Author: Jenny Dare
Question: What did Shmi really mean when she said "there was no father"?
Category= Crossover: Star Wars/Star Trek
Rating: PG-ish (sorry, no smut! what a surprise for me!)
Timeline: Pre-TPM
Archive: Sure, ok...just tell me first, 'kay?
Author's Comments: Even as I ready myself to actually post this, I feel
slight trepidition due to the weirdness of this little theory/idea...check
it out and then let the comments unfold... :)
Feedback: gimme gimme!

*Holding breath* here goes...
=========================================

Star-Crossed Legacy

The slave woman looked down at her swelling belly. She was six months along now, she realized, to the day. She lay an affectionate hand atop the growing life within her and smiled, then sighed. It would be difficult, that much was sure, to raise a child on her own. Shmi Skywalker gazed out the window to the night sky and looked at the stars, wondering if the father of her baby was among them, wondering if he was still in this galaxy or if he'd traveled off to another. So strange, this man had been. So very mysterious and self-assured, an enigma, at the very least. A single word, a single  letter actually, was what he'd said his name was. Q. How very unusual.

When first she'd met him, she thought him mad, telling the ranting and incomprehensible tale of being punished and banished from his Order, being sent here to this dissolute land, this lonely planet, to live and work among the mortals as penance for his wrong doings. And he'd been angry as he spoke, threatening revenge and retribution on those of his kind who'd done him wrong. Shmi had dismissed him at first. She had been going about her daily chores and pretending like she didn't even hear these raving thoughts of a madman, when actually she'd hung on each and every word, intrigued and oddly sympathetic toward the curiously handsome man.  He'd no where to go. So he followed her as she went about her work.

What day was it that she finally spoke to him? The second or third? She was unsure. For the first couple of days she'd left him a blanket on the doorstep of her slave's quarters, a tiny hovel barely high enough for her to stand up straight in, let alone admit his lanky frame. What day had she invited him inside her home, inside her heart? The days blended together in a stream of fond, bittersweet memories. These answers she didn't know, couldn't recall. But it had been five months since he'd disappeared.  Five months since she'd been left alone.

Her baby would never know his father. His strange father who possessed bizarre magic and  talents she'd never known the likes of. Who'd called himself omnipotent and superior, while she laughed at his self-righteousness. Omnipotent, indeed, what lofty delusions! But she'd  loved his fierce disregard and found his endless complaining to be part of a peculiar charm.

And then one night she woke alone. His penance had been fulfilled, apparently. He'd left with no goodbye.

Inside of her, Shmi felt her unborn child stir and bump, and it made her smile. She loved this baby, her son. She knew it was a son. He was already strong and determined, and she felt that he would someday be something very, very special. She would never tell anyone of the stranger that she'd known, the lover who'd vanished without a trace one quiet night, who'd left her bed and left her life with not much more than the ramblings of a man who claimed to be not of this world. But she would raise this child with love and care, and he would be her cherished prize from a union that she would never reveal.

Her eyes filled with tears but she would not let them overflow. This child was her gift, and she would treat him as such. She would love him with every ounce of her being. He would grow up a slave, perhaps, but he would be loved beyond all things. She would give him her surname, and give herself a legacy in doing so.

She looked down to the roundness of her midsection and despite her best efforts, a single tear fell onto her belly. Inside her, the baby kicked, as if in reaction to the salty drop, and it made her laugh.

Her son. She knew he would be her greatest joy. And his name, she thought to herself, will be Anakin.

==Fin==