ANGELS UNDERCOVER


Author's note- Hello everybody! This is my first Star Wars fanfic, so criticism is welcome. (Just try and be nice about it. No need to get nasty!) This is also an AU story, so some characters, like Siri Tachi, are still alive during ROTS time.

Another thing: Order 66 is going to be issued only about a year and a half after Geonosis. Makes no sense, I know, but this is an AU! Padme also gets pregnant much, much earlier

Please, any ideas to make the story better will be accepted with open arms! Special thanks to my best friend, (you know who you are!), who encouraged me to get this show on the road.

Disclaimer: Everything belongs to George.

Summary: ROTS AU, Non-Slash. NOT OBIDALA - Senator Amidala has been recruited to help the Jedi present a political treaty with the Separatists. But when Order 66 is issued, Padme, Anakin, Obi-Wan, and friends find themselves stranded, stripped of their former lives and on the run from the new Empire…the fading future of the Jedi Order resting in their hands.

Pairings: Anakin / Padme and possibly Obi/Siri in later chaps. It's your call.

(And please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please REVIEW! Free weasel cookies to all those that do! Yay!)


The scorching summer morning sun shone a blinding light over the metropolis of Coruscant. Traffic streamed progressively like swarms of lethargic insects, weaving in and out among the immense skyscrapers. Everyone seemed to move leisurely about his or her daily tasks - too dazed by the heat to live up to the city's reputation for furious pace.

Padme Amadala's long, claret skirts swept across the hot, grease-stained surface of the Jedi Temple's landing platform. Medical transports were being unloaded of the wounded, fighters were taking off and landing, and unexploited spacecraft were gradually being moved into the hanger bay. Padme's handmaidens filed behind her, walking in brisk unison with their mistress, identical midnight blue servant's dresses and cowls swaying faintly in the small breeze that briefly graced the raised area.

Padme glanced around in a sort of dignified apprehension, eyeing the dozens of Jedi that were either preparing to take off or biding each other farewell. There had to be someone she knew…

"Excuse me, Milady-"

Padme yelped in surprise as someone touched her shoulder lightly from behind.

"I'm so sorry, Senator Amidala. Did I scare you?"

Padme whirled around to lock eyes with a handsome, middle-aged looking man with short, light auburn hair. He was somewhat square-jawed and had a short ginger beard, and had intelligent, sparkling cerulean blue eyes. His chin, forehead, and cheekbones bore splotches of lavender bruising, as well as various scrapes, as if he had been struck repeatedly. Pushing away her momentary disconcertion at the sight, her brain registered who it was.

Obi-Wan Kenobi. Out of all people to meet when she was in predicament like this. Go figure.

Of course, Padme had known Obi Wan since he had come with his own Master, Qui-Gon Jinn, on a rescue mission concerning her when she was a young fourteen-year-old queen on her home world, Naboo. He was probably the most modest, charming, and compassionate man you would ever meet, and the two had grown to be good friends since then, but ever since she and his twenty- year-old apprentice, Anakin, had secretly gotten married, friendships had been increasingly hard to maintain.

She self-consciously placed a hand over her abdomen as she felt the child within her womb kick under her concealing dress.

What if he out found she and Anakin had done the unforgivable?

She was living in deception. Both of them were. Betraying their careers and friends in the name of forbidden love.

And neither of these deserved the betrayal.

Padme tore herself away from her thoughts and smiled weakly at the veteran Jedi, hoping to keep his attention away

from her slightly bulging waist.

" Oh no, I'm alright, thank you. …um… Master Kenobi", she forced herself to say awkwardly, involuntarily stepping back a bit.

The Jedi bowed his greeting and smiled courteously at her.

"It is a pleasure to see you again, Milady. How are you?" he asked pleasantly, light Coruscanti accent lacing his words.

"Wonderful. And you?" Padme replied, finally regaining her composure.

"Fairly well," he said, rubbing a particularly nasty contusion on his cheek nonchalantly. Padme glanced curiously at it.

" Ouch, Obi-Wan…. what happened?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Your cheek. Your face." she elaborated, pointing.

To her vague surprise, he looked suddenly very ill, and his eyes glazed strangely.

"Oh, nothing too terrible." he whispered. "Just a small… accident of sorts."

Padme raised an eyebrow, concerned, but unwilling to pursue the matter, gauging from his reaction that he really didn't want to talk about it. She smiled in a feeble attempt to cheer him up. "Anakin didn't have anything to do with it, did he?

Obi-Wan chuckled weakly, ostensibly pushing away his brooding thoughts with practiced ease. "No, not this particular time. I assure you, if he did I probably wouldn't be standing here. He has become exceedingly powerful." he said with a note of pride in his voice.

Padme nodded. "Speaking of Anakin, how is he?" she asked, trying to sound blasé.

Without warning, his eyes flicked downward over her swelling belly, and Padme froze, hoping desperately that he saw nothing.

Padme, you idiot! She thought furiously to herself

"He's fine-" Obi-Wan began to say.

"Oh, good." Padme said hurriedly, cutting him off and not so tactfully turning her back to him in a panic. To make up for her unexplained action, she pretended to silently give an order to one of the girls.

Not catching on, Elle, the selected maid, blinked questioningly at her.

" Erm…any particular reason you have come to the Temple that I could assist you with?" Obi-Wan asked with a marked note of caution.

Relieved that the Jedi had given her an excuse to break the awkward moment, Padme nodded, and then gestured again to another one of her maids. The pretty young woman handed her a thin holopad and then returned to her respective place in line. Padme handed it to Obi-Wan with a faint blush of embarrassment.

He studied the monitor for a moment and then looked up, his expression genuinely surprised. "This is a Council summons!"

Padme nodded again. "It said for me to come here as soon as possible." She shrugged. " I don't really know what it's about actually…"

Obi-Wan looked down at the screen again and then back at her in a calculating sort of way, and Padme could have sworn his azure eyes brushed over her mid-section again discreetly.

Padme could feel a cold sweat begin to prickle along the back of her neck. She had been so stupid …what was he going to do now?

To her utter disbelief, as if nothing had happened (and perhaps nothing had), he flashed her a convincingly cheerful grin and carefully handed the small piece of machinery back to the handmaiden. "Well, lets go to the Council chambers and see what they have to say about it. I have a briefing over there anyway."

Feeling rather shaken with the sense of impending doom, Padme gathered up her heavy senatorial gown and gave her handmaidens a distracted shooing brandish. The girls turned and ambled back over to her waiting ship.

Padme followed Obi-Wan across the busy platform and to the broad doors that led into the temple. She dimly noted that he was doing his best to hide a prominent limp.

"I wonder what they summoned you for?" Obi -Wan said conversationally, holding open one of the doors for her. A blast of cool air rushed out from inside.

Padme shrugged, thankfully stepping into the comfortable temperature of the building.

"Well, I wouldn't worry about it." he continued good-naturedly when she didn't answer, leading her down a spectacularly extensive staircase and into a spacious antechamber. Padme nodded numbly.

"I think maybe-" Obi-Wan was cut off as something diminutive and robed barreled around the bend of the wall and slammed very forcefully into his leg.

"OOF!"

" SORRY, MASTER!" wailed a tiny boy of perhaps six or seven.

Recovering from the blow in nearly an instant, Obi-Wan straightened and pulled the child to his feet by the hood of his robe.

"Jasson! Please watch where you're going!" he scolded.

The boy bowed his head and put his hands behind his back, as was appropriate for young Jedi children when they had done wrongly.

"Forgive me, Master Kenobi. It won't happen again."

Obi-Wan sighed; one hand rubbing his now undoubtedly bruised thigh and the other patting Jasson's russet-haired head. "Forgiven." He raised an eyebrow and smiled. "Just out of curiosity, where were you going that demanded running like some sort of crazed beast?"

Jasson blushed. "Master Nu's class."

Obi-Wan grimaced good-humoredly. "I think I would run too. She's not pleasant when you arrive late is she?"

The boy shook his head.

"Alright, run along, Padawan. Don't forget your bag." Obi-Wan said, picking up the satchel of textbooks that had fallen from Jasson's shoulder during the collision.

"Thank-you, Master Obi-Wan."

The boy gave a deep bow to both Padme and Obi-Wan and then darted back down the hall.

Obi-Wan turned to Padme." I'm terribly sorry about that."

Padme laughed. "No problem. He was so adorable!"

Obi-Wan nodded. "Yes. And very bright. He'll make me proud.," he said as they continued down the hall.

"How many children are there here?" Padme asked eagerly.

"Around five to six hundred, at least."

"Really? I've never seen any of them. Besides the boy just now, of course."

"Well, most are in class during the day-"

"Hey, Master!"

Both Obi-Wan and Padme turned in unison.

"Master! Senator!" Anakin shouted again, skidding loudly to a halt behind them.

"Good morning, Anakin." Obi-Wan greeted readily. "Are you well?"

Anakin nodded, eyes on Padme. "How do you do, Milady?"

Padme smiled stiffly. "Very good, Master Skywalker."

They then snapped to Obi-Wan. "Of course I am well, Master, but you are not, so what are you doing out of bed?" he hissed angrily. "You're going to hurt yourself!"

Kenobi smiled thinly, that glazed look Padme recognized from earlier bleeding into his visage. "I have received a summons from the Council, Padawan. Surely I cannot refuse?"

A flash of irritation erupted in Anakin's own gaze, and he crossed his arms. "I will have to speak with them then. If they are pompous enough to call a man from his sickbed, especially after what they did to you…"

"Anakin, what happened was not their fault-"

"Bullshit it wasn't! They left you Master!"

Obi-Wan met his eyes tiredly. "Didn't you as well? They had no way of knowing I was alive, or so I'm told."

Anakin passed a hand over his eyes. "I still don't agree."

"I'll be fine, Anakin."

Anakin lifted his gaze. "That's what you said last time."