four months and they would never have done that if his former master hadn’t pushed for it) the three of them fall into a pattern. Anakin manages to get away from the Temple every other night for dinner, Master Jocasta happily covering for him while pretending that she is in no way covering for him (Padmé doesn’t completely understand the relationship Anakin and Jocasta have, but Nima seems to get it, so it might be a Tatooine thing), and stays until breakfast on weekends. Padmé, of course, has her work in the senate, but most of her meetings are done by mid-afternoon, so she’s usually reading things over in the apartment by the time Dormé fetches Nima from school. 

Nima, for her part, excels in most of her classes at school (barring her chemistry class which she calls cruel and unusual punishment) and quickly becomes involved in an after-school dance troupe and the debate team, so twice a week, Padmé and Anakin have the apartment to themselves for an extra two hours that they are sure to make the best of as often and as rigorously as possible.

Padmé knows that Nima is still wary of her, her initial trust being born more out of necessity and her faith in Anakin than out of her opinion of Padmé’s character and motivations, but Padmé isn’t offended. She knows that deep wounds take time to heal, and many of the people who hurt Nima dressed and spoke like Padmé. Besides, Nima trusts Anakin, adores him really, and Padmé is more than willing to take the passenger seat in this case because Anakin, her Anakin who’s almost always endearingly, painfully awkward in new situations (Padmé will never let him forget their disastrous reunion—the only one more uncomfortable than Obi-Wan during that debacle was C3-PO), takes to Nima like a duck to water. He’s attentive and understanding and lovely and it’s all Padmé can do not to kiss him senseless everytime he and Nima press their heads together over her robotics homework.

(Padmé is slowly realizing that she has a thing for Anakin being fatherly. It’s only mildly inconvenient.)

More and more, Padmé has to stifle the urge to send Orn Free Taa a gift basket because Padmé has only known this girl for a month and a half and she already loves her like she imagines she would her own child. Nima is sharp and daring and endlessly empathetic, brimming with ideas and fiercely passionate about making the world a better place. She reminds Padmé of herself at that age—if a lot more cynical and a lot less impressed with the trappings of the Republic’s government. The three of them have spirited political debates over dinner under the pretense of helping Nima practice for her club meetings, with Padmé arguing in favor of republican democracy unified under the central authority of the Senate, Nima arguing for a complete restructuring of the galactic government after a redistribution of wealth and a purge of the current bureaucracy, and Anakin arguing for whatever will annoy both of them the most. 

(Last week, Anakin took the agorist approach before switching to an anarcho-syndicalist perspective and eventually ending up somewhere approaching a truly whacked blend of anarcho-nihilism and homonationalism.

He won that debate. Padmé doesn’t want to talk about it.)

One night, Padmé is walking past Nima’s room on her way to take a bath when she hears Anakin and Nima’s hushed voices. She leans against the wall, her ear facing the door, listening to the calm, measured cadence of Anakin’s voice as he and Nima discuss issues she’s been having with her history teacher. Padmé’s Amatakka is getting better, so she can pick up most of the conversation.

“It’s no wonder that Core Worlders aren’t helpful if this is the information they’re taught as children,” Nima mutters. “And it’s not like I can tell Mr. Marena how I know he’s wrong about the history of slavery in the Republic.”

“Why can’t you?” Anakin asks, considering.

A long pause. Padmé can just imagine the look on Nima’s face.

“If this is you getting ready to pull another political ideology out of your hat—”

“No, no I’m serious,” Anakin entreats. “Ask to speak before class starts. Make them listen to you. Tell everyone that you were a slave, that you were born a slave in the Territories, where slavery is illegal. That you were a slave on this planet, where slavery is also illegal. That your parents were slaves and their parents too and all of them died because the Republic is more concerned about this emancipation narrative than it is about its own people.”

Nima is quiet for a moment.

“Did your mother die free?”

Anakin sighs shakily and Padmé’s heart aches.

“They tell me she did,” he answers. “But I—I don’t know. I hope so.”

Another long pause. Padmé wants nothing more than to drag Anakin to bed and hold him tight, so tight that none of his fear, none of his grief could touch him.

“I’ll tell them,” Nima says seriously, and it sounds like a promise, like an oath made in blood. “For my parents. For your mother. Just… be prepared to put out some fires if I have to curse a few people out? There are some really terrible rich kids in my class.”

“That’s what we get sending you to private school. Honestly.”

Anakin goes on to decry the sins of private education and to put together a compelling argument for the reformation of the public school system on Coruscant. Padmé closes her eyes, content to listen.

Anakin knows he’s been living on borrowed time when it comes to Nima and her hero-worship. She’s a good kid—the best kid, really, witty and brave and thoughtful and compassionate—but she overestimates his influence, not just in the war but in the Senate. It’s easier for Nima to understand why Padmé can’t accomplish all her goals-- she sees Anakin’s wife working late into the night on budget proposals and information release requests and the anti-slavery bill that did not make Anakin cry, no matter what Padmé says. She sees Padmé’s frustration with the system, and, well, she used to live in close proximity to monsters like Orn Free Taa. She knows what Padmé is up against, and doesn’t hold it against her. But Nima only sees Anakin in Padmé’s apartment, away from the Jedi and any politicians besides his wife and Jar Jar, so she can only understand what he does through the lens of his highly censored war stories and the truly terrible propaganda films being run by the Senate to drum up support for the war.  

It all comes to a head when Anakin is late to dinner after another meeting with the chancellor. He’s been asking to see Anakin more often now that he’s been on-planet for three months, offering him a listening ear to discuss his fears regarding the war, the Jedi’s role in it, and his frustration with the Senate and the Council. Chancellor Palpatine has always made it clear that Anakin can come to him with anything, that he has Anakin’s best interests at heart but recently… well, maybe it’s because Anakin is now in a similar pseudo-parental role that he wonders at how easily the chancellor dismisses his concern with the way the Senate has been handling things while seeming incredibly interested in discussing the issues Anakin has with the Order.

Then again, Palpatine oversees the Senate. It makes sense that he’d be offended by Anakin’s lack of faith in a body he leads. Anakin will have to try to be more considerate about that sort of thing.

Padmé greets him with a smile and a sweet, lingering kiss, but Nima looks at him strangely the entire meal, blithely ignoring his questions about her day and turning all her attention to Padmé as his wife discusses the latest news from Sola and her husband in between bites of food. Anakin shrugs it off, just glad to see that Padmé’s eating—she’s been feeling nauseous recently, and certain foods seem to set it off more than others. 

After dinner, Padmé excuses herself to take an emergency call from Mon Mothma and Anakin clears the table and sets about preparing the tzai. Nima follows him after a few moments, leaning against the counter and crossing her arms.

“You had a meeting with the chancellor again?” Nima asks in Basic, and the language choice alone makes Anakin freeze in his tracks. When he and Nima are alone, they speak solely in Amatakka, only reverting to Basic when Padmé is in the room with them so as not to leave her out, but with Padmé’s growing fluency in Amatakka, even that is becoming less and less common. 

“Ye-es,” Anakin answers, placing the herbs gently back into their satchel. Tzai can wait. 

“What did you talk about?” Nima’s voice is deceptively calm and detached, but there’s a fire in her dark green eyes that makes Anakin nervous. 

“The war mostly,” Anakin answers carefully. “The issues the Jedi are having with our new role in the military. How a few incompetant senators are single handedly making the whole thing twenty times more difficult than it has to be. Some personal things.”

Nima hums noncommittally.

“I went to see my friend Jana today,” Nima tells him. “She’s one of Yuned Rha’s slaves. She managed to sneak out to see me. They’ve almost finished building their fifth scanner, they just need a few more parts… anyway, do you know what she asked me?”

Anakin shakes his head, confused by the turn the conversation has taken.

“She asked me what it was like living with a Rain-Bringer,” she informs him coldly. “Asked me how you planned on freeing the slaves, not just on Coruscant or Ryloth or Tatooine, but throughout the galaxy. Asked me to tell her how you manipulate the chancellor like the Sky-Walking trickster you are.”

Anakin is frozen. He wants to speak, but he can’t make his mouth move.

“I had to lie to her,” Nima’s voice is as sharp as a blade. “I had to lie and say that never was there a more loyal freedom fighter, that you were working tirelessly to free slaves. I had to act like you don’t spend more than half your day bowing to the whims of Core Worlders, like you don’t consider the chancellor your friend.”

“Nima--”

“You’re Anakin Skywalker!” Nima snaps, her voice fierce and furious. “You’re one of Ekkreth’s, you’re blessed by Ar-Amu. You’re a son of Tatooine, the desert is in your blood and yet you call that slaver a friend. You’re a hypocrite, is what you are, a hypocrite who’s forgotten where he’s come from.”

For a moment, Anakin is so angry he sees red. He has not forgotten where he’s come from. Anakin knows exactly where he comes from, can remember every contour of his mother’s face in perfect detail, every frown line, every sunspot. He remembers how cold her body felt in his arms, how still and quiet she was as he wept over her and slaughtered a village to exact justice for such senseless terror, becoming a senseless terror himself. Anakin was born from violence (he’s never once believed his mother’s story about having no father-- he knows how things worked for enslaved women on Tatooine) and he lives in it still, up to his knees in tacky, crimson blood. It’s all he knows—how could he forget something so integral to who he has always been?

But Nima doesn’t give him the chance to express his fury, bulldozing over every attempt he makes to speak in his own defense. 

“You tell me to speak up in my history class, to force the other students to listen to me. But when you have the ear of the most powerful man in the galaxy, you spend your time complaining about your job and completely ignoring the responsibility you have to your people! You’ve lived on Coruscant, free, for as long as I’ve been alive, and you’ve done absolutely nothing for us. Padmé was the one to free me. Padmé was the one to enroll me in school, Padmé was the one to buy me clothes. A Core Worlder has done more for me than a Rain-Bringer of Tatooine, than one of Ar-Amu’s chosen—”

“Do not use that word!” Anakin snarls, balling his hands into fists and slamming them on the counter. Nima’s eyes widen. He’s never raised his voice in front of her before. “I am not chosen, I don’t have a great destiny, and I don’t have to, do you understand me? I don’t need to be chosen, I don’t want to be chosen. Everyone I’ve ever known is so kriffing convinced that I’m supposed to save them—you think I have to free the slaves, Obi-Wan thinks I have to be the perfect Jedi, Master Yoda thinks I have to bring balance to the Force. Well, I can’t bring balance to the Force without being the perfect Jedi, and I can’t be the perfect Jedi until I can stop feeling so attached to Tatooine!”

Anakin breathes in deeply, flexing his hands as he tries to calm down. There’s always a roiling darkness in his gut after he meets with the chancellor, a twisted, raw feeling that makes his anger and fear feel harsher and more powerful. He swallows, screwing his eyes shut. He’s just one person. He’s just one Jedi, and not a very good one at that—too volatile, too emotional, too reckless. He’s breaking the Code just by being in this apartment, just by loving Padmé and caring for Nima, just by thinking of Obi-Wan as his father in the privacy of his own mind. If he was better, if he was stronger, maybe he could be all the things everyone wants him to be, but he’s not—he’s weak and unworthy and something in him broke when his mother died, something vital, something pure. So he has to choose—the Force or Tatooine. 

Immediately, he wants to choose Tatooine, wants to kneel in front of Nima and take her in his arms and promise her that he’s going to do everything he can and more for their people. But Obi-Wan wouldn’t make that choice. Jocasta wouldn’t make that choice. The chancellor wouldn’t make that choice. Master Yoda certainly wouldn’t make that choice.

These people raised him to be good and honorable and brave. They are good and honorable and brave. He trusts them to be wiser than he is, and he knows that they would be disappointed to hear how eager he was to risk Falling just to accomplish a childhood dream. 

(A small, still voice in Anakin’s head asks him which Padmé would choose, but that isn’t a fair question. She has every choice available to her, has the power to shape her own destiny. Padmé is free.

But aren’t you supposed to be free? The voice wonders. Aren’t you supposed to have a choice?)

What use is balancing the Force if children like Nima grow up in chains? What use is balancing the Force if the Jedi Order is led by a depur, if the galaxy is still shackled to the whims of slavers? Why doesn’t Anakin understand this? Why can’t he make sense of it? Why can’t he think of a solution? What is wrong with him?

Anakin’s eyes sting. He’s crying, but he’s too tired to brush the tears away, too tired to do anything but lean forward and sob into his hands. For a long moment, his hitching breaths are the only sounds in the kitchen, Nima silent and watchful.

“Anakin,” Nima is calmer now, almost gentle, like she’s finally figured something out. The way she pronounces his name reminds him of his mother, Ah-nah-keen, the syllables long and flowing. Amatakka has always felt better in his mouth than Basic, and that, he supposes, is another failure. “Are you free?”

Anakin only cries harder, his knees buckling as he collapses onto the floor, curling in on himself, which he supposes is the best answer he can give her. Nima gasps, kneeling down next to him and pressing her forehead to his shoulder in a horrible reversal of what she did when they first met. 

“Ani?”

He doesn’t know when Padmé came into the kitchen, but he can’t let her see him like this, can’t let her think that her husband is weak and broken, can’t let her know just how desperate and aching he is. 

Don’t look at me, he wants to beg. Don’t look, don’t look, don’t look, you won’t love me if you see. 

(There’s a taint to Anakin, a sort of indelible darkness that bleeds out of his skin, a rot that spills out of him like black blood and stains everything he touches. He doesn’t want it to corrupt Padmé, doesn’t want her ruined because she is unlucky and selfless enough to love him, he who has only ever tasted sweetness when he stole it from her mouth, the worst kind of bandit, he whose wrists are rubbed raw from other men’s chains. He’ll warp every part of her that is good and lovely until all that is left of his wife is a hollow shell, he knows this, he’ll do it, he will, he’s doing it now, oh Force, is he doing it now?)

“Oh, Ani,” Padmé breathes, crossing the room to pull him into her arms. He tries to fight her, but he is so tired and she is so warm and the world is quieter when his face is buried in her dark hair. She presses kiss after kiss to the top of his head and he keens. “I’m sorry, Ani, I’m so sorry.”

“I’m not free,” he chokes out. He feels Nima take his hand in hers (he remembers: calloused palm in calloused palm) and he holds onto it like a lifeline. “I’m not free, Padmé, I’m not free. They told me I was free. Mom wanted me to be free, Padmé, I’m supposed to be free.”

“We’ll free you, Ani,” Nima swears in Amatakka, kind and warm and sure, and oh, Anakin loves her, his stormwild-girl with eyes like springtime and hands like the desert. 

“Yes,” Padmé promises vehemently, her Nubaé accent making his mother tongue sound like poetry, like waves cresting against the shoreline. “Damn the war. Damn the Jedi. You’re going to be free if I have to burn this planet to cinders, Anakin, do you hear me? You’re going to be free.”

When Anakin was a boy, he was a scared, insecure thing, sticking close to Obi-Wan’s side and following him like a duckling, growing pale and quiet whenever he lost sight of his Master, for all that he was loud and grinning whenever they were together. He would call out for his mother in his sleep, so Obi-Wan assumed it was just his way of dealing with the loss of a parental figure in his life. But even as his nightmares became less frequent and he adjusted to the Jedi way of life, he never stopped looking at Obi-Wan differently than he did the other Masters. It wasn’t hero-worship or an overabundance of respect like some of the other more excitable padawans and younglings, it was something else, something both tender and fierce at once. 

(A memory suppressed, because dwelling on it would break Obi-Wan in two: 

Obi-Wan was recuperating from a serious leg injury while they were on a mission, lingering on the hazy border between sleep and awake. 

“You’re like my father, you know?” Anakin had whispered to him, clutching Obi-Wan’s hand tightly in his own. “I know you wouldn’t like that, if you knew. You’d tell me that it was an attachment, that loving you this much is dangerous, but I do, and you can’t stop me. You’re the only father I’ve ever had and I love you. So you have to be alright, okay? Lose the leg if you have to, but don’t you dare die on me, Obi-Wan, don’t you dare. I’m not losing another parent.”)

Now, Anakin is looking at him like he did when he was a malnourished, heartsick, motherless nine-year-old boy who had seen the worst of the galaxy and knew better than to expect anything less than cruelty, his eyes wide and his hands clenched tight to his sides. 

“I need to talk to you,” he tells Obi-Wan, his voice tight, taking a seat across from him. “And I need you to listen. I need you to promise me that you’ll listen.”

Obi-Wan nods carefully, eyes widening when Anakin places a small, bloody piece of equipment between them on the table. He looks up at Anakin, his mouth parted in question.

“That was in my shoulder,” Anakin informs him, cool and detached. “It was still active. The detonation code is in my file in the Archives. Or at least it was until Jocasta took care of it.”

“But no one would have ever—”

“I know that, Obi-Wan,” Anakin cuts him off gently. “But I needed you to see it. I needed you to understand that for twenty-two years there has been a bomb in my right shoulder, right under my collarbone. It’ll help you understand why I’m making the choice I am.”

“Anakin—”

“I’m leaving the Order,” Anakin tells him, and he’s so calm, so controlled, it’s like he’s just talking about the weather and not throwing his future, the galaxy’s future away. “I—When I was younger, I thought the Jedi were heroes, that they fought for justice and peace for everyone. I thought that being a Jedi meant using the Force to do good, that the Order was more than what it is, more than the Senate’s army or a diplomatic corps or a religious cult. The Jedi, they—you’re all so concerned with this myth of the ‘greater good’ that you force yourselves to disconnect from a world you should be actively working to improve. You put your faith in the words of slavers and corrupt bureaucrats and close-minded fundamentalists like Yoda instead of trying to go out and make decisions for yourselves. I mean, no wonder the Council's ability to read the Force has been hindered—the Force connects and Jedi are supposed to be separate.”

Anakin takes a deep breath. Obi-Wan wants to argue, wants to cut in, but he can’t bring himself to. There are tears in Anakin’s eyes and he’s clutching a small piece of wood like it’s a lifeline, and Obi-Wan is so sick and tired of seeing Anakin like this, of watching him hurt and feeling so damn helpless. This is the most Anakin has opened up to him in years and-- and for all that Obi-Wan doesn't understand, for all that he fears for Anakin and wants him to stay, wants so badly for him to stay because he might not be Obi-Wan’s son but he is Obi-Wan’s brother, he is so grateful that Anakin came to him first, so grateful that Anakin is talking to him honestly, no more secrets.

“When I was nine, I was promised freedom,” Anakin whispers. “I won it, fair and square, and Qui-Gon told me that he freed me. But he never did. I have never been free, not ever. Freedom means being able to make choices. It means belonging to yourself. It means not having to worry about a slave chip under your collarbone.

“The clones aren’t free. There are countless people, innocent people, across this galaxy that aren’t free. I was so desperate to be the perfect Jedi, so desperate to believe that I wasn’t like them anymore that I forgot why I wanted to be a Jedi in the first place.”

“You had a vision,” Obi-Wan remembers, his voice soft. “Of a Jedi who came to Tatooine to free the slaves.”

“It has to be me, Obi-Wan,” Anakin tells him unflinchingly. “I’m a Rain-Bringer. I’m one of Ar-Amu’s children. I’m Shmi Skywalker’s son. I have a responsibility to my people, to my family. I need to leave, Obi-Wan. I need to free the slaves.”

The worst thing is that Obi-Wan understands. He knows how hard Anakin has been working, how he’s tried over and over again to mould himself into someone the Council would approve of. But they were never going to approve, were they? He was too old, too powerful, too emotional, too attached. Anakin was supposed to be the Chosen One, but how could he be when the Council would rather choose anyone else? 

Obi-Wan feels the instinct to release his doubts into the Force, to hold fast to his belief that the Council’s behavior is justified, but he pushes the instinct aside. This isn’t something Obi-Wan can turn away from, not anymore. Anakin shouldn’t have to cut off parts of himself to survive, shouldn’t have to live with a lie on his lips every moment of the day. That can’t be how he balances the Force. That sort of deep-rooted deception will only lead to the Dark Side. If the prophecy is true, then it will play out regardless of the path Anakin chooses. Best let him choose the path he can live with.

“I’m sorry, Obi-Wan,” Anakin murmurs, looking down at his hands, shamefaced. “I just—I can’t do both. And my first loyalty has to be to my people. They have no one else and—”

“Don’t be sorry,” Obi-Wan cuts him off, reaching across the table to take Anakin’s left hand in his. Anakin looks up at him, shocked, and oh, that stings, does he really doubt Obi-Wan so much? How brave Anakin must be then, to distrust Obi-Wan so instinctively but choose to love him anyways. “I don’t pretend to understand your choice fully, but—but you’re doing what’s best for you. You’re doing a good thing, Anakin, and I’m proud of you.”

“But—”

“I am,” Obi-Wan insists, because Anakin's love is a gift he refuses to squander. “I am proud of you, and not just because of your power or your skill. I am proud of you, of the person that you’ve become. I’m in your corner, Anakin. Always have been.”

Anakin smiles at him, and it’s like the sun coming out from the clouds. 

“That’s what Padmé said,” Anakin says. “She said that you’d understand, or at least try to, and that’s why I should tell you first before going to the Council.”

“What were you doing talking to Senator Amidala about this?” Obi-Wan sputters. Then something else occurs to him, a betrayal so terrible it might actually be unforgivable. “Is Senator Amidala your mole?”

That would not be fair. Senator Amidala knows everyone and besides, she was Obi-Wan’s friend first, damn it! But then Anakin smirks, a mischievous gleam in his eyes, and Obi-Wan quickly realizes that things can always get worse.

“Not my mole,” he replies loftily. “My wife.”

A beat.

“Anakin—”

“We got married on Naboo,” Anakin shrugs. “It was a lovely ceremony. Lakeside. You would have liked it.”

“Anakin—”

“I thought you might be upset,” Anakin hums mildly, eyes twinkling as he leans back in his chair, crossing his arms behind his head. “I guess that means I shouldn’t mention my adopted daughter then, either.”

“Anakin!”

Nima is just waking up when they land on Tatooine, her hair only slightly mussed thanks to the complicated mass of braids Padmé wove into her hair before they left Coruscant. 

(They’d packed before Anakin left the Order, just in case there was trouble. It was a good instinct—the Council had confiscated Anakin’s lightsaber after spending an hour trying to convince him to stay in the Order and another two lecturing him on the dangers of the Dark Side, so the back-up kyber crystal and extra parts he’d stashed in their bags were doubly necessary.)

“Are we here?” Nima asks around a yawn, padding over to take the seat next to him, leaning on Anakin’s shoulder as he turns off the engine.

“Yeah,” he replies, turning to press a tentative kiss on her head. Nima forgave him for their argument as soon as he started crying (which is a strategy he really wishes he didn’t have to use so much, but c’est la vie) but he still feels guilty. She hums happily and presses a kiss to his cheek in response. “You ready?”

“I’m a teenager, Anakin,” Nima points out, rolling her eyes. “Rebellion is kinda our thing. I’ve never been more ready.”

“You are not a teenager,” Anakin argues hotly. “You’re twelve.” 

“I’m almost thirteen!”

“Key word being almost, akku.”

They both freeze at the endearment. It means sweetheart in Amatakka and is usually used by parents to refer to their children. He doesn’t know why it slipped out—well, he does but he’s been trying not to push his feelings onto Nima, who still wears her parents’ snippets and mourns them in the same aching, quiet sort of way he mourns Shmi.

“It’s okay,” Nima says after a moment. “I mean—I feel that way too. About you.”

The tension in Anakin’s shoulders eases. 

“Good,” he says, standing up and pulling her into his arms, squeezing her tight. “Because Padmé and I love you very much.”

“I love you both too,” Nima says quietly, her voice slightly muffled as she presses her face into his chest. “Padmé is—it’s like my mother sent her just to take care of me. And you’re—well I’ve never had a father, but you’re what I imagine them to be.”

“You have to tell me if I mess up,” Anakin insists as he strokes her dark hair, careful not to mess up the braids that had earned his wife a blinding smile and a kiss on the cheek. “I don’t entirely know what I’m doing, and with Padmé pregnant—”

“You’re going to be great,” Nima promises, and Anakin knows he will never stop being absolutely floored by this girl’s unwavering faith in him. “I mean, not as great as I’m going to be at the whole big sister thing, but pretty close.”

(The night before Anakin and Nima left for Tatooine, after their daughter had gone to bed, Padmé had pressed his hand to her stomach and looked up at him with a sunshine smile and wet eyes. He’d whooped and spun her around the apartment, peppering kisses across every bit of her skin that he could reach.

“I love you,” he'd crowed, and then he was laughing and Padmé was laughing too, and she had never looked more beautiful. “I love you so much, Padmé, so much, troona, Padmé—" 

“I’m a month and a half along,” she’d told him once he'd stopped babbling and she’d caught her breath, her voice low and serious. “I know you need to go to Tatooine. I know that your people can’t wait. But I—I needed you to know that we have two children to fight for now, okay? You and I need to make the galaxy safe for the both of them.”

He’d knelt at her feet then, lifting her dress to press kiss after kiss to her bare stomach, whispering his love to his child and swearing that he’d do just that.)

The morning he and Nima left, the three of them sat down together and decided on Amatakka names for his child; Lukka if it’s a boy and Leia if it’s a girl. Freedom and Fury. They’re good names. Strong names. 

Together, Anakin and Nima step off the ship, his lightsaber strapped to his side and her japor snippets hanging from her belt. He and his daughter stand side by side in the desert of their birth, her calloused palm warm in his, and look up at the sky, laughing and crying and singing as it starts to rain.

After the revolution, after the war, after the chancellor is revealed to be a Sith Lord, after the Jedi’s blindness is exposed, after the Senate is reformed, after the clones are granted citizenship, after Tatooine becomes a fully-fledged member of the Republic, after every slave is freed, after—

There is Nima Stormborn, daughter of Suri Stormborn and Lev Windrider, daughter of Padmé Amidala and Anakin Skywalker, sister of Luke and Leia Skywalker; Nima, whose first family was favored by The Mighty One and whose second family is favored by Ekkreth; Nima, who makes slavers tremble and tyrants fall to their knees; Nima, who lost everything she ever loved and built herself back up again in the ashes.

There is Padmé Amidala, Chancellor of the New Republic and former Queen of Naboo, the wife and mother of freedom; Padmé whose dark eyes glow with kindness and whose hands are never idle when she sees someone in need; Padmé, who loves her husband more than life and shapes the world in the image of her children.

There are Luke and Leia Skywalker, who burn like twin suns; Luke and Leia, who are strong in the Force but refuse to separate themselves from a world so beautiful and so broken; Luke and Leia, who inherit their political-savvy and ferocity from their mother, their compassion and determination from their father, and their cleverness and fortitude from their sister; Luke and Leia, free and furious; Luke and Leia, who grow up safe and wanted and loved and laughing.

And there is Anakin Skywalker, senator of Tatooine, former slave, former Jedi, Rain-Bringer, father and husband and son, friend to Obi-Wan Kenobi and thorn in Mace Windu’s side; Anakin, whose eyes stay blue like water; Anakin, who finishes what Qui-Gon Jinn should have started; Anakin, who lives wildly and wholeheartedly and builds himself a home in Padmé’s arms; Anakin, who loves his children more with every breath he breathes; Anakin, who chose his people; Anakin, who chose himself; Anakin Skywalker, free.