Please excuse the cheesy title I've just been calling this "the single parents AU" in my head for weeks and I had to scramble to come up with a title before posting lmao anyway here are a few quick preliminary notes:

1. As always, I have the whole thing written already so updates should be pretty speedy assuming I don't end up overediting the remaining chapters. This fic is gonna be pretty short n sweet for a multichapter! As of right now there's only 8 chapters + epilogue, most of which are about the same length as this chapter. That actually sounds like kind of a lot of chapters now that I'm saying it, but I swear it doesn't feel like a long fic haha

2. There's going to be one (1) sex scene later on, so I'll be changing the rating when we get there. But for right now, everything is G-rated extreme fluff, aka my specialty :D

3. I have not interacted with any kindergartners in QUITE some time, so please let me know if anything seems off about my portrayal of them so I can fix it.

4. Padme and Leia are Jewish in this story but I myself am not Jewish, so please let me know if anything seems off about my portrayal of them so i can fix it.

ANYWAY without further ado, here's the first chapter!

"Daddy, I wanna go home."

Anakin looked down in surprise and saw that Luke was gazing up at him with a frown on his face. "Home? It's your first day of kindergarten, Luke. You've been looking forward to it for weeks," Anakin reminded him; he'd spent the last two weeks listening to Luke constantly prattling on about how excited he was for school to start.

But now, it seemed, the five-year-old was having second thoughts. "I wanna go home," he repeated, sounding close to tears.

That, combined with the nervous glance Luke threw in the direction of all the kids heading towards the school and the way he tightened his grip on Anakin's hand, clued Anakin in as to what the problem was. He crouched down so they were at eye level and smiled encouragingly at his son, taking his other hand too. "There's nothing to be scared of," he said soothingly. "All the other kids are going to be so nice. You'll make friends right away, I know you will."

"What if they don't like me?" Luke said anxiously.

Anakin squeezed his hands. "Of course they'll like you."

"What if no one wants to play with me at recess?"

"They will, I promise," Anakin said again, racking his brains to think of something else he could say to make Luke feel better. Then inspiration struck: "When I pick you up this afternoon, we'll go out for ice cream to celebrate your first day. How does that sound?"

That did the trick, as Anakin knew it would. Luke's frown immediately turned into a grin. "Okay!"

Anakin chuckled and kissed him on the forehead. "All right, then. Are you ready to go over there now?"

Luke darted another apprehensive glance towards the school, but then he nodded. Anakin straightened up and led him from their car over to the schoolyard, which was packed with kids and parents trying to locate the correct class of the many gathered outside the building. Anakin knew the kindergarten classrooms were on the south end of the building, so he wandered over in that direction with Luke clinging to his hand and trotting to keep up with his much longer legs.

The kids were definitely getting smaller, and at last they were surrounded by some who appeared to be kindergarten age. Anakin scanned the crowd, trying to figure out which adult was the teacher. He gave up after a moment or two and took a step towards a nearby woman whose back was to him. "Excuse me," Anakin said. "Is this Mr. Organa's class?"

The woman turned around, and Anakin was pretty sure his heart stopped beating then and there. She was without a doubt the most beautiful human being he had ever seen in his entire life. That is, if she even was a human being and not some sort of angel or something. Her brown hair was pulled back from her face in a professional-looking bun (her blouse and skirt were professional-looking also) and she had warm brown eyes—and, apparently, a dazzling smile, which she bestowed upon him a second later.

"Yes, that's him over there," she said, pointing towards a dark-haired man a slight ways away.

It took Anakin several seconds to remember what he had even asked her in the first place. Oh, Mr. Organa. Right. "Oh. Okay. Um, th-thank you," he stammered, feeling his face heating up a little; hopefully it wasn't noticeable.

She smiled again and gave him a polite nod, and after another moment Anakin managed to snap himself out of it and tug Luke over towards Mr. Organa. He was still more than a little shaken when they got there, but he did his best to get ahold of himself as he said, "Excuse me, Mr. Organa?"

The man looked over and smiled so kindly that Anakin's nervousness about what Luke's teacher would be like immediately eased up. "Yes, that's me," Mr. Organa said. He directed his smile down towards Luke. "Are you in my class?"

Luke nodded and pressed himself closer against Anakin's leg. Anakin tried to nudge him forward a little bit. "Why don't you introduce yourself?" he prodded.

"I'm Luke," the boy said in a small voice.

Mr. Organa crouched down and held his hand out for Luke to shake, which he did after a moment's hesitation. "It's very nice to meet you, Luke. I'm Mr. Organa," he said. "I'm excited to have you in my class this year. I know we're going to have lots of fun together."

Luke smiled shyly at him, and Mr. Organa stood back up to shake Anakin's hand. "I'm Anakin Skywalker, Luke's dad," he said. "It's nice to meet you."

"You too, Mr. Skywalker. Luke will be in very good hands with me, I promise," Mr. Organa added.

"Oh, I wasn't—uh, I didn't doubt that would be the case," Anakin said, a little flustered that Mr. Organa had picked up on his worries so easily.

Mr. Organa chuckled. "I've taught kindergarten for enough years to know that the parents are always more nervous than the kids on the first day."

Anakin joined in his laughter, albeit rather sheepishly. They made small talk for another minute before Mr. Organa moved on to greet some more of Luke's classmates. Anakin felt as if he should prompt Luke to go introduce himself to some of the other kids, but he couldn't bring himself to let go of his son's hand quite yet.

The warning bell rang soon afterwards and the kids started saying goodbye to their parents and lining up to go inside. Anakin knelt down and pulled Luke in for a fierce hug, furiously blinking back tears. "Daddy, you're squishing me," Luke complained.

"Sorry," Anakin said, reluctantly letting go of him. He gave him what he hoped was an encouraging smile. "Good luck today, Luke. You're going to love kindergarten. You better remember every single thing that happens so you can tell me all about it after school, all right?"

"Okay," Luke said dutifully. Then he squinted at Anakin. "Are you crying?"

Anakin blinked rapidly several more times. "No," he lied. If Luke was already nervous about school, the last thing he needed was to see his own father crying at the prospect of sending him inside the building.

Anakin hugged him again, partly to soothe Luke and partly to soothe himself. "Don't go," Luke said in a wobbly voice.

Anakin squeezed him tighter and planted a kiss on his cheek. "I have to, buddy. I already went to kindergarten a long time ago, so they won't let me back in," he joked, and to his relief, Luke giggled, seeming to cheer up a little. "You're going to have so much fun today. By the time I get here to pick you up this afternoon you won't even want to go home anymore." Anakin gave him another kiss. "I love you."

"I love you too."

At last Anakin forced himself to relinquish his son, and Luke scampered off to join his classmates. The boy in front of him in line immediately turned around to say hello, and Anakin watched with a smile on his face as Luke began chattering away to him, all nerves seemingly forgotten. He'd be fine.

But Anakin didn't think he would be. The kids went inside a minute later, and Anakin trudged back to his car with a lump in his throat. Logically, he knew this was hardly any different than sending Luke off to preschool, or even daycare or Shmi's house or leaving him at home with a babysitter, but it felt so much more momentous than that. He was officially in real public school now. Before Anakin knew it, he'd be graduating high school. How had the time passed so quickly?

Anakin was so busy wiping his eyes and wallowing in these morose thoughts that he didn't notice the person standing in front of him until he crashed into them. "Oh! I'm so sorry, I didn't see you there," he said awkwardly.

A split second later, he realized it was the beautiful woman from the schoolyard and his stomach did a backflip. "No worries," she assured him with a smile, though Anakin thought her eyes looked a little red as well. "It's my fault for stopping in the middle of the sidewalk." She held up her phone as if to say that she'd gotten a text which had prompted her sudden halt.

Anakin just smiled back, wanting to continue the conversation but unsure of what to say. Luckily, the woman had him covered. She rummaged around in her purse, pulled out a package of tissues, and offered one to him with a wry smile. "Thanks," Anakin said, chuckling. He took it and wiped his eyes, and the woman took out a second tissue and did the same.

"Is this your first kid?" she asked.

Anakin nodded. "My only kid, actually."

"Me too. My sister said it gets easier after the first day, but I don't see how it could," the woman replied, sighing. "And she's a stay-at-home mom, too, so I really don't know how she does it. The fact that I have to be at work in fifteen minutes is the only thing keeping me together at all right now."

"I know," Anakin agreed. "Well, we only have…" He checked his watch. "Less than seven hours before we can see them again."

"I'm counting down the seconds," the woman said, laughing. "Speaking of work, I should head over there now, I guess. Good luck coping for the next less than seven hours."

"You too."

Anakin stood and watched her walk away for a long minute before coming to his senses, scolding himself that he was going to be late for work, and hurrying the rest of the distance towards his car. But as soon as he was safely inside, he leaned back against the seat and started to cry. How was it possible that Luke was starting kindergarten already? Luke, his little baby? Anakin could swear he'd only been born yesterday. It was like he'd blinked and suddenly Luke had grown up. He was half afraid that if he blinked again, he'd be dropping him off at college instead of kindergarten.

College. How the hell was Anakin ever going to be able to handle sending Luke to college if he was in this much of a state at the prospect of being separated from him for less than seven hours? The thought set off a fresh wave of tears, which was interrupted a few minutes later by his cell phone buzzing.

Anakin took several deep breaths and tried to compose himself, though he was unable to entirely keep a wobble out of his voice when he picked up the phone and said, "Hello?"

"Anakin, where are you?" It was Obi-Wan Kenobi, his friend and coworker. "You were supposed to be here ten minutes ago, and you know Yoda threatened to fire you if you were late one more time."

"It's been a hard morning, okay?" Anakin said, sniffling. "Besides, he didn't really mean it, he was just trying to scare me into being on time."

"Well, clearly it didn't work," Obi-Wan muttered. "If he comes over here and sees you're gone, I'll tell him you're having car trouble. But I'm not covering for you again."

He'd said that the last dozen times. "'Kay. Thanks. I'll be there in a minute."

"You'd better be."

As he drove to work, Anakin tried to distract himself from Luke, and his mind landed on the beautiful woman instead. But he suddenly realized in disappointment that if she was the mother of a kindergartener, in all likelihood she was also married. After all, their town was pretty much as suburban as you could get, filled with traditional nuclear families; Anakin had been the only single parent in Luke's entire preschool class, so he didn't see why it wouldn't be the same for his kindergarten class too.

Anakin slouched into the office in a miserable mood, and he flopped down at his desk with a loud sigh. "Only twenty minutes late today," Ahsoka said, snickering. "That's your best yet."

"And Yoda didn't even notice," Obi-Wan added. "Truly a new record."

"Shut up," Anakin grumbled as he stuffed his bag under the desk and booted up his computer.

Their faces both softened, probably because Anakin hadn't done a very good job of disguising the fact that he'd been crying before he got out of the car. "So how was the first day of school?" Obi-Wan asked.

"I can't believe he's in kindergarten already," Anakin murmured, gazing nostalgically at the picture of newborn Luke on his desk. Luke was all over his working space: photos covering every free inch of his desk, his computer background, his phone background, and the homemade calendar Shmi had given him the previous Christmas with a different family picture for every month.

Ahsoka rolled her chair over so she could pat him on the back. "But doesn't parenting get even more fun as he gets older?" she said. "No more crying and diapers and baby stuff. And you'll be able to actually do things together aside from, like, playing with toys."

"But I liked the baby stuff," Anakin said. "He needed me then. Soon enough he'll be going to college and moving out and he'll never talk to me again."

"What exactly are you planning on doing to make him never talk to you again as an adult?" Obi-Wan said. "It's only kindergarten. You've still got twelve more years before college."

"Yeah, well, five passed in the blink of an eye."

"Don't stress about the future. Just enjoy the present," Ahsoka said wisely. "Think about how close you and your mom still are. Sure, Luke will be more independent someday, but he won't love you any less."

"Actually, he'll love you even more once he's old enough to recognize how great a dad you are and how lucky he is to have you," Obi-Wan said.

Anakin felt a lump form in his throat yet again, and he smiled at the other two. "Thanks, guys. That actually kinda helped. A little."

"Hey, now that Luke's in real school and you'll be starting to have more time to yourself, you know what you need?" Ahsoka asked mischievously a few minutes later.

"What?"

"To get laid."

Anakin groaned loudly, face flaming. "Shut up, Snips. God, I wish you and Riyo would break up so you'd stop trying to matchmake me."

"Hey!"

"All right, fine, I take it back, you guys are perfect for each other and I hope you get married someday," Anakin said. "I'm just saying, you weren't at all interested in busybodying into my love life until after you got a girlfriend yourself."

"I guess now that my love life's all set I have enough time and energy to spend busybodying into other people's," Ahsoka said cheerfully. "Also, am I really busybodying into your love life if you don't even have a love life for me to busybody into?"

"Busybody isn't a verb," Obi-Wan interjected as Anakin spluttered indignantly.

"Seriously, though, you keep saying you don't want to start dating again until Luke's older, but how much older is older?" Ahsoka asked. "I mean, wouldn't it be easier to date when he's young? That way he'll just blindly love the person instead of getting all sulky and stuff like he would if he was a teenager."

"But he'll also be way more upset when the person vanishes from his life after we break up," Anakin pointed out. "He'll have an easier time understanding and adjusting to the breakup when he's older."

"Oh. True. I guess you'll just have to meet your soulmate on the first try, then."

Anakin snorted. "Yeah, because that's likely."

"For the last time, I'm not interested in dating right now," Padmé said exasperatedly.

"Oh, come on, Padmé, I'm sure you'd be fielding a million different guys as soon as you put yourself out there," said Satine. "You're a young, intelligent, successful, beautiful woman—"

"—with a five-year-old daughter," Padmé interrupted. "Not sure if you're aware, but that's a pretty big turnoff for most guys."

"Most. Not all."

"So you just don't tell him at first," Sabé said, shrugging. "Wait until he's good and in love with you, and then you break the news and by then he'll love you so much that he won't freak out and dump you."

"What, just lie about a huge part of my life for months? No way," Padmé said with a frown. "Leia is my daughter, not some secret I'm ashamed of."

"Of course," Satine said quickly. "But that doesn't mean you have to advertise her existence on your Tinder profile."

"I'm not making a Tinder profile, and I'm not lying about Leia."

"I'm not saying you should lie about her," Satine protested, giving Sabé a look, "just that you don't necessarily have to mention her on the very first date."

Padmé sighed. "I guess that's true. But anyway, as I've told you both a thousand times, I'm not interested in dating right now because Leia's too young. She doesn't need a parade of men coming in and out of her life, getting attached to them and then being upset when I break up with them."

Sabé laughed. "Padmé Naberrie, maneater."

"Okay, obviously I'm not planning on actually cycling through a bunch of guys like that, I was just being hypothetical," Padmé said, rolling her eyes. "The point is, kids need stability, not to mention that I'm busy enough juggling Leia with work, let alone trying to date on top of that."

"Fair enough," Satine said. "All we're saying is that you shouldn't completely close yourself off from the idea of starting to date again just because of Leia. Who knows, maybe you'll meet a really great guy someday soon. You wouldn't want to let him get away just because you think Leia's too young to handle you dating. It'd be easy enough to date someone for a few months without Leia knowing about it, and you wouldn't have to tell her until you're sure the relationship is serious."

Padmé conceded the point, and they were quiet for a few minutes before she said hesitantly, "You know, actually, now that you mention it…there was someone today—"

"What?" Sabé demanded. "Who? Why didn't you tell us about this the second you walked through the door?"

"Calm down, it was nothing, really," Padmé said hastily. "I just ran into an attractive dad while I was dropping Leia off at school, that's all. I mean, we only talked for about ten seconds and I'm sure he's probably married—"

"Did you see a ring?" Satine asked, looking highly interested.

"Well, no," she admitted. She may or may not have involuntarily glanced at his left ring finger when she'd passed him the tissue, and it was most definitely bare. "But that doesn't necessarily mean anything. Maybe he's married but doesn't have a ring, or maybe he's engaged but not married yet, or maybe he's in a committed long-term relationship and they just didn't want to get married, or—"

"Or maybe he's single," Sabé said, snickering. "Jeez, you seem to have thought an awful lot about this even though it was 'nothing, really.'"

Padmé blushed as Sabé and Satine gave her matching Cheshire cat grins. "I was just trying to distract myself from being sad about Leia starting kindergarten," she mumbled.

"Mm-hmm. So what exactly went down between you and Hot Dad?"

"'Hot Dad'? For God's sake, he wasn't that hot." Padmé paused. "Actually, that's a total lie, he was possibly the hottest person I've ever seen."

"Now we're talking," Satine said in delight. "All right, spill."

"There's really not much to tell," Padmé insisted, but she dutifully told the whole story anyway.

"Okay, so he's hot, he has an adorable son who he loves very much, and he's comfortable enough with his masculinity to cry in public," Sabé said, making Padmé roll her eyes yet again. "He sounds perfect."

"Sure, if he's single, which he probably isn't because he's gorgeous," Padmé replied. "Anyway, I'm not looking to date right now, okay? I was only sharing a fun anecdote because I thought you'd appreciate it, I don't actually care."

There went the Cheshire cat grins again. "Sure, Padmé."

Hope you enjoyed this chapter and that you stick around for the next one! :)