A/N: This is the first chapter in what will be a fic of "missing" Anakin/Padmé throughout Revenge of the Sith. The first chapter takes place just before ROTS begins and where the novel Labyrinth of Evil ends. (If you haven't read Labyrinth of Evil yet it's SO good.) This is my very first Star Wars fic so please let me know what you think! -Katie
"Are you sure you're alright?" Mon Mothma asked as she followed Padmé through the transparisteel door to the Senator of Naboo's apartment. "Bail and I could stay with you."
"I'll be fine," Padmé reassured her friend. "Really. I was just shaken up by the suddenness of the attack. Dormé is here, Threepio is here if I should need anything. You've got more important things to do than look after me. A good, long, hot shower and sleep is what I need."
The auburn haired Chandrillian held her gaze for a long moment before speaking. "And perhaps a medical droid just in case," Mon said pointedly. "It was not an easy landing when we crashed, despite Bail's best efforts and you did lose consciousness after you stood up."
"Perhaps that would be best," Padmé replied, nodding in recognition of the words that did not need to be spoken.
"Good."
"Tell Bail I'll see both of you tomorrow and thank him for me."
"Do you think it's entirely necessary? You could work from home tomorrow. Give yourself more of a chance to rest."
"If I stay here all day tomorrow I think I'd go mad," Padmé replied with an uneasy laugh. "I need to go to the Senate tomorrow. I need to feel like I'm doing something."
Mon Mothma smiled kindly and squeezed her shoulder. "Then I will see you tomorrow. I know better than to argue with you of all people."
"Thank you," she replied, pulling the taller woman into a hug as tears began to sting her eyes.
"Rest," Mon urged again. "Take care of yourself."
Padmé nodded as Mon Mothma left her apartment and keyed the door closed. She sank back against the wall and drew a shuddering breath. As she closed her eyes a fresh wave of hot tears poured over her cheeks. This time she did not even try to stop them and soon the silent tears became sobs that wracked her body.
"My Lady?" Dormé asked tentatively. "Are you alright?"
"Yes," Padmé replied instinctively before shaking her head. "No. No, I'm not."
Her handmaid, her friend, and one of her closest confidants wrapped her in a comforting embrace. Padmé rested her head on Dormé's shoulder and tried in vain to compose herself.
"I saw the coverage on the Holonet. It looked terrible. I heard Senator Mothma say something about a crash? Are you alright? Is the-,"
"I don't know," Padmé shook her head and pulled back. "I don't feel like anything is wrong. We crashed and one moment I was fine. I don't think I hit my head or anything else, but as I stood up from the speeder and saw everything around me...it looked like a war zone. Coruscant looked like a battle front. My head just started spinning and then I woke up in the back of the speeder. I don't know what I'd do if anything-,"
"M'Lady, everything will be fine," Dormé offered. "I'll call Emdee to check just to be sure."
"Thank you. I think I'd like to get cleaned up before that. I'll be in the 'fresher. Would you please just have Emdee wait for me in my room?"
"Of course, m'lady. And maybe some tea as well."
Dormé turned to leave when Padmé caught her hand, giving it a gentle squeeze and a weak smile. "Thank you, Dormé. Really."
"Of course," her friend replied, patting her hand and setting about her task.
Once inside the 'fresher Padmé began to peel off the layers of clothing. They were dirty and damp with perspiration from her harrowing afternoon. She stripped down to her shift before she dared to glance at herself in the mirror. Kriff, she thought, taking her disheveled hair down. Her face was still pale and smudged with dirt and smoke. As she removed the pins and clips that held her coiffure in place her hair tumbled down her shoulders and she drew a calming breath for what seemed like the hundredth time that day and smoothed her hands over the silky shift, pausing at the slight swell of her stomach. She tried to remember the last time she had felt the baby move. Was it in the morning? Had she felt it during their flight from the senate building? She couldn't remember. If something was wrong, I'd know.
Padmé thought back to the first time she had felt her child move. She was alone at her desk in her home office one night , putting off all attempts at sleep since she knew it would not come easily anyway. As she read over senate briefings she fiddled with the japor snippet that hung around her neck. It was something she did without even thinking, letting her thumb smooth across the markings. She did it out of habit when she was at home and could let her guard down. It made her feel closer to him and she had smiled when she thought of the little boy who gave it to her. That's when she felt it. No more than a flutter, as if she'd swallowed a butterfly, but it stilled all of her motions until she felt it again. A sense of nervous excitement filled her quickly followed by a twinge of sadness. From the day she had realized she was pregnant, Padmé had always imagined that she would share this moment with Anakin. It was just yet another cruel reminder of what the war had taken from her.
Shaking her head, Padmé tried to banish the unthinkable, terrifying thought nagging at the back of her mind. She turned on the hot water and let it run for a few moments, using the time to disrobe and place the japor snippet onto a painted tray on the countertop. Despite having stripped off all of her of her clothing it was the removal of the snippet that left her feeling the most exposed, the most vulnerable.
Unlike nearly every other married being in the galaxy, Padmé never had the chance to wear a ring or any other outward sign of her commitment, bond, and vow to her husband. However, she always wore the snippet somewhere on her person. It made her feel closer to Anakin and, after all, it was a nine-year-old boy who had promised her it would bring her good fortune all those years ago. So far, that seemed to be true. How many times had she escaped certain death or some other calamity.
Climbing into the shower, Padmé let the warm streams of cleansing water run over her tired body. She couldn't remember the last time she felt so drained, both emotionally and physically. It was not solely caused by the events that had transpired that day. For weeks, issues in the Senate were becoming more contentious. The Loyalist committee felt constantly thwarted by the Chancellor and a clear diplomatic solution seemed unattainable unless he was willing to begin the process of relinquishing some of the emergency powers he had acquired over the past few years. Padmé never would have imagined such an outcome years ago when Palpatine had been her senator, her advisor, her friend. Now all of that seemed to be fading away and she began to doubt whether or not they still believed in the same ideas anymore. Were they even on the same side? It was becoming increasingly difficult to understand. Don't think like that, she chided herself. Of course the Chancellor wants this war to end. Why else would he create a Loyalist committee?
Feeling sufficiently clean and hoping the medical droid had arrived, Padmé stepped out of the shower and dried off. She slipped into a plain linen nightgown and towel-dried her hair, plaiting it into a loose braid that hung over her shoulder. For the second time she glanced at her reflection in the mirror, taking a moment to study herself carefully. The fatigue shown in her brown eyes, there were the beginnings of dark circles under them, and her shoulders sagged. It has been months since she slept through the night and Padmé knew tonight would be no different. Still shaken from the attack, crash landing, and subsequent abduction of the Chancellor, sleep seemed illusive. No matter what kind of calming tea Threepio fixed for her that evening, she knew her eyes would be glued to the Holonet until it was impossible to keep them open any longer.
Padmé knew that she could not delay anymore and opened the 'fresher door, walking through her wardrobe to the bedroom. It did not surprise her to find Threepio, Emdee the medical droid, and Dormé waiting for her with an anxious face.
"Senator Amidala," Emdee began. "See-Threepio has been filling me in on your...activities today."
"Yes, well things didn't go exactly as I had planned. I'd like to make sure everything is alright."
Emdee motioned for Padmé to lie down on the bed. She did so, pulling the covers up over her lover body and reached under them to pull her nightgown up just over the swell of her stomach.
"Remember," Padmé started.
"M'lady, I've already reminded Emdee of your request," Dormé offered with a kind smile.
"Thank you," she replied and settled back onto the bed so the medical droid could proceed with the checkup. It was not that Padmé did not want to see the image of her child the ultrasound provided, she did. But it felt so wrong to see and experience it before she was able to share it with Anakin. From the moment she learned she was pregnant she requested to only know the most vital information. She wanted to see her child for the first time with Anakin and perhaps they would let the baby's gender remain a surprise. There were so few truly good surprises in their lives at the moment. Finding out whether they were having a boy or girl would be a much needed surprise.
"This might be cold," the droid informed Padmé as it applied gel onto her stomach and began to move the ultrasound wand over her skin.
Padmé held her breath, closed her eyes, and prayed until she finally heard the familiar pulsing sounds of the baby's strong heartbeat. She let out a breath mixed with a laugh and a sob of relief as tears escaped her eyes.
"Everything seems perfectly normal," Emdee concluded, finishing up the scan. "Do you have any questions?"
"I don't think so," Padmé replied. "Thank you. Threepio will see you out."
The medical droid nodded and gathered its instruments and followed Threepio from the senator's bedroom. Padmé had no doubt that he would remind Emdee of the need for extreme confidentiality even though that was hardly necessary at this point. If she didn't trust Emdee, she would not have called for the exam.
"What a relief, M'lady," Dormé said, handing her a cloth to clean herself off with. "Now you'll be able to breathe easier."
"I'm so grateful," Padmé replied. "I don't know what I would have done, but I doubt I'll be able to breathe easier until I know Anakin is safe."
"Of course. Do you think they'll recall General Skywalker now that the Chancellor has been kidnapped?"
"Is it wrong to say that I hope so?"
Padmé pulled her nightgown down, smoothing her hands over her stomach and sat up in the bed.
"No," her friend replied. "Why wouldn't the Jedi Council put the two most accomplished generals on this case?"
"Exactly. And yet...I'm not sure they'd be any safer. They'd be up against Grievous and possibly Dooku as well."
"If anyone can end this war I believe it's Master Kenobi and Anakin."
"I know," Padmé nodded. "And that's what scares me."
"Is there anything else I can get for you, m'lady?"
"No, thank you though. I think I'll retire for the evening."
"Very good," Dormé said inclining her head. "And please do actually try to get some sleep."
"If you insist," Padmé joked lightly. "Thank you, Dormé."
When her handmaiden left the room Padmé leaned back and rested her head against the backboard. Her relief was unfathomable. Having confirmation that the baby was healthy seemed to do more than just assuage her worry. The tension in shoulders and neck eased and her limbs felt a little less heavy. Knowing she was alone, Padmé's hands found the swell of her stomach.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "No more adventures like today. At least not for a long time, I promise."
She did not talk to the baby often, but at times she was alone or when the baby would move about, she found herself drifting into conversations with her unborn child.
"There's a good chance your father could come home soon," she continued, tracing a pattern over the material of her nightgown. "I know it's selfish of me to want him home. He's working so hard to end this war, but I want to tell him about you more than anything in the galaxy. I think he'll be excited...I hope he will be anyway, once the shock wears off."
Padmé spent hours thinking of how she was going to tell Anakin she was pregnant. Ideally, she had wanted to do it at Varykino, but that was before...before the war in the Outer Rim raged on and kept them apart for longer than she'd ever imagined it could. She had envisioned meeting him at the lake retreat, preparing his favorite meals- one of her few specialties- making love to him, and when they were lying so close to one another she would quietly whisper into his ear. Being together at Varykino would certainly allow him the time to process the news, they would be able to figure out a plan together. Now...now she was not sure what she would do.
Padmé reached over to her bedside table and unplugged a datapad she had left charging there when she left in the morning. She flicked on the switch and the pad came to life with images of streaming video of the horrific events of the day. Minimizing that screen, Padmé began to type in Anakin's name, hoping to bring up the latest news results listed, but there were no current updates to be found. She was not sure whether that alleviated her fears or just made them worse. News about her husband had been scarce, but she grasped onto whatever little bits of information should could find.
"Kriff," she cursed under her breath.
Deciding she was unsatisfied, she went back to the current coverage of the attack on Coruscant pledging to get right to work in the morning on making sure an official state of emergency was declared and that funds were allocated to those most in need of assistance. Perhaps she could even convince Bail and Mon to tour some of the wreckage with her. She needed to be around people, and like she had said to her friend she needed to feel useful.
Inevitably, after what seemed like hours of poring over video clips and making countless notes to herself, Padmé felt her eyelids begin to grow heavy. Ghosting her fingers over the japor snippet she let her eyes close for just a few moments. Come back to me, Ani, she thought as sleep began to envelop her. Come home.