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They learn how to hide Anakin no longer lives at the Temple. It takes waking up earlier than he’d like, but Padmé reminds him it’s a small price to pay to keep their legs twined together through the night.
The sun hasn’t risen when he kisses her clenched fist in the doorway goodbye, the old prayer necklace leaving impressions in her palm.
“Gods, what have we gotten ourselves into?” she asks her reflection as she readies for the day, first light finally creeping in.
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Adaption was a skill Anakin had to learn early in life. Do or die.
He shifts on the cot again. It feels like something’s digging into his shoulder blades. The cots may be regulation for the troopers, but they’re too damn small for him.
“You keep making noises and tossing and turning all night Sky Guy, no one’s going to get any sleep.”
Anakin freezes mid squirm.
He forgot there were others there. Lots of others.
“Sorry,” he mumbles, all tiredness falling away. He kicks off the blankets and pulls on his boots.
Outside the tent, Rex keeps watch.
“Anything?” Anakin asks. His own eyes shoot skyward. (Out here, the stars look close to Tatooine’s – he needs to be running in the opposite direction.)
“Looks like the Separatists are moving westward along the ridge,” he offers Anakin electrobinoculars; Anakin tears his attention away from the invisible spot Coruscant occupies, “and will be in position by the morning.”
Adjusting the scopes, “Count Dooku knows what he’s doing, I’ll give him that.”
Setting the electrobinoculars down, “Take my bunk Rex, I’ll take watch.”
“Sir?”
“Can’t sleep. Those cots are tiny.”
“You get used to it, sir. About the size we had on Kamino. Probably close to your beds at the Temple, just cheaper make.”
Uncomprehending, “The Temple?”
Scrambling to catch up with himself, “Right, the Temple. Yeah, same probably about the same size, but they feel tiny. Don’t know what it is.”
Pleasedon’tnoticepleasedon’tnotice.
“Right, sir. Goodnight, sir.”
Rex retreats into the tent; Anakin exhales, stretching out the tension bunched in his back.
It wasn’t one of his better covers.
He can sprawl on the bed on Coruscant, but he shares it.
He doesn’t like the absent warmth here.
----------
R2 does his job and brings the hologram to the Council and Anakin does his and brings Padmé to the hospital.
Afterwards is tricky. He’s needed at the Temple to plan the second assault of Geonosis; he’s needed at home to make sure Padmé recovers. At least all the running back and forth is good exercise.
Padmé’s wrapped in blankets on a sofa – not the bed where Anakin left her hours earlier.
“What are you doing up?”
“I’m hardly up, am I?”
Anakin winces. He’s been trying, he really has, to not be so overprotective, but sitting at her side, watching her huddle and shiver through the effects of the poison was a setback.
There’s only a few hours left before he leaves again and he cannot go with the sickness that’s been in his own heart the past few days. He can’t go into battle, leave her behind knowing he’s angered her, possibly beyond repair.
He kneels in front of her.
“Anakin, I can’t get to my datapads –”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t trust you; that I told you couldn’t take the mission. It was stupid and I was scared…”
He places his head in her lap, his shoulders shaking, tears soaking the blankets. Her hands cradle his head.
“I know; I forgive you.”
They stay as such until Anakin realizes his knees are numb. He rises, legs shaking slightly.
“I have to go, my transport’s leaving in about an hour.” Looking down to her, “You sure you’ll be alright?”
Padmé smiles encouragingly, “Yes, yes. I don’t need you to cook for me all the time, you know.”
Anakin laughs weakly, “I’ll believe you cook when I see it. More importantly, when I taste it.”
They exchange a parting kiss, then the tell-tale sound of the door closing shuts Padmé off from Anakin.
There is already an ache.
----------
The pounding cannon fire replaces thoughts, but it doesn’t matter because Anakin’s committed the plan to memory. And where memory fails, instinct will kick in.
He’s in front and the clones are behind him and there’s only a thousand yards between him and the Separatist army and – BOOM.
The blast throws him back off his feet. Through the ringing in his ears he can faintly hear his men screaming in pain. Anakin gets back on his feet, but it’s short-lived. A second blast knocks him back and knocks him out.
He comes to with a throbbing head and a weight on his chest. Partially buried under rubble and woozy from pain, Anakin makes no effort to free himself.
“Padmé, you have to get off me, I have to go,” he whispers hoarsely to some invisible ghost.
“No, stay,” she seems to whisper back. Anakin does not want to protest, but pains seem to jab sharper. She doesn’t feel like this; slowly pressing all the air out of his lungs, crushing his bones to nothing.
“Padmé –”
“Sir! We found him! He’s over here!”
He catches a faint glimpse of Obi-Wan.
The debris is cleared and lifted away; Ahsoka and Rex pull him away. They prop him up, coughing against a larger boulder.
“Your assault didn’t go too great, did it, Master?” Ahsoka teases, crouching down. Obi-Wan and Rex stand over him.
Anakin only shakes his head, unable to speak.
“I suppose Master Windu should temporarily take command of the 501st. We’ll send you back to Coruscant for recovery,” says Obi-Wan, with a curious tone in his voice.
Anakin should say ‘thank you,’ but it would sound strange.
To Coruscant, to Padmé.
Battles used to roll off his shoulders.
----------
The day is filled with too many concessions and not enough compromises in the right. Bail grumbles after the session that he’s heading back to Alderaan to see to other things; to go where he will actually accomplish something.
3PO insists Padmé eat her dinner when she returns home, even if he balks at the idea of her eating at her desk. She smiles and thanks him for his many concerns in regards to her health and slipping hold on etiquette, which flusters and baffles him.
When the droid retreats from her office, the stillness and silence threaten to overwhelm her. Padmé finds herself unable to concentrate, listless. She stares out the window at the increasing city lights and the endless speeders and ships.
Over a month and gods know how much longer.
Absence is something they both know well now, but this feels longer. Anakin hasn’t called in nearly a week.
She reaches across the desk for the holo before stopping herself – better not. They agreed: he’d call, since she’d be more likely to be able to excuse herself from a meeting.
It’s difficult to step away from thousands of guns pointed at you.
Padmé doesn’t let herself dwell on the “what ifs” – Obi-Wan would tell her in an instant if something happened, she has no doubt of that. (And if something happened to both of them, well, she just can’t conceive of it.)
She glances down at the datapad for what feels like the hundredth time, the committee notes still an unorganized jumble. She shuts it off.
Naboo is too far to justify leaving the senate for a brief respite, but she needs to clear her head, to refocus.
The tile in the shower is frigid on bare skin as the water scalds and her own arms wrapped around herself are not enough.
Padmé’s fingers skip over the looser nightclothes: light and smooth, linens and silks, finished and fine. She doesn’t need to look; there’s no deliberate choice tonight.
She stops on something she does not recognize as her own; the fabric scratches her skin ever so slightly. She yanks it out of the closest, all others forgotten.
How odd she only now realized Anakin left this behind.
Tucked away in the back, it still smells of him (sweat, engine oil, the tang of recycled ship’s air). His half of the bed lost his scent within days of his leaving, but his robes remain.
Padmé wraps herself in the robes, so unlike everything she’s ever worn, and yet despite too-long sleeves and comically large shoulders, it still wears something like a gown. She’ll wear this, only this, when Anakin gets home.
She laughs to herself as she sinks into their endless bed, alone.
Work will resume in the morning and Anakin may call tomorrow.
(He doesn’t.)
----------
There is a heaviness with the death of Master Piell and Anakin still twinges with a trace bit of annoyance that Ahsoka did not follow his orders (the greater part of him is pleased; the mission would have been more failure than success without her).
And now there is Captain Tarkin. He could prove a useful ally in working around some of the Jedi’s more restrictive military restrictions.
Padmé’s not at the apartment when Anakin and R2 return. 3PO sets about preparing the table, Anakin cooks.
“What a surprise to come home to!” exclaims Padmé, taking the glass of wine Anakin hands her.
Settled down at the table, she launches into the details of legislation moving forward; it goes over his head, but Anakin’s glad to hear her work progresses.
“How’d the mission go, or is it still classified?”
Anakin hesitates for a moment.
“There seem to be new opportunities opening up that will hopefully change the state of the war.”
Padmé considers what he says, then raises her glass, “To the future.”
Anakin does likewise.
----------
Queen Neeyutnee requests Padmé stay on to work through mediation with Lyonie, and Padmé does her duty.
Anakin stays too, on bed rest and recovering. He mutters you get used to the electrocution after a while.
Padmé returns home from Theed, the speeder flying through the landscape towards the mountains and the lakes. The winds are chilly and she pulls her cloak closer. She hasn’t been on Naboo to see a seasonal change in quite some time. It’s going to be a cool night.
When Padmé comes through the entrance foyer, Anakin leans on her mother’s dining room table, still unsteady on his legs. She drops all her bags, running over to catch him, though he hasn’t collapsed yet.
“Hey, hey, it’s okay. It’s coming back. I’ve been walking around the house for the better part of the afternoon.”
Somehow, Padmé doubts that. She’ll have to check for broken things later.
“This table’s the only thing that’s heavy enough to hold me up long enough.”
“What about the bed?”
“I can’t get back upstairs.”
Padmé rolls her eyes. Count on Anakin to get himself downstairs without a plan to get back up.
“So you ignored what the med droid told you what to do and tried to get yourself killed – at home?”
Meekly, “Sorry.”
Padmé sighs, “Don’t apologize to me. Let’s just get you over to the sofa.”
Anakin is hobbling less than he was two days earlier, but Padmé keeps steadying hands on his waist anyway.
Fire crackling in the fireplace, it is the only light in darkening room. Anakin’s arm is wrapped around her shoulders, her head rests in the crook of his neck. Despite the fears over negotiating the exchange of her husband and a critical Separatist leader, days earlier, Padmé has not felt this content in a while.
“You really feeling better?” she asks.
Anakin opens one eye, “Yeah.”
“Good.”
Padmé climbs onto his lap and although he grunts in discomfort at first, there is no mistaking the grin spreading across his face.
Though the first autumn chill permeates the house, the warmth from the fire seems to curl onto Padmé’s back and Anakin is a solid heat pressed to her front.
----------
She’s spoken to Obi-Wan. She’s spoken to Ahsoka.
She hasn’t spoken to Anakin.
Maybe at this point they’re past speaking of it; he’s poured out all his words and she’s given all the empathy she can give.
He quietly thumbs through what Padmé assumes are battle plans as she reviews old speeches.
She glances up; he’s glazed over and staring out the window.
“Do you want to talk about it, Anakin?”
(What it was to go back? What it was to see those you love in chains as well?)
He shifts, uncomfortable. Padmé wishes she hadn’t brought it up.
“What’s happening with Organa’s anti-slavery bill?” he asks unexpectedly.
“Coming along, but you know it’s going to be slow while the war’s going on. The Chancellor’s made the war the priority, and the senate’s following, unfortunately.” There is a bitter flourish in her last word. Even Bail Organa has his limits in fighting Palpatine.
Anakin has a strange glint in his eye, but says no more. Padmé does not press. If he needs to speak of what happened on Kadavo, let it spill out, she will be ready.
He holds her so close that night she swears she can hear his heart skip beats.
She kisses his fists; some of the strain in his arms goes out.