Part 16 (1/2)

Anakin lurched upright in bed, gasping, staring blindly into alien darkness.

How she had screamed for him-how she had begged for him, how her strength had failed on that alien table, how at the last she could only whimper, Anakin, I'm sorry. I love you. I love you-thundered inside his head, blinding him to the contours of the night-shrouded room, deafening him to every sound save the turbohammer of his heart.

His hand of flesh found unfamiliar coils of sweat-damp silken sheets around his waist. Finally he remembered where he was He half turned, and she was with him, lying on her side, her glorious fall of hair fanned across her pillow, eyes closed, half a smile on her precious lips, and when he saw the long, slow rise and fall of her chest with the cycle of her breathing, he turned away and buried his face in his hands and sobbed.

The tears that ran between his fingers then were tears of grat.i.tude.

She was alive, and she was with him.

In silence so deep he could hear the whirring of the electro-drivers in his mechanical hand, he disentangled himself from the sheets and got up.

Through the closet, a long curving sweep of stairs led to the veranda that overlooked Padme's private landing deck. Leaning on the night-chilled rail, Anakin stared out upon the endless nightscape of Coruscant.

It was still burning.

Coruscant at night had always been an endless galaxy of light, s.h.i.+ning from trillions of windows in billions of buildings that reached kilometers into the sky, with navigation lights and advertising and the infinite streams of speeders' running lights coursing the rivers of traffic lanes overhead. But tonight, local power outages had swallowed ragged swaths of the city into vast nebulae of darkness, broken only by the malignant red-dwarf glares of innumerable fires.

Anakin didn't know how long he stood there, staring. The city looked like he felt. Damaged. Broken in battle.

Stained with darkness.

And he'd rather look at the city than think about why he was here looking at it in the first place.

She moved more quietly than the smoky breeze, but he felt her approach.

She took a place beside him at the railing and laid her soft human hand along the back of his hard mechanical one. And she simply stood with him, staring silently out across the city that had become her second home. Waiting patiently for him to tell her what was wrong. Trusting that he would.

He could feel her patience, and her trust, and he was so grateful for both that tears welled once more. He had to blink out at the burning night, and blink again, to keep those fresh tears from spilling over onto his cheeks. He put his flesh hand on top of hers and held it gently until he could let himself speak. ”It was a dream,” he said finally. She accepted this with a slow, serious nod. ”Bad?”

”It was-like the ones I used to have.” He couldn't look at her. ”About my mother.”

Again, a nod, but even slower, and more serious. ”And?”

”And-” He looked down at her small, slim fingers, and he slipped his between them, clasping their two hands into a knot of prayer. ”It was about you.”

Now she turned aside, leaning once more upon the rail, staring out into the night, and in the slowly pulsing rose-glow of the distant fires she was more beautiful than he had ever seen her. ”All right,” she said softly. ”It was about me.”

Then she simply waited, still trusting.

When Anakin could finally make himself tell her, his voice was raw and hoa.r.s.e as though he'd been shouting all day. ”It was . . . about you dying,” he said. ”I couldn't stand it. I can't stand it.”

He couldn't look at her. He looked at the city, at the deck, at the stars, and he found no place he could bear to see.

All he could do was close his eyes. ”You're going to die in childbirth.”

”Oh,” she said. That was all.

She had only a few months left to live. They had only a few months left to love each other. She would never see their child And all she said was, ”Oh.”

After a moment, the touch of her hand to his cheek brought his eyes open again, and he found her gazing up at him calmly. ”And the baby?”

He shook his head. ”I don't know.”

She nodded and pulled away, drifting toward one of the veranda chairs. She lowered herself into it and stared down at her hands, clasped together in her lap.

He couldn't take it. He couldn't watch her be calm and accepting about her own death. He came to her side and knelt.

”It won't happen, Padme. I won't let it. I could have saved my mother-a day earlier, an hour-I . . .” He bit down on the rising pain inside him, and spoke through clenched teeth. ”This dream will not become real.”

She nodded. ”I didn't think it would.” He blinked. ”You didn't?”

”This is Coruscant, Annie, not Tatooine. Women don't die in childbirth on Coruscant-not even the twilighters in the downlevels. And I have a top-flight medical droid, who a.s.sures me I am in perfect health. Your dream must have been . . . some kind of metaphor, or something.”

”I-my dreams are literal, Padme. I wouldn't know a metaphor if it bit me. And I couldn't see the place you were in you might not even be on Coruscant ...”

She looked away. ”I had been thinking-about going somewhere . . . somewhere else. Having the baby in secret, to protect you. So you can stay in the Order.”

”I don't want to stay in the Order!” He took her face between his palms so that she had to look into his eyes, so that she had to see how much he meant every word he said. ”Don't protect me. I don't need it. We have to start thinking, right now, bout how we can protect you. Because all I want is for us to be together.”

”And we will be,” she said. ”But there must be more to your dream than death in childbirth. That doesn't make any sense.”

”I know. But I can't begin to guess what it might be. It's too-I can't even think about it, Padme. I'll go crazy. What are we going to do?”

She kissed the palm of his hand of flesh. ”We're going to do what you told me, when I asked you the same question this afternoon. We're going to be happy together.”

”But we-we can't just . . . wait. I can't. I have to do something.”

”Of course you do.” She smiled fondly. ”That's who you are. That's what being a hero is. What about Obi-Wan?” He frowned. ”What about him?”

”You told me once that he is as wise as Yoda and as powerful as Mace Windu. Couldn't he help us?”

”No.” Anakin's chest clenched like a fist squeezing his heart. ”I can't-I'd have to tell him ...”

”He's your best friend, Annie. He must suspect already.”

”It's one thing to have him suspect. It's something else to shove it in his face. He's still on the Council. He'd have to report me. And . . .”

”And what? Is there something you haven't told me?” He turned away. ”I'm not sure he's on my side.”

”Your side? Anakin, what are you saying?”

”He's on the Jedi Council, Padme. I know my name has come up for Mastery-I'm more powerful than any Jedi Master alive. But someone is blocking me. Obi-Wan could tell me who, and why . . . but he doesn't. I'm not sure he even stands up for me with them.”

”I can't believe that.”

”It has nothing to do with believing,” he murmured, softly bitter. ”It's the truth.”