Content Warning: Anakin & Padmé's relationship will begin in this story before he comes of age.
Note: Padmé's age in TPM is 18 rather than 14 here so that she will have had more years of training with Sidious.
Anakin Skywalker couldn't help but run through the hallways of Theed Palace. Having slept in its massive confines for several days now, his young mind still could not fathom the size and scale of the building. Even though it was smaller than the Jedi Temple or the massive Senate complex, this palace was just so much more beautiful...so intricate, so ornate, so delicate...so Padmé. Behind him, one of her handmaidens, he thinks it's Saché, struggled to keep up with him. He knew he shouldn't run ahead of his elders, and he knew that Obi-Wan Kenobi, his new master, would likely scold his lack of etiquette, but Anakin didn't care. He was going to see Padmé, Force, from what Obi-Wan had already lectured him about attachments, he may not see Padmé ever again, or his mother, at least for years. Which meant that every extra second it took him to reach her was one second he would lose with her.
The doors to the throne room opened, and Anakin was barely able to stop himself before running into the very Queen he was so eager to see, shirking back in fear just as the handmaiden caught up to them, hyperventilating.
"Oh hi," he exclaimed, "I'm so sorry, Pad...your majesty."
"It's okay, Ani," the young Queen replied, giving the boy her warmest smile, the one that made his heart flutter from the moment he met her. "Saché, you can leave us."
"Yes, milady."
The brunette handmaiden bowed and bid her leave, and Anakin followed the Queen into the cavernous room. It was minimally furnished, Padmé never having a chance to really even decorate it before the Trade Federation invaded, but Anakin noticed nothing in his surroundings beyond his Queen, and maybe the majestic landscapes visible through the massive palace windows. He had seen her only twice since the crisis had abated. Both were sad occasions, one the funeral for Master Qui-Gon Jinn, who had given his life against the planet's Sith oppressor and the day afterwards, the burial of Naboo's own Senator Palpatine, the latter service with a closed casket seeing as there was not much left of his remains. Anakin mourned the man who had rescued him from slavery, but felt nothing the next day for a man he had never met, besides an odd feeling of relief. As he looked out the palace window, he saw below the same plaza where the funerals had taken place.
"So much has changed for you," he heard a soft voice say behind him, almost as if the Queen were talking about herself. "For all of us."
Anakin was glad that she was not wearing her ceremonial facepaint. He had still been shocked to find out that the girl he had befriended on Tatooine was a Queen, and while he was happy for her success and proud, in a way, of her for something she already was, a small part of his mind feared that the bond they had shared, born in secrecy and deception, would never be the same now that they both knew their true place in the galaxy.
Looking up sadly at the Queen, Anakin muttered unsurely, "I'm to begin my training with Master Obi-Wan today. He said something about a Padawan braid." He should have been excited, becoming a Jedi was something he had always wanted to do. So why was he so apprehensive about the whole thing?
"So you will," Padmé said. "This will be our farewell then."
It surprised him that Padmé was not excited for him. He dared to hope...maybe she cared for him, maybe she was sad that he was going to leave too?
"We'll see each other tomorrow during the celebration, won't we?"
"Yes, but you'll be a Jedi then. The Jedi do not believe in attachments. Your new master will tell you not to dwell upon my memory, and in time, you will forget me."
Anakin gasped, and he instinctively reached for his friend's satin dress before he pulled back, remembering his place. "I won't ever forget you, Padmé," he protested with every fiber of his being. "No matter what they tell to do, I won't."
"Me either, Ani," she said, eyes welling up. The tears were genuine, but she wondered how much of the truth she would reveal now. "I'll always remember everything you did for me and my planet. If our paths were to cross again..."
Padmé stopped, not able to bring herself to complete her sentence. She had foreseen that future, one where they would meet again as enemies, though she knew he would always come back to her. Anakin shuddered, sensing her fears and her agony. There was something she was not telling him, he knew. Did she not trust him, he wondered? She had kept her true identity a secret from him too, but that had not been a matter of trust, and neither was this, he sensed. It had something to do with the Jedi. With Obi-Wan. She did not trust them, he realized for the first time, and for reasons he could not fathom, Padmé feared what would happen after becomes a Jedi. Anakin looked away from the Queen. She was so certain, so decisive, enough to have freed her planet despite every odd stacked against her. Why did he sense such anxiousness and uncertainty from her now?
It dawned on him. "You sense something! Your dreams...you dream things too...?" It was impossible, wasn't it? She had more important matters on her mind...was it possible that she would bother to dream of anything involving him?
"In a way." It was remarkable to Padmé that the boy, so young and completely without training, could already be so naturally attuned to the feelings of those around him. She had sensed his power the moment their ship burst into the Tatooine system, long before her Jedi bodyguards had, and to seek its source had been the reason why she had insisted on accompanying them into Mos Espa. For such power, such potential to be wasted toiling in the Jedi Temple...she would not allow it.
"Once we part, things between us will never be the same." Seeing his incoming denial, she continued. "I know you don't believe it, but you will come to see me in a different way."
He closed his eyes, seeking his feelings, letting them tell him what Padmé's words weren't. It almost seemed too easy, as if she were broadcasting it to him. He opened his blue eyes and made a swift decision. "Because of the Jedi? Then I won't join."
That was too easy, Padmé thought. It was because of her, but not just that. It was the Force itself, commanding its two servants, the connection between them too strong to be broken so easily by the Jedi. Still, she had to walk him through this completely, and let it be his decision to make. If Anakin were to join the Sith, she would have him do it willingly, with full knowledge of what he was getting into. Unlike how Palpatine had lured her in.
"When I was twelve, I was elected Princess of Theed. The night before my oath, I had a dream. The galaxy was burning, whole worlds, trillions of people, of all species. You see, I went into politics then because I wanted to do good. I still do...I think. But in that dream, that nightmare, I watched the worlds burn, and I was completely helpless, and nothing I said, nothing I did, nothing I screamed, mattered. I saw a dark figure, and it got closer and closer to me, until I couldn't breathe. It suffocated me completely, and then...nothing."
She saw the piercing look from the young boy, as if what she described was something all too familiar to him. The Force clearly spoke much clearer, much stronger, to him in his dreams, but the mere fact that he had never known of anyone else with the same affliction made her admission all the more relatable to him.
"The next day a man approached me. He knew of my nightmare, he was able to describe its every detail. He told me I had a power, that only he could teach me how to use it...that if I refused him, that all that I had dreamed of would come to pass. He told me to search my feelings, and I would find his words to be true. And they were...in a way."
"Was he...he was a Sith?" It scared him to say it, to connect the dots that would reveal to him the truth about Padmé. "Like the tattooed man?"
"He was. The Sith master told me truth, from a certain point of view. I did not understand his deception until much later, that he himself was the darkness I dreamt of...that he would have been the cause of all my suffering."
A shiver ran down Anakin's spine as he tried to process all of his conflicting thoughts. Based on what Obi-Wan had already told him about the dark warrior that murdered Qui-Gon, it jarred him that Padmé would have anything to do with anyone associated with that infernal group. But any hesitations he had about his new friend was overwhelmed by a instinctive fear for her, that they would hurt her.
"What happened to him?" The way Padmé spoke about the Master, it seemed like he was already a thing of the past.
"He is no longer a problem for any of us," Padmé answered coldly, even gleefully.
"You killed him."
"We killed him," she said proudly. It was appropriate that it was just the two of them in the throne room, together. With Maul gone as well, slain by the Jedi, she was now the final remnant of the thousands year old Order. The future of the Sith would now be shaped by a young eighteen year old girl and, if the Force willed it, if she willed it, the powerful boy before her who had unwittingly helped her betray her master.
"We? I helped?"
Rather than answer immediately, Padmé walked over to her desk. "Remember on the ride to Coruscant? When I was asking you how the ship worked? The navigation, the hyperdrive?"
"Yeah...," Anakin's eyes went wide. "You crashed the ship on purpose!" It had been a jarring experience for him, going from being a slave, to meeting Padmé, to winning the Boonta Eve Classic, to getting freed, facing a Sith Lord, blowing up a Trade Federation Control ship and, in the middle of all that, being a part of an accident whose consequences rang far across the galaxy, when their transport broke just before landing and accidentally crushed to death the Supreme Chancellor and Senator Palpatine from Padmé's planet. Except now he knew it wasn't an accident.
He saw something float out of the corner of his eye. To his further surprise, Padmé was levitating what looked to be a lightsaber in the air just above her hand. So she had Jedi powers too...except she was their enemy. His enemy?
"Senator Palpatine, so long as he lived, was the greatest threat ever presented to this galaxy. His death freed many worlds from a terrible fate..and it freed me. And you. Chancellor Valorum's death was an unfortunate side-effect of what had to be done."
Padmé floated the lightsaber over to the boy. He looked at her, seeking permission, and with a subtle nod she gave it to him, and Anakin took the Sith weapon from the air. He studied it, noting its simplicity. It was much smaller than Qui-Gon or Obi-Wan's sabers, fitting Padmé's smaller hands, and elegantly curved below its handle.
"You can turn it on," he heard Padmé say to him. It was important that he trust her, that he knew she trusted him, and offering Anakin her weapon, as key to her essence as much as the same weapon was to a Jedi, spoke more than anything she could say in words.
Anakin activated the weapon and stared at the dull red light intently buzzing in front of his face. It was the same color as the other monster's blade, and Obi-Wan had already taught him that red was the color of the Sith, but he felt none of the same hatred or malice from Padmé's saber.
"Palpatine discovered my powers when the Jedi didn't," Padmé said from her throne. Her voice projected impassioned authority, reminding Anakin of her title. "My abilities in the Force are weak compared to him, to Darth Maul...and to you. He used me as a tool to further his plans, but I always suspected that I was merely a means to an end for him. That I was never meant to truly inherit his legacy. Those suspicions were confirmed when Maul attacked us on Tatooine...it was clear that he was training other apprentices, and it was clear that he would covet someone as powerful as you."
He was used to hearing it by now, but it still unnerved Anakin to hear how everyone talked about his powers. He knew he was special, for sure, but the thought that he was more powerful than Qui-Gon, or even Obi-Wan or Padmé, seemed absurd.
"I couldn't let him take you. I will not have him subject you to the same...things...he subjected me to." And Naboo, she thought. Sidious had told her it would be a clean occupation, that the Trade Federation was there only for business. The toll she saw inflicted on her planet, her people, said otherwise. She saw Anakin still studying her behind the glint of her blade, and she felt his confusion.
"You may strike me down if you wish," Padmé said, leaning her bare neck ever slightly forward. "Shiraya knows I deserve it for my sins, what I condemned my own people to, and the Jedi will applaud you for eliminating the last of the Sith."
"No," Anakin nearly shrieked. He deactivated her lightsaber immediately and, ignoring protocol, ran to her throne to hand her back her blade. "I...I could never do that Padmé. No matter what you are, I...I couldn't." He wanted to say that he loved her, but it would be a foolish thing for a boy to say to a Queen. "If he lied to you...then you didn't know?"
"I should have known better. Part of me always suspected the worst, but I didn't listen."
Padmé cupped her hand over the right cheek of the boy standing before her. She could feel his power, she could feel their connection, long established and far stronger than the one between Anakin and his new so called Master from the Jedi. The power was so tantalizing, and it took all her self control not to take its reigns that very second and wield it as if it were hers, but she stopped herself, remembering that there was a human being, an innocent boy, behind those powers, one she happened to care for despite everything Darth Sidious had done to train those feelings out of her.
"What happens now," Anakin asked in a whisper. He definitely did not want to go back to the Jedi. He would never reveal Padmé's secret to them, but he didn't think he could bring himself to lie to them. Master Obi-Wan would be able to dig the truth out of him, and if not, one of the beings that sat on that high council.
"You could turn me into the Jedi..."
"I wouldn't!"
"You can go back with the Jedi and pretend this never happened..."
"I don't think I can...," Anakin said, faltering. Did this mean his door to the Jedi was closed forever?
"What happens now is your choice, Anakin." Was she really offering him a true choice though, or was it lightly manipulative in the same way Qui-Gon had offered the newly freed slave the choice on Tatooine? She was glad of her guilt, as it was another sign that Sidious had not murdered the girl she once was.
"I don't want anything bad to happen to you, Padmé," Anakin finally said after some consideration. "If that means saying no to Obi-Wan, then..." If that meant returning to Tatooine, returning to a life of slavery...he didn't want to think about it, but he knew he was willing to make that sacrifice.
"You can stay on Naboo of course," Padmé said warmly, both her tone and the meaning of her words washing over him like a gentle breeze. "Your heroic actions have more than entitled you to a permanent lordship and retainer here."
"Really," Anakin asked, wide eyed. It amazed Padmé that even after all this, he truly did not seem to comprehend his own self worth. She would make him appreciate himself, she decided. Padmé took his left hand in hers, her own hand soft and delicate, his prematurely worn from years toiling in the desert.
"And I can train you, teach you to harness your powers, and you will grow to be more powerful than any Jedi."
"In the Dark Side? But...we won't be evil, like your master, will we?"
"No," said Padmé firmly. She was not Sidious, and she swore she would never be. "We would be all that is left of the Sith. We would be the future of the Sith Order. And we can make it whatever we want it to be." To be honest, she still hadn't seriously considered what she wanted to do with her powers yet. An idea came to her. "We can make the galaxy right, in the ways the Jedi never can. We can free the slaves, just like in your dreams, we can go back to Tatooine and free your mother."
"Really? That would be...wizard!" For the first time since he left his mother behind, Padmé saw hope light up in Anakin's clear blue eyes. He had asked Obi-Wan several times already about his mom, but the young Jedi knight seemed to evade his questions, lecturing instead about letting go of his past and being mindful of the future. Yet the Sith would offer so much more than the Jedi were willing to begrudge, though it wasn't really the Sith...it was Padmé.
Padmé closed her eyes, recalling a dark memory. "If I were my master, now would be when I revealed myself as my true self. As Darth Mirayya. And I would have you bow to me, and bestow upon you your Sith title, Darth...," and she was surprised the name came so easily to her, "...Vader."
She opened her eyes, and as Anakin drowned himself into those bottomless brown pools, those eyes speaking to him in the voice of the nice and friendly young girl that he already knew he loved in ways he could not comprehend, the opposite of the darkness from the other Sith warrior.
"But I don't care about those kriffing Sith traditions," Padmé continued, interrupting his thoughts. "You will always be Anakin to me, and I hope I will always be Padmé to you. I would be your teacher, not your master, and when the day comes that you have learned all you can from me, we will not be master and apprentice, but friends, and...partners." She took his other hand and kissed his forehead chastely, yet in that moment she saw in her mind an essence of the awesome, imposing, powerful man that Anakin Skywalker would become. She saw them standing together, at the center of the entire galaxy, and felt a lust that she had never felt before, and above all, she felt his overwhelming power. Their overwhelming power. As she broke contact, her skin crawled in delightful ways, and she knew that Anakin had felt something similar. "I have foreseen it."
She could see his answer in his eyes before he spoke it. She could feel it in the Force.
"I want...that," he said, speaking to the same vague visions the Force had imparted to both of them, speaking to feelings and a future he could not begin to describe in words.
"Then we will have it all." They were both still so young, Padmé, Darth Mirayya, contemplated. Children, really, both of them. And yet one day they would reshape the galaxy to their will. The children will inherit the future.
