Title: And if You Asked Me if I Love Him, I'd Lie
Author: Emjen Enla (Fanfiction)/emjen_enla (Wattpad)/emjenenla (Tumblr)
Teaser: Jedi Knight Padmé Naberrie's relationship with Anakin Skywalker is strictly platonic…or is it? [Jedi!Padmé AU, set in AOTC]
Rating: K+/G (what can I say, I write clean romance!)
Canon/Timeline: probably either; during AOTC
Dominant Characters: Padmé Amidala, Anakin Skywalker
Pairings: Anidala
Warnings: nothing really
Notes:
-Like Give All My Secrets Away, this is another AU that if you'd told me I'd be fiddling with a year ago, I would have said you were crazy. Like genderbenders, Jedi!Padmé has never been something I'm particularly fond of. Recently, I was skimming a story of this type because I was bored (should I have been doing homework? Probably). Anyway, I was reading it and I realized "hey, maybe I've been too hasty in judging this trope. I'll bet I could do something really cool and mature with this." I'll let you decide if I actually managed to be cool and mature.
-Like most of my one-shot AUs this story is open to continuation, but additional stories are by no means guaranteed. One thing I will say about this AU is that Skywalker&Kenobi as the heroes of the Republic would not be a thing. The media's poster pair would be Skywalker&Naberrie and everyone would think they're secretly in love. (Which, of course, would make actually being secretly in love very difficult.)
-Sabé has no last name in Canon, but I figured that since elected officials on Naboo choose new last names it would be okay to just assign her one. I thought about calling her Amidala because Padmé won't be using that name in this AU, but I figured that would be confusing so I named her Isméa.
Disclaimer: I don't own Star Wars, especially not the lines shamelessly lifted from AOTC. I also don't own the song "I'd Lie" by Taylor Swift where the title is from.
Varykino was a large, opulent summer house on an out of the way lake on Naboo. It probably wasn't the best place to hide a senator from death threats, especially one who's preferences for natural scenery were as well-known as Sabé Isméa's, but it was better than Coruscant.
The senator thought Varykino was perfectly safe. However, Padmé Naberrie was nothing if not careful and thorough, and she wasn't going to mess up her first mission as a Jedi Knight. The first thing she did once they arrived at Varykino was go on a patrol of the house. It was much bigger than she'd anticipated. Off every hall there was another and every room was huge and well-furnished. Padmé had grown up in the Jedi Temple which was by no means small, but Varykino was owned by a single family who only came here to vacation in the summer months; she couldn't imagine why they'd need this much space.
By the time she finished her rounds, her head was spinning and she stumbled out to a balcony overlooking the lake. She rested her forearms on the railing and stared out at the water, trying to wrap her head around the reality of life outside the Order. It wasn't that she hadn't seen a lot of the galaxy in her twenty-five years, especially while she had been Master Shaak Ti's padawan, but the idea that a normal family that wasn't particularly important could own something this big and beautiful was astonishing.
She felt his approach before he even stepped onto the balcony. It wasn't hard, Anakin Skywalker burned in the Force with the heat of a supernova; he was impossible to miss.
"Where's Senator Isméa?" Padmé asked as Anakin stepped up next to her.
"In her bedchambers unpacking," Anakin said. "She certainly brought a lot of clothes for us being in hiding."
"Well, she does have a reputation for being extremely well-dressed," Padmé joked.
Anakin chuckled. "You can say that again."
Padmé studied him closely, trying to get a reading on his demeanor. When the Council had assigned her to accompany Anakin and Senator Isméa back to Naboo as extra security (which she read as "babysitting the supposed Chosen One"), Padmé had expected Anakin to be angry and hostile towards her. After all, this was supposed to be his first solo mission and Anakin wasn't known for his humble attitudes towards his own abilities. Surprisingly, however, Anakin hadn't seemed angry at all. If anything, he seemed happy she was along. Maybe he had grown out of the arrogant phase but she didn't think that was the explanation.
Still, she had decided to take it for what it was worth. She hadn't had more than a casual conversation with Anakin in years. Anakin had been fourteen when Master Shaak and Master Kenobi had agreed that with Anakin's obviously un-Jedi feelings towards her it wasn't a good idea if they remained friends. Padmé had fought vehemently, after all, Anakin had been a child at the time.
Some strange voice in the back of her mind whispered that he wasn't a child anymore, but she refused to consider what that meant.
They looked out across the lake in silence for several minutes. Anakin sighed. "This place is beautiful," he breathed. "It must be amazing to live here."
"This is my homeworld," Padmé said. It felt like a confession and it probably was. She was a Jedi and Jedi didn't talk about things like homeworlds. "Well, the world I was born on at least."
"I thought you didn't know where you were from," Anakin said, the words were low and tense.
"They let you see a more complete version of your records when you become a knight," Padmé explained. "There's your homeworld, your midiclorian count, and a bunch of other stuff."
"Your parents?" Anakin asked. He was trying to sound nonchalant, but tension radiated out of him. The fact that Padmé didn't know her parents had always bothered him.
"No," Padmé said, trying to figure out what the best way to deal with this situation would be. "There wasn't anything about that."
"Of course," Anakin grumbled under his breath, looking away. "Letting a grown woman know who her parents are might suddenly turn her to the dark side."
"Anakin," Padmé said, trying to head the conversation off before it turned into a full-fledged rant about the Jedi Order. "Its fine. I don't mind."
Anakin looked back at her, eyes flashing. "You should!"
"Why?" Padmé asked, keeping her voice calm. The absolute worst way to deal with Anakin when he was in these kinds of moods was to get angry back. "I don't miss them, Anakin. I don't even remember them."
Anakin sighed, shoulders heaving. "They remember you, though. They deserve to know how far you've come."
"It's been a quarter of a century, Anakin," Padmé said. "I'm sure they're fine."
Anakin lapsed into the stony silence that only came when he was struggling to hold his tongue on something he felt very strongly about. The atmosphere became awkward, and the half-forgotten bond they'd formed during the Naboo Crisis prickled with tension. Padmé struggled to think of something to say to lighten the mood.
"This is a nice place, though," Anakin said. His voice was brittle, but at least he was trying to move on. "You're lucky to have such a beautiful homeworld," he sighed. "This place is nothing like Tatooine, all that's there is sand," he fiddled with something on the railing. "I don't like sand. Its coarse, rough and irritating and it gets everywhere." He threw aside whatever he was playing with and looked at her. "Not like here. Here everything is soft and smooth…"
Something about the tone of the conversation had changed, but Padmé couldn't figure out what. Anakin reached out and brushed his fingers along her arm. No one had ever touched her quite like that before, but she found she didn't mind. She looked up at him and found herself wondering when exactly he'd gotten so tall and if his eyes had always been that shade of blue. Both thoughts were completely useless and unbecoming a Jedi Knight, but she didn't want to stop thinking them.
Anakin leaned in and she didn't realize she was leaning in too until their lips met.
Several years before while on a mission she had met a couple rebel padawans who got their kicks breaking the Code and seeing how much they could get away with. One had off-handedly mentioned that you hadn't lived until you'd kissed another Force Sensitive. At the time, Padmé had dismissed the statement as pointless, but now she realized that it was right. She wasn't just kissing Anakin, she was Anakin and he was her. The cobwebs burst out of their bond, flooding with their shared emotions. Shock, exhilaration, joy, and something else that reeked dangerously of attachment. Still, Padmé had never felt so alive.
She wasn't sure how much time passed. It could have been a lifetime and it could have been an instant. Eventually, however, her mind caught up with her. What am I doing? I'm a Jedi!
She pulled away sharply. "No. I shouldn't have done that."
Anakin looked away, he looked—felt—embarrassed. "I'm sorry."
Padmé took a deep breath and stared out at the lake, trying to calm down. Anakin was right next to her, and she could still feel him, but not the way she had while they were kissing. She felt cold and alone.
She pursed her lips and tried to force herself to think about something else. She was a Jedi and so was he. That wasn't expectable. She needed to be rational and focus on protecting the senator.
She didn't let herself admit that deep down inside, she'd enjoyed the kiss. She definitely didn't let herself admit that she wanted to do it again.
So, what do you think? This thing is only a little over 1,200 words so it's about as close to short and sweet as you're going to get out of me. Also, this is the first story I've ever posted on this site tagged "Romance" which should show you what kinds of fanfics I normally read.
While I writing this, I realized that since all Force Sensitives are empaths to some extent, being in a romantic relationship must be more powerful than it would be otherwise. Therefore, I figured that it would be logical to assume that for two Force Sensitives who already can form strong, Force-influenced bonds, it must be even more powerful. That's where the random thing about Forces Sensitives kissing came from. Granted, I already thought that Anakin had an abnormally strong (albeit, one-sided) bond with Padmé in Canon because of his extremely high midiclorian count.
Also, I have no idea if the Jedi Order withholds personal information from its members. I assume they don't tell anyone who their parents are (because that might cause them to **gasp** become attached to them!). From a more logical standpoint, I figured they'd probably keep the midiclorian counts of their Initiates under lock-and-key to avoid the ones with high counts getting more attention and training than the lower ones.
So, that ends this fic. Please favorite, follow and review!
Emjen