Anakin Skywalker hurried through the corridors of the Jedi Temple on his way home. He had only been gone two weeks, but even such a short mission felt like an eternity. He took a moment to remind himself to be glad that, in the year and a half since he had been knighted, he had been away as little as he had; and, in fairness, he had known he would receive assignments that would take him away from Coruscant and his wife. When Anakin had first arrived as Qui-Gon Jinn's padawan, the same had been true of Obi-Wan, but Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan had complained not at all. Sometimes, when she could get away and the mission was not sensitive, Amidala traveled with him, but more often she was needed in the Senate and his work was delicate or dangerous enough that non-Jedi had to be excluded.

And now she was expecting their first child; she'd whispered the news to him the day before he'd left, and they had agreed to wait for his return before telling everyone else. Perhaps by now he'd be able to sense the child in the Force -- its life, if not its Force-presence. The thought quickened his step.

Friends and colleagues stopped him at every turn, to welcome him home, to congratulate him on a mission well-accomplished, or just to chat. He endured their attention long enough to be polite, but after a few moments with each he managed to smile pleasantly and beg their pardon as he excused himself to return to his wife. Wife and child, he added mentally, letting the glory of that thought color his expression -- and his fellow-Jedi always let him go, apologizing for delaying him. Nobody wanted to hinder a man in love.

Anakin rounded the last corner, and his heart leaped when he saw Amidala waiting for him in the open doorway. He ran to her and pulled her into his arms, holding her close and inhaling the fruit-smoke scent of her hair -- and he heard voices and laughter from inside the apartment. His high spirits faded. "What's going on, 'Dala?" he murmured.

"They wanted to welcome you home," she whispered back. "Master Jinn and Knight Kenobi are here, and Sionnach and some others of your friends. I asked them to come now so they'd all be here together, and that way they won't bother us ... later."

"Hmm," he said, considering. He turned his head and burrowed into the curve of her neck. "Mmm," he went on, as he grinned and nipped at her skin.

Amidala reflexively tipped her head to the side, but she giggled and tried to push Anakin away. "Ani, not yet," she whispered urgently.

"Hmmph," Anakin said, pulling away. "But soon. They can't stay long."

"Not at all."

"Anakin!" someone called from inside.

"Not long at all," Amidala promised again. Anakin smiled at her, squeezed her hand, and stepped in to greet his visitors.



It was only about an hour later by the time everyone had gone. Anakin closed the door behind the last of his guests and turned around to lean against it and look at his wife from across the room. She didn't look any different. He didn't know how soon it was normally apparent that a woman was pregnant, but it was evidently not this soon. He wondered if he would be able to feel the baby in the Force before he could see it stretching her belly. He wondered if it would be a boy or a girl, what they would name it, who would be its master when it left the creche to become a padawan. For a flickering moment, he thought he was luckier than Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan could ever be; they had found each other, and they had raised Sionnach when her parents were killed, but they would never know the heartstopping awe of physically creating a child that was literally part of each of them. Anakin knew they did not regret this, as it was not meant for them; all the same, he pitied them.

Amidala was slinking across the room, a sway in her step, a gleam in her eye, and a bottle of wine in her hand. Anakin blinked. A bottle of wine in her hand? He pushed his shoulders against the door and stood up straight. "That's for me, is it?" he said.

She smiled slyly at him. "All this is for you," she said, spreading her arms and turning around once with the last two steps that brought her close to him. When she reached him, she stood on tiptoe and kissed him, slowly at first, then deeper. Anakin wound an arm around her waist and bracketed her face with his other hand. She hung her arms around his shoulders. The bottle of wine bumped against his back, distracting him -- but only for a moment, because then she tilted her head in that irresistibly inviting way of hers and he had no choice but to slide his lips down her jaw to her neck.

Tongue, teeth, lips. Her arms tightened. He pulled her closer. When he dragged her head back for a much rougher kiss, she gasped and arched her body into his, subconsciously hooking one leg around his knee and pressing her pelvis to his hip. He growled and scooped her up in his arms, single-mindedly intending to carry her back to the bedroom. She still didn't drop the damned wine bottle. Cautiously, he reached back with the Force and slid the thing out of her fingers, setting it on the floor where he wouldn't kick it as he passed. "None of that now," he murmured, trying to get into her shirt without using his hands. "Not now."

"Ani, I --" She broke off, gasping, when he gave up the effort and simply closed his mouth around her left breast, still clothed. She wriggled in his arms, and he tried to shift his grip so he could put his hands to better use, but it wasn't to be. No matter. Soon enough, they had reached the bedroom, and Anakin set Amidala on her feet and began trying to remove her clothes and his simultaneously. That plan was quickly discarded. He pulled at her clothing, casting it aside without taking his eyes from her, and bent to place hard, wet kisses on her collarbone, her breasts, the hollow of her hips, before stepping back to tear away his own clothes. His hand slid between her legs as he backed away from her, and she whimpered, but when he threw her on the bed and loomed over her, her whimpers turned into moans and then cries of pleasure, which rose up and mingled with his own.



Anakin came back to himself lying face down in his bed, his weight pressing Amidala into the mattress. He tried to roll onto his side, but didn't get very far; he could hear her smile as she held him tighter and drew circles on his shoulders and slid her legs against his. "It's all right," she whispered, bending her neck to kiss his forehead, pushing his hair out of his eyes. "You don't have to move."

"Mmhmm, mmm," Anakin said.

"I missed you."

"Mssdytoo."

"I love you."

"Mmm."

"I think we should start thinking about having children."

That didn't sound right. "Hmm?"

"I know you can hear me, Anakin. I want to start trying to have a baby."

Anakin pushed his weight up off his wife and looked at her, shaking his head once to regain some alertness. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm older than you are, Anakin. I know you're away so often, but you're home a lot as well. I want children, and I want them soon."

"But -- what are you talking about?" Anakin said again. "You're already --"

"I'm not making plans without you, if that's what you're going to say," Amidala said, ducking underneath his arm to stand up and pull on a robe. Anakin sat on his left hip, looking at her, dazed. "I'm just telling you what I've been thinking. And what I'm thinking is, I want to have a child."

Anakin was stunned. Amidala was talking nonsense. She was pregnant, and she knew it. Had something happened to her while he was gone? He couldn't think what could have happened that nobody would have told him about. If she had lost the baby, she would have told him. Some sort of head injury, something that made her forget she was pregnant? Nobody could have told him about that, because nobody else had known. But if it had been serious enough to cause memory loss, she'd have been treated by a medic, and a medic would have to have found that she was pregnant, and told her so if she'd forgotten. Or, the medic would have told her if she'd lost the baby, and she'd have told him. None of it added up.

And besides, she didn't show any other signs of memory loss. She didn't seem disoriented or confused -- she just seemed to have entirely forgotten that they had already had the conversation about having children, and that she was two months gone. Or she could be pretending never to have known. But why would she do that? Perhaps she had lost the baby, and part of her mind with it? He wished he knew whether or not he should be able by now to feel the baby's heartbeat in the Force. But there was nothing abnormal about Amidala except this talking as if she weren't pregnant.

"Well?" Amidala said. "Aren't you going to say anything?"

"What happened?" Anakin whispered.

"I'm thirty years old, Ani. I know that's still pretty young, in terms of a whole life, but we're not going to live forever, are we? Why are you so surprised? Do you ... do you not want children?"

"No, that's not it at all," Anakin said hastily. "I'm just --" he chose his words carefully -- "surprised that you're talking about it now."

"Well, I didn't think there was any point in waiting," Amidala said, sitting on the edge of the bed.

Anakin reached up and carded his fingers through her hair. Gently, he felt inward with the Force, trying to determine what had happened to Amidala's memory of the baby. He felt his eyes narrow. He found no trace of any memory of ever having been pregnant. There should have been a memory Amidala just couldn't reach; he could have gently reintroduced it, if he'd been a skilled mind-healer. There might have been an empty space where the memory had been, if somehow it had been destroyed rather than hidden. Instead, there was nothing. Something very serious had happened to her. What could affect her memory so badly; what could happen that would remove all evidence of a thought, that would leave the memory without even a gap where the thought used to be? It was as if the thought had never even existed.

Anakin forced himself to take a long, slow breath. This woman was not his wife. His wife was pregnant, and knew it, or had known it once. He had just made love to someone who was not his wife.

But how could she not be? Her face, her voice, the birthmark next to her navel, the way she scratched frantically at his back when he swivelled his hips just right -- it couldn't be anyone but Amidala.

Unless the thought really had never existed, and there was only one way that could be true. Suddenly, Anakin knew exactly what had caused the deficiency in Amidala's memory: it had never been complete to begin with. Or, more accurately, it was constructed from an incomplete design. He felt a strong urge to jerk his hand away from her head; subduing it, he withdrew the hand slowly. He had just made love to a clone of his wife. He called on every shred of his strength not to leap from the bed and run to be physically ill in the 'fresher.

Palpatine had to be notified. He had been annoyed the last time the Jedi had waited to tell him someone was cloning senators, and his assumption of control had bungled the efforts to ameliorate the situation. Perhaps if Anakin told him, discreetly but immediately, about this, the problem would not escalate to the same level.

Amidala -- Amidaala, he corrected himself -- was looking at him curiously. "Come on," he said. "Let's get dressed. We'll walk and talk. I, uh, need to make an appointment to see the chancellor tomorrow. Come on over to his office with me." Inwardly, he groaned at how contrived that sounded, but to his relief, Amidaala nodded, kissed him -- he bit his tongue between his back teeth and took it -- and moved to clean up and dress.

When he had done the same, Anakin forced himself to take her hand and make pleasant conversation all the way through the temple to the shuttle bay, over to the Senate building, and back to Palpatine's office. Once there, he took a deep breath and felt into her mind again, just to be sure he wasn't mistaken. And there was the same thing he'd seen in his bedroom: the mind of the woman in front of him was not the same as the mind of his wife. Anakin closed his eyes tight and pressed the chancellor's doorchime.

The chancellor himself opened the door. "Knight Skywalker," he said. "And Senator Naberrie. To what do I owe this pleasant surprise? Please, do come in."

"Chancellor," Anakin began as he and Amidaala stepped through the doorway. It was cold inside the apartment. "I'm afraid I have unpleasant news. When you eliminated the cloning ring from your staff, you seem not to have done so completely."

Palpatine raised an eyebrow, but didn't seem as surprised as Anakin had expected. "Indeed?"

"No, sir. I have good reason to believe that this --" he indicated Amidaala -- "is a clone of my wife."

"Ani!" Amidaala was shocked. Anakin cursed under his breath. Of course she didn't know she was a clone.

"Do you." Palpatine sat lazily in a chair, and as an afterthought gestured to more seats. Anakin and Amidaala remained standing. Anakin began to remember why he had always disliked this man. He was too smooth and imperturbable. Anakin folded his hands in the small of his back; he didn't even want to touch anything in the chancellor's apartment. He shivered.

"Yes, sir. She's missing a memory."

"Anakin! How can you --"

"Just a moment, Senator, you'll have your chance to speak. And what memory is that?"

"Chancellor, if I tell you out loud, she'll have that memory. And the difference will be that much harder to determine when we find the real Amidala."

A smile twitched in one corner of Palpatine's mouth. "Very good, Skywalker," he said. "On your guard even with those you profess to trust. Excellent." He gestured in an off-hand sort of way toward a wardrobe against the wall. "Pity your wife doesn't have the same instincts."

The wardrobe door swung open. Slumped inside it was Amidala, looking as peaceful as if she'd fallen asleep. Anakin cried out and rushed toward her, but found himself stopped short by an invisible wall a meter or so from the wardrobe. He whirled around. Through the corner of his eye, he could see Amidaala gaping at her original; his attention, though, was on Palpatine, whose hand was outstretched. "What the --"

"Idiot," Palpatine said. His eyes glittered dangerously. His voice was the sound of silk catching on thorns. "You fly all alone into the web, and are surprised when you are caught. So like a Jedi. Will anyone come looking for you? No, I can see that you have told no one you were coming."

He was using the Force. Chancellor Palpatine was using the Force to keep Anakin from reaching Amidala's side. Chancellor Palpatine was sensitive to the Force. "You -- you're a Jedi!" Anakin exclaimed.

Palpatine rose with a quickness and a grace that seemed to contradict each other. The hand that had been impeding Anakin's motion came down hard across his cheekbone. Anakin spun crazily, breaking his fall with his arms. "I am nothing of the kind," Palpatine hissed. "And if you wish to bring no more harm upon yourself and your wife than you already have, you will never use that word in reference to me again."

Chancellor Palpatine had taken Amidala. Anakin's mind kept reeling. It was Palpatine who made all those clones before. Palpatine took Amidala while I was away. He substituted this clone for her. "Why?" he whispered.

"You have heard me say that my constituency is the galaxy as a whole," Palpatine said -- and suddenly he was his arrogant, oily self again. He took his seat, leaned back, and spread his hands in a gesture meant to indicate the galaxy. Anakin staggered under the rapidity of the switch from chancellor to -- to some horrible sort of Force-user -- and back. A moment ago, he wouldn't have put it past Palpatine to crush his skull between his bare hands. Now the man looked as if he might have a droid fetch him a cup of tea. "This becomes more true with each passing year. As I centralize more and more government functions, it will become more and more logical to have less and less local governments at all. One galactic ruler is what is needed, and I will be he."

"But ... Amidala ..."

"I need her to put the ideas forward," Palpatine said, as though this were the most reasonable thing in the world. "I could simply seize power, but it's much more effective to have it offered to me by a trusting and grateful public. And I shall, of course, graciously accept." Palpatine smiled.

Anakin stared. "She wouldn't roll over," he said, piecing it all together. "Before, with the trade commission, you could compel her because you're a -- because you can use the Force, but now, this is bigger, so you had to replace her with ..."

"With, as you noticed, a clone whose mind is missing some key elements of your lovely wife's. Ah, that's tiresome." He turned to Amidaala. "What did you say, my sweet, that alerted Knight Skywalker to your deception? No matter. I shall simply have to make another." Palpatine made a brief gesture with his hand, and Anakin heard the crack as Amidaala's neck snapped. She crumpled to the floor.

Anakin felt sick. "What makes you think you'll be able to keep her?" he said, as defiantly as he could. "That's my wife you're cloning, Chancellor. I'm not going to just turn around and leave her here and live my life with a duplicate."

"Indeed not," Palpatine said. "This duplicate was going to leave you. Quite soon, in fact. In any event, I'm afraid I can't let the real Senator Naberrie go back to you, not after what you've seen. I shall have to keep her with me. As you say, I can compel her with the Force quite easily; I think you'll find that very soon, you'll prefer to stay away from her rather than be close to her. She is my greatest prize, young Skywalker. Now that I have her, she will remain under my control."

Anakin's vision swam. He couldn't breathe. Even if he could have reached Amidala, he knew he'd never get her out of there. Palpatine would kill them both first. And there was no chance of fighting back; it would be a fight to the death, and Anakin couldn't kill the Supreme Chancellor of the Republic, no matter what else he might be. With Palpatine dead, Anakin's report that the man was also a Dark Jedi -- or whatever -- would be impossible to corroborate or refute. So it seemed the chancellor spoke the truth when he said Amidala would remain under his control. He would keep her sedated, most likely, and keep a first-generation clone ready to -- to hatch, Anakin supposed -- at all times. The only Senator Naberrie the galaxy would ever see again would be Amidaala; his wife, the real Amidala, was doomed to be used only for cell samples, for clone-starters. And the baby would --

Force, the baby. Palpatine couldn't possibly know about the baby; if he had, Amidaala would have had it in her memory, and Palpatine himself would have gloated over that specific fact. If Palpatine kept Amidala, too soon he'd have the child as well -- a Force-sensitive child, raised from infancy by Chancellor Palpatine, whose relationship with the Force was clearly not the symbiotic sort to which Anakin had been taught to aspire. Anakin desperately compressed his thoughts in the hope that Palpatine wouldn't be able to read them. If Palpatine learned of the baby, all hope of saving Amidala would be lost.

Anakin gritted his teeth. Could he reach out with the Force to let someone -- anyone -- know he was in trouble? And could he do it without alerting Palpatine and placing himself and Amidala in greater danger? The temple was so far away. Would anyone hear him? [[Master,]] he tried to project. [[Master, Obi-Wan, anybody ...]] But he felt as though he were standing on a cliff and whispering out into a chasm. He couldn't even see the other wall; how could he expect to hear an echo?

Nobody would come. Anakin was certain nobody would come. He shut his eyes and swore under his breath. Palpatine had no idea how tight a corner he'd put Anakin in. Very likely, the chancellor was expecting Anakin to make the appropriate Jedi choice: grit his teeth, turn his back, and walk away, leaving Amidala to her fate. By all his training, Anakin was a Jedi first and her husband second. But he was still her husband; were Anakin to take that course, Palpatine would effectively have a puppet among the Jedi, as well. Anakin would find a way to serve the Jedi without bringing harm to Amidala, and this could only advance Palpatine's cause. And Anakin might have made that choice, if it weren't for the baby. Palpatine didn't know it, but he held an Idiot's Array. There was no way he could lose -- it was just a question of how big he would win.

Anakin looked again at his beautiful wife. He knew now that what Obi-Wan had told him once, long ago, was true. Amidala was the love of his life, and he was happier with her than he had ever imagined being without. He loved her more than he loved himself. And she carried his child -- he loved that child more than he loved breathing. In his heart, he wept, for he knew no way this moment could end with him and the child on the same side of Palpatine's door. He reached out, cautiously, to see if he could sense the child's life energy. He could. It was there. Barely perceptible -- certainly nothing he would notice if he weren't specifically looking for it, Anakin noted gratefully -- but distinct from its mother. Amidala's essence was placid and serene -- and, at the moment, dull and unconscious. The baby's essence was simple, but curious. Anakin had no way to tell how strong the Force would be with the child, but he was somehow sure it would be impressive. He couldn't stand the idea of Palpatine raising his child in Darkness.

And in that instant, Anakin knew what he had to do. He went to Amidala and stroked her cheek once with his fingertips; then he stood up straight, squared his shoulders, and looked Chancellor Palpatine in the eye. "Take me instead," he said.

---

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