A Gift With a Price
If Padmé is honest with herself, most of the time she is jealous of Anakin's Force sensitivity. She never lets it get in between the two of them, or at least she tries not to. It's hard sometimes. Anakin is just so different. He doesn't see the universe like everyone else. He doesn't even feel things on the same level as everyone. She understands that it is a burden. It is a gift that guarantees that he will never truly have anyone else. Because when you are so much better, more skilled, faster, smarter than everyone; no one can truly understand you.
Sometimes Padmé thinks she gets close. On certain days when they lay together in the early hours of the morning, or when she sits beside him and runs her hand through his hair as he sobs, then Padmé thinks that she might understand what he goes through each and every day. She thinks she can begin to comprehend how difficult it must to simply get out of bed in the morning. To pretend that you can't feel everyone's emotions, to hide the feelings that Anakin undoubtedly feels but should not. On those days that Padmé thinks she understands her husband, it breaks her heart because she sees a glimpse of the pain and the horror and the overwhelming sense of duty that she knows haunts his every waking second and hour.
Today is one of those days. She is sitting next to him, one arm around his shoulders another stroking his arm. He hides his face in his durasteel hand and Padmé swears that she can feel the darkness that must surely be clouding his mind.
They sit that way for hours.
They do not say a word. There are no interruptions. They do not move. They seem to not even breath. The whole world disappears as Padmé's soul calls to Anakin and begs him to come back to her. To leave the war and its horrors behind and to come into the light. To remember the good that still exists instead or dwelling on the good that has been lost. They sit in silence, the world turning to the sound of two broken hearts trying to heal each other.
When Anakin finally removes his hand, Padmé finds not the blue eyes of her strong, invincible husband, but the tears of a child taken from his mother. "There were slaves," Anakin finally rasps out. "Slaves everywhere."
"But, the Republic has outlawed…" Padmé responds, momentarily forgetting her husband's despair in a wave of shock at the actions of the universe.
Anakin can't even bring himself to listen to the end of his wife's sentence. Why does she think that the Republic can stop anything? That just because someone high-up in the government signs a piece of paper that everyone does exactly what they are supposed to? Doesn't she understand that people don't follow rules? That people are human and make mistakes and are so much worse than she thinks? How can she be so naive as to believe that people, that humans can be so good, so righteous? Red floods Anakin's vision as he stares at his wife. He has been through so much, seen so many horrors. But Padmé. Padmé has seen nothing of the horrors of the universe, or so she acts. How could someone who has seen death and destruction and war believe that good still exists?
"The Republic! The Republic doesn't mean anything. It's just a bunch of politicians who decide the fate of the universe while everyone around them suffers and dies. This belief in humanity that you have, this idea that no one would ever actually do anything horrible, it's wrong! It's all wrong because we're just human…" Anakin finds himself on the ground, kneeling at the feet of his wife with tears in his eyes. "We're all just human…We're all just humans to your angel."
Nothing else needs to be said as Padmé wraps her arms around her husband and sobs with him.