Chapter Text
I
The air outside was a stagnant blanket. Too hot, even for Naboo. That was what Padmé had said.
They had arrived a week ago today. Anakin had been counting not just the days but the hours and the minutes too. Especially when they were apart and the time stretched out into infinity and the heat, humid and not like Tatooine's dry desert at all, made him feel sticky and sluggish and there was nothing more for him to do but mope.
Anakin tried to convince himself that he dreaded any time apart from Padmé because it was his mission to protect her, and he couldn't do that if he wasn't around her. The truth: any time apart was time wasted, time together a finite resource, dwindling before his very eyes. He would probably never see her again after this mission was done; the Council would not let him. Obi-Wan already suspected too much.
And so, when Padmé was working, Anakin moped around and pretended it was meditating. He walked the length of the grounds three, four, five times in a morning. He watched the water on the lake ripple until every silver shimmer blurred into one and it looked like fog instead of sunshine. He sweated, and he licked his dry lips, and he waited for her to be ready for him again.
Padmé had apologised for having to work ('it's okay, I admire your dedication,' he'd said, too bashfully, too boyishly) and she had suggested several things he might enjoy doing when she couldn't be with him. He had tried a few just to be polite, miserable every second because he was not near her and didn’t know how to orchestrate more time together.
The first thing she'd suggested on their first night was maybe he'd like to take a bath. Had he imagined the way she'd grazed her bottom lip with her teeth when she'd said it? The way she'd looked at him from beneath her eyelashes, her gaze lingering a little too long on his mouth?
They had kissed only hours ago (too much to think of now without falling to pieces)—was there something else she wanted from him?
Could it be … did she …?
But he could not let that thought pass through his head even momentarily, because it would disarm him in front of her, and then she would know for a fact that already he could not live without her.
She doesn't think of you that way. You shouldn't think of her that way either.
But he might as well have told the sun not to shine or the wind not to blow, because his love for her was just another fact about the way the world worked.
Does she … could she want me too? He gave up, indulged a little in the agony of that line of thinking.
But she wouldn't tell him, so he didn't ask, and he was tortured by the way the question lingered in the air between them like her taste had lingered on his lips.
He'd gone to his room alone and eased his tired muscles into the largest bath he'd ever seen. Sinking under the water, it had enveloped and caressed him. The bath was big enough to stretch out fully despite his height. He'd dipped his head beneath, holding his breath until he couldn't anymore, and then resurfaced in a cloud of exhaled bubbles. Then he'd simply laid there for however long, his Padawan braid floating on top of the water, bumping into his cheek as a constant reminder of his duty and the rules he had sworn to live by.
But eventually, Jedi training be damned, he'd thought about her, and then the sweat on his face had had nothing to do with the temperature of the water. What was the bath in her fresher like? Did she soak for hours like this, soft skin made softer by all the different oils she poured in? But thinking of her skin had been a mistake because then he'd wanted to be with her on the balcony again and he was a Jedi and there was a Code and he had to follow it but how could he do anything when being here with her was the only thing he'd ever wanted and he was only just realising that now?
What would it be like to be in this bath together? He had felt himself growing hard before he could stop it, his cock no longer languidly floating in the warm water. He’d been shy at first—not the first time he'd done this, but the fact she was in such close proximity made him feel guilty—but then he gave in to temptation, just another strike against him, another way he couldn't measure up. He'd grabbed his cock, each stroke punctuated with another thought of her, until when he came he'd bit his lip and drew blood that tasted like salt and rust and unease on his tongue.
I shouldn't be thinking of her like that. She wouldn't want me to.
But it was impossible not to. Every beat of his rapid heart pumped blood around his veins, and as long as he was alive, he would not be able to stop thinking about her.
Or stop loving her.
He'd emerged from the bath pink and more naked than he'd ever been. Then he'd collapsed into bed, still undressed, and woken at three the next morning so thirsty his tongue filled his entire mouth.
The second thing Padmé thought he might like was access to the library. She'd made it clear upon arrival that he had free roam of the villa and the grounds (the boundary of her bedroom had remained unspoken by her but obeyed by him), but she went out of her way to show him this "most special" of rooms.
The library was a dark, close space. Walls of bookshelves, dim lighting. The furniture was carved wood and green velvet. So far removed from Coruscant's sleek lines and cold colouring that it was hard to imagine Padmé ever existing any other place but here.
On the shelves there were so many holobooks and, to her delight upon showing him, real books too.
'This is one of my favourites,' she had told him, taking a clothbound volume from a lower shelf and opening it to a page marked with a slim piece of fabric.
Before he could make any kind of remark, she had read a passage to him. Her voice was flinty, tender, regal, meant—like the rest of her—for worship. He would gladly throw himself at her feet. Instead, he had stood an awkward arm's-length away.
'"If I get only one more day, I must spend it well with you. I need it above all other things; in fact, if I don't get it, I shall die all the sooner for missing you."' She had looked up from the book. She had looked at him. 'That's beautiful, don't you think?'
He’d murmured, 'yes', the entire time looking so deeply into her eyes he’d thought for a moment that he could unravel the tightly-wound mystery of her heart. Why had she chosen such a passage, one full of longing for love? Had this been her way of speaking the truth to him when she could not be confident of her own words?
He had seen himself reflected in the rich colour of her irises and in her pupils (slightly dilated, but maybe just because this room was darker than the rest), as if there was a tiny version of himself inside of her looking back at him. She would have seen herself reflected in his own eyes. It had suddenly been too much, and they had both looked away.
She had cleared her throat gently. Still looking away from him she’d said: 'If you like, you could borrow this book? Or any of the others.'
He had returned a while later, thumbing through the book she had read to him from, the paper old and smelling like a world that didn’t exist anymore. Even if he could not work out her meaning (likely there wasn't one, likely he was just obsessing about it), he had still revelled in being in a space so important to her. Sharing something, an experience, some more common ground in just the tiniest sense. Something to link them together: they had both read this book, they had both enjoyed it.
The third thing Padme had suggested to him was a swim in the lake. He'd turned it down immediately, feigning lack of swimming skills ('I grew up on a desert planet'), but really knowing that if they were in the water, barely clothed, bodies wet, bodies together, he would break the Code instantly and it would all be over in a heartbeat. There would be no way to hide his longing then. His whole heart would be on display.
II
Sometimes they dined together. Sometimes they didn't. Anakin would wait in his room until he could sense movement in the hallway (her bedroom was right near his, practically next door, and the thought set him on fire every time it crossed his mind so he made sure never to think of it), and then he would wait a little longer to be sure. He never wanted to be the first one in any of the rooms except his own; he was a guest here, a stranger, more out of place than he had ever been. A stranger to himself with all of these new desires.
Each time, when he'd waited as long as he possibly could, stomach churning but not from hunger, Anakin would steal quietly to the dining room, where Padmé would be if she was dining with him for that meal. His heart would beat with every step of his short journey. It would stop if she was there and stop if she wasn't.
Most of the meals they had together were dinner, but sometimes, if Anakin was especially lucky that day, it would be lunch too. He rarely saw her in the morning; the only time they’d had breakfast together thus far was on the first day, and Anakin suspected that was mainly Padmé wanting to be a good host, rather than wanting to spend more time with him.
Over dinner they would have a conversation. Each one would start awkwardly, the two of them tiptoeing around until they eased into each other again, like dipping a toe into a scalding bath and lowering each body part in slowly until it was all just right.
When it was right, and they were comfortable and familiar with each other again, the conversations could last for hours. The food would grow cold on their plates as they wound through all sorts of topics; politics (briefly), family (more in-depth), the different sights they'd seen around the galaxy (a favourite). Anakin would share stories of his training with Obi-Wan, always careful to shave the edges off the parts where he'd pushed the limits just a little too far. Padmé would tell him about her time as queen and all the different ways she'd done good on so many different planets. They would talk until they were so comfortable they'd even be talking over the top of each other, fighting to get their words in, joking about the other and maybe, just maybe, growing closer.
But then the next time would see them starting at the beginning. They would sit quietly, awkwardly, making small-talk over their entrees as if they hadn't just been sharing their hopes and dreams the night before. Something reset at the end of each conversation, some imaginary walls were always rebuilt. They wasted time each night smashing them down again.
III
‘What do you dream of?’
The question caught Anakin off-guard. He fumbled for an answer.
They were sitting across from each other on one of the private balconies. Padmé had a wine glass in her hand. There was an almost-empty bottle on the low table between them, sitting amongst the remnants of their shared lunch (Anakin had been particularly lucky today).
‘Ani?’ She repeated the question. ‘What do you dream of?’
He was flushed, from the unexpected question and from the wine he had had. It was very humid. He was sweating.
‘Oh, lots of things, I guess,’ he said eventually.
Padmé studied him for a while. She seemed unsatisfied with the answer, and she stretched out her arms and her legs, and she settled back into her seat a little more comfortably. She did not ask him the question again, but her silence compelled him to give a better answer. He didn’t want to disappoint her, and worse than that, he feared the conversation might be over.
He peered down into his glass. ‘Sometimes I dream of my mother.’
‘On Tatooine?’
He nodded. The lump in his throat appeared suddenly and had nothing to do with the fact she was sitting across from him.
Silence between them. Anakin focussed on nothing but the way the wine moved in his glass, leaving a little wash of colour on the crystal when he tipped it gently from side-to-side. He was still sweating. The lump in his throat had settled and he couldn’t swallow it away. It was choking him.
‘I’m sorry, Ani.’ The words were a murmur, almost carried off on the breeze. ‘I know you don’t like to talk about her …’
‘It’s alright,’ Anakin replied. He was still focussed on his wine glass. The lump in his throat still strangled his words. ‘I just …’
Padmé rose from her seat. She took the wine bottle and filled his glass, although there was barely a trickle left. When the bottle was empty, and his glass was full, she stood there still. Anakin stared at his now-full glass and tried to swallow the lump away with wine and then she was standing next to him and her hand was on his shoulder and he looked up at her and saw how her expression was so warm, so tender, so full of concern.
Nobody but his mother had ever looked at him that way. Suddenly everything was okay. She was here and her hand was on his shoulder and because of that, everything was okay. Even though he missed his mother so much his heart, his very soul, might tear itself into pieces. Even with that, everything was okay.
She rubbed her thumb back and forth on his shoulder-blade. He was not wearing his robe, but her fingers still met with the tough leather of his tabard. He was still sweating. A breeze had come up and it was not so humid anymore.
Her hand was still on his shoulder, but she looked away, out across the lake. Her dress was the same colour as its water. Eventually, she sat back down in her seat.
There was another moment of silence, this one not unpleasant. Then, emboldened maybe by the wine or maybe by the way she had touched his shoulder, even though it was only the leather of his tabard, Anakin asked: ‘What do you dream of, Padmé?’
Just like he had, she took a moment to reply. ‘Oh, lots of things, I guess.’
She smiled, and she looked down at her empty glass.
IV
In the nights he was kept awake by his longing. He would trace a phantom shape on the empty space beside him, pretend it was her in the bed with him. Blush hotly at the thought of it.
Anakin would imagine she was above him, her lips hovering a millimetre apart from his, their foreheads almost pressing together. He would imagine, a bead of sweat on his lip, that he was inside of her. He would grow so hard it turned him feral, he'd try and deny his urge, tell himself no, not again, not this time, it has to stop, he'd promise himself it would, but he could never make those promises last and eventually he would take himself in one hand and press the other across his mouth so she would not hear the way he groaned and panted and eventually, thinking of the way she had tasted that afternoon on the balcony ('I'm sorry' he had said after but had not meant it because how could he, he was already so in love with her it felt like a death sentence for her not to know that fact), he would make a mess on the sheets and lie flat on his back and stare at the ceiling but see the stars above it. The constellation of the lovers, hands clasped. Forever frozen this way, their love on display for an entire galaxy to see.
One night he'd heard someone outside his room, soft footsteps and then harsh silence. He had remained in his bed, paralysed, afraid of what would happen if he opened his door, afraid of what would happen if he didn't. By the time he had the courage to investigate, the moment was over. She was gone.
V
In the mornings he was woken by the birdsong. As the sun rose it went beyond melodious chirps and whistles and became something raucous, something that Anakin could not sleep through even if he tried. How many millions of birds must there be in those trees outside? Did every single bird on Naboo live at Varykino?
He pressed a pillow over his face, blocking out the early light and unsuccessfully blocking out the noise. He eventually gave up and went to the balcony, and he looked out at the lake, then at the garden, and he saw her walking, not dressed but just in her nightgown and robe, fresh and new like a flower just opening to the sun, and he turned away, then back, then away again. Then he went back inside and threw himself on the unmade bed. He gritted his teeth against the sound of the birds and the thought of her bare under the thin fabric.
VI
That morning before breakfast Anakin paused in the entranceway to the dining room, a large carved wooden arch. Padmé looked up and smiled, her invitation for him to join her. He wished she would look at him with love in her eyes.
When he pulled back his chair it scraped on the stone floor, and he wanted to dissolve because that would never have happened to her. He had ruined the perfect moment already, and the days were running out. They would only have a few perfect moments left. Eventually, sooner each day, they would have to return to Coruscant and their real lives.
'Did you sleep well?' She was eating shuura fruit, cutting each one neatly with her knife and fork. He had never seen anyone eat fruit that way. He himself would have just grabbed it and taken a bite.
'Yes.' The circles under his eyes told the real truth, but she didn't mention it.
'We could go on a picnic in the meadow today, perhaps? It's beautiful weather. Not too hot anymore.' Padmé was excited. She'd already made the plan and was just letting him know.
'I … I think I should meditate. I haven't for a while.' He was afraid of what would happen if they went to that beautiful meadow together. It would be too perfect, and his heart wouldn't be able to handle the knowledge that she didn't love him if he was in a place such as that. It had been almost a week since their kiss and she'd never mentioned it again because she feels nothing for you, you're her friend … no, you're just someone here to protect her. You're doing a job. So do that job and nothing else.
Anakin swallowed down a sour taste. He didn't want to go the meadow with her and be in love with her and know that she didn't love him. He needed to be somewhere dark and depressing. That was where you dealt with torturous thoughts. That was where you dealt with inevitable heartbreak.
'Oh.' Padmé finished her breakfast and set the cutlery aside. There was nothing she did that wasn't neat and precise. 'Well, of course. Enjoy your day, then.'
There was a long pause. Anakin took a shuura from the silver bowl. She reached out to him, knife and fork in her hand. When he took the cutlery, their fingers grazed each other. His senses lingered on the feeling of silk and then the shell of her short, neat nails. Her lips parted just the tiniest amount. Still so carefully controlled, the crack in her facade only the most minor thing.
He wanted to take her hand and kiss it. Instead, he clutched the knife and fork as if they were totally foreign instruments and cut the shuura in half and then didn't eat it. Padmé sipped her caf with an expression as cool and smooth as ice.
He longed to say something to her. He longed to know what to say. In the end, the silence won, and he stood up, his chair scraping loudly again, and he made up an excuse to leave the room.
VII
Anakin ventured into the dining room at midday, heart in his throat and an apology ready ('I'm sorry about this morning, I had a headache, but I'd love to go to the meadow with you now') but she wasn't there.
Nandi had laid out food for him. He didn't eat a bite of it. Instead, he lingered in the hallway for a while, wondering what he could do to see Padmé. He pressed himself against the wall next to her bedroom door, the stone cool on his back. Inside he could hear faint talking.
Who was she talking to? Why wouldn't she talk to him? Why couldn't he talk to her? Why was there never any answer to any of these damn questions?
Anakin longed to be in there with Padmé, or for her to come out and find him right now. He was love-sick in a terminal way, desperate for her to know that he wanted, needed, nothing more now than to be in that meadow with her, the sun kissing their skin and his lips kissing hers.
There was movement inside the room and her voice grew louder as she came closer to the door. He fled.
VIII
They didn't see each other again until dinner. Nandi set the dishes out in front of them and Padmé served herself wordlessly.
She had greeted him politely enough but there was still something frozen in her expression and the way she moved around him. Anakin was ready to fall off the balcony when he realised just how much his dismissal of the picnic had hurt her, even more so because she would likely never ask again.
He understood, too late, that the picnic had been meant as something more.
He cleared his throat and tried to start a conversation. Padmé was toying with her salad, pushing the leaves around her plate with tired movements.
'Are you alright?' Anakin ventured, although the answer was obvious to him.
'Yes,' she replied. A lie. 'I just have a lot on my mind.'
'Did you want to talk about it?' he asked awkwardly.
'Well unless you know how to stop people trying to kill me then there's not much point in talking about it.'
Oh. The walls had never been higher. Anakin couldn’t stomach the sight of his food.
'I'm sorry, milady. I promise we're doing everything we can to help you.'
She snorted, then her air of ever-politeness took over and she forced a smile at him. 'Of course. I do not doubt you, Padawan Skywalker.'
Padawan Skywalker? What had happened to Anakin? Or Ani, her friend, the boy she'd known for years? Had he really slipped so far in her estimation? Had he really caused this much damage by rejecting the picnic?
His stomach turned over sickly. He wanted to run from this table. Run from this room, this house, this whole damn situation. He did not want to suffer one more moment of the pain it was causing him.
'Is it alright if I skip dinner?'
That was enough to make her put down her fork and look at him. 'Skip dinner? Is everything okay?'
'I just don't feel well,' he said numbly.
'Oh, I'm sorry to hear that.'
He paused a moment. It was now or never. If he left the room now, he knew the walls between them would never, could never, come down again. They would be fixed permanently, become monolithic and impenetrable, and he would never be Ani again and she would always be just out of his reach.
But at the last moment, the moment when it mattered the most, the moment when it was now or never, Anakin was a coward. He left the room.
IX
At midnight Anakin went into the courtyard. He was pacing, his boots soft-sounding on the cobbled stones.
The air was cool, comfortable. When the breeze blew it raised goosebumps on his skin, covered only in his loose tunic and sleep pants–still dressed for sleep. He’d dressed for sleep but never found it, as was so often the case now. His body was tired but his mind felt worse. When he closed his eyes it was his mother’s face waiting for him. Her tortured, agonized face. It was better not to sleep. He missed her, but he didn’t want to see her like that. Better to never see her again than to see her like that.
But being awake offered no respite either. When he was asleep, he would dream of his mother’s pain, when he was awake, he would think of nothing but his own. What a fool he had been–no, worse than that. Worse than a fool, worse than anything he could possibly be.
Stupid stupid STUPID.
He would be Padawan Skywalker forever now. He snarled at the thought, snarled at himself, his fists clenched. He wanted to walk, but he also wanted to run, but he also wanted to sit down with his head in his hands and just howl. There was nothing that was right; he was not comfortable in his own skin. He wanted to be someone else, someone greater than this scared boy in a man’s clothing, a pretender, the weight of everything on his shoulders and nobody to share the load.
He replayed the moment from dinner a million times in his head, and with each replay it twisted, became something worse. Eventually, he had inserted a level of cruelty into his voice that he wasn’t sure had been there originally (‘I don’t want dinner,’ delivered in a dry monotone), and a level of sadness into Padmé’s response that may have been an exaggeration (by the twentieth replay, she had tears in her eyes). He thought he must have hurt her very greatly. He knew he had ruined his chances with her completely.
He stood in the courtyard, staring up at the winding branches of an ancient tree. He felt small. He considered just leaving, just running away. Maybe he could go back to Coruscant and tell the Council that he wasn’t the right person for this job, that they should send someone else in his place. Any other Padawan would relish the opportunity to be on a mission alone. Any other Padawan could keep watch like he could.
But he couldn’t leave, and it wasn’t because he didn’t want to face the ire of the Council. Anakin couldn’t leave because she was still here, and he knew that even though he’d failed his chance of having any sort of relationship with her beyond Padawan Skywalker (he shuddered at the way she’d said it and how it had cut him into a thousand separate pieces), he would still do everything he could in his power to protect her, because he knew that nobody else could do a better job than him. Nobody cared about Padmé as much as he did, so nobody would protect her as well as he could.
And so, he had to stay. It would be torture, but he had to stay.
He stood silent for a while, studying the twisted, gnarled branches of a tree that had existed before him and would exist long after him. Life for a human was so fleeting, so temporary. So insignificant. He felt insignificant. And then there were footsteps, softer than his own, coming up behind him. He didn’t need to turn around to know that it was her.
‘Padmé.’ A plea.
‘Anakin.’ A deliverance.
She paused behind him. He did not turn to face her. He couldn’t, not yet. There was too much feeling inside of him. If she saw a glimpse of it in his eyes, she would know too much. It would be like looking into the sun. He felt his misery could blind her.
He knew she was waiting. One more moment, just one more, before he stepped over the edge. Maybe this was a second chance. Maybe he would not fail it this time. A deep breath in; the night air was thick with the scent of jasmine. A world so beautiful flowers bloomed even in darkness.
Then the touch of her hand as she pressed it to his bicep, beckoning him to turn around, asking silently for him to acknowledge her. Her touch was warm against his cool skin.
He turned. She was there. There was no space between them.
She was all in white, dressed for bed also, a vision, an Angel, or maybe a ghost. She shone in the moonlight; he would have sworn it. Thin nightgown, soft, embroidered robe. Her hair hung loose. Her nipples were puckered, clear through the light fabric of the gown, and he almost died upon noticing. Another deep breath in, awash with floral scent. It was heady, unreal. His fists were clenched, the muscles tight. Her hand still gripped his arm. She would have felt his tension.
This must be a dream.
She was so close their bodies almost touched. She was looking up at him, he was looking down at her. Her lips were parted slightly; there was something on the tip of her tongue, something she wanted to tell him. ‘Ani…’
Ani? Ani?
‘Are you feeling better?’
‘Yes.’ Their voices were low, barely whispers. There was no need to speak loudly.
‘I couldn’t sleep,’ she told him.
‘Neither could I.’
‘I didn’t want to go to bed with things … uncomfortable … between us.’
‘Oh.’ As if things weren’t uncomfortable now. As if he was not ready to jump out of his own skin.
She was so close. He bent his head; she stood on tiptoes. Her arms were around his neck. His arms were around her waist. She was so close. Their lips met and the night air smelled like jasmine.
This must be a dream.
And then her tongue was in his mouth, and he was tasting her and he knew it must be a dream, and he was so hard, so achingly hard but there was nothing he could do about it, surely not, he was a Jedi, he couldn't, he shouldn't, but oh, maybe he could. His cock rubbed against the loose fabric of his sleep pants, and her nipples, tight against the fabric of her nightgown, rubbed against his chest.
He ran one hand up her back, tracing her spine, feeling her shiver, loving it and loving her. He brushed up under her hair and felt the soft curls cascading over his hand; how had he never seen her like this, with her hair properly undone, completely loose and free like she was right now. She ground herself against his hard cock, maybe knowingly, maybe not; either way he fought a groan from escaping. On a whim, hand trembling just a little, he pressed his other palm to the round, firm globes of her ass. His cock strained; he willed himself to stay in control.
She was still kissing him, their tongues in each other's mouths. He drank her in as if his life depended on it; it did. She ground against his cock again, this time brushing her hand over it as well, and he knew now it was all intentional. Shyly, he peeled her robe off her shoulders, and it pooled on the cobblestones behind her. Goosebumps instantly covered her shoulders, and he was suddenly, despite everything, so afraid of her being cold, of her maybe leaving because of it, that he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close to him, the hug warm and tight and perfect, the best he'd ever had. And then the hug was over and there were still goosebumps on her arms, but he knew, he just understood, that she wasn't going to go back inside. She wasn't going to leave this moment. Her hands were brushing the back of his neck, stroking the warm skin there, exploring him, kissing him again. This moment was for them.
His cock ached. Drove him insane, made him wild. 'Padmé,' he finally moaned.
'Ani.'
But he wasn't sure what to do next; had never done it. There was nothing but cold stones all around them. Nowhere to lay down together.
'The bench.' Padmé's voice brought him back to the present moment. He looked where she was, and saw the wooden bench with the carved, ornate back, perfectly positioned to admire the ancient tree.
With one long, lingering kiss, Anakin took her hand and led her there. Only a moment or two passed and he was undressed. They both knew what to do, somehow, some instinct, some part of them that had come alive like the night itself, this night that smelled like blooming jasmine and had the same drumming rhythm that his heart did.
He was sitting and the bench was cold underneath him. Then she was on top of him, straddling his lap, facing him, the space between them gone as if it had never been there at all. Suddenly his skin felt too tight and his mouth was too dry to swallow. This was it. This was what he had wanted, dreamed about, longed for ever since they had come here.
She kissed him, her mouth honey, and she lowered herself onto him and her pussy was honey too, and she sat almost all the way back down, her sigh losing itself in the breeze, and her white nightgown was bunched up around the tops of her thighs and why didn’t she just take it off?
Anakin took it off. Her bare body, a revelation and an artwork all of its very own. She began to move, slowly, up and down, and he did not know what to do, and so his hands spanned her hips. The beat of their hearts was the pace that they set.
X
'I have to go.' The words were thrown back over her shoulder as she hurried back into the main house. There was no time for him to do anything, no time for him to stop her. Helplessly, he struggled into his pants, and he began to follow her to her room. She got there before he did and she shut the door. The sound of the lock made his heart sink.
'Padmé, please. Can't we talk about this?' He found himself again outside her room, his back pressed to the cold stone walls. Every joy he had felt only five, ten minutes ago, the most joy he had ever felt, was being swallowed up by the rising fear that she had not wanted this. Had not wanted him.
There was no answer, but he could hear her moving about in the room. A chair scraped on the floor. Drawers opened and shut.
'Padmé?'
Silence for another dreadful moment, and then, finally, her voice on the other side of the door.
'Ani. I'm sorry.'
'Sorry? For what? There's nothing to be sorry for. Padmé, please.' He was desperate; that fear, that fear that she did not want him, not at all, that fear was becoming not just a prickling in the back of his mind but something real, something tangible. Something terrible.
'Ani ... we shouldn't have.'
'Shouldn't have what?' He knew he sounded foolish, sounded petulant, a child, a fool, but he didn't want to believe what she was saying, wouldn't believe it until she said it out loud herself.
She couldn't say it. Surely not. Surely she feels ...
'We shouldn't have done what we did in the courtyard.'
No no no no no no no.
'I ...' But he couldn't think of the words that would explain to her how his heart was breaking. How his heart had been so full of nothing but love just five minutes ago, nothing but love, no regrets, of course no regrets, and now it was breaking into a hundred, maybe a thousand, pieces. How she was making that happen.
'I think you should go to bed,' she said through the closed door.
NO NO NO NO NO.
'But ... can't we talk about this?'
'Not now. Tomorrow. I want to talk to you tomorrow.'
And so Anakin sighed and he went back to his room and he waited sleeplessly for tomorrow. His aching heart did not mend itself. The tears were dark on the pillowcase.