A/N: What's this you say? Why it's a. . .it's a. . .something else? Something different? Something kind of serious even though it's really not but at the same time it kind of is?
Yeah yeah, ok.

This is what comes of being involved in an art trade with ever-awesome Fishyicon (who is a big part of 'Smooth Operator,' mind you. CHECK HER OUT! :D) who thought she would like a little something with pod-racing and centered around the dynamic duo (well, no, that's not what you'd call them), er doomed (well, that sounds a bit harsh). . .

The epic couple that is Anakin Skywalker and Padme Amidala, secret husband and wife team that is pretty epic in it's own right.

I went there. But before I ramble further:

Happy Star Wars Day! May the Fourth be with you!

Fishy, you're still awesome. Stay awesome.

Set sometime during The Clone Wars. I'd say most likely after the '08 movie itself, but I suppose I'll let you be the judge of that.

Just A Little Closer, Love

Padmé Naberrie Amidala (Skywalker) was not one to gloat by any means. However, that did not mean she wasn't above exhorting her victory over a given few in her current predicament.

That small few included the husband whose chest was crammed against her back in the tight space the two had found themselves in. His heart pounded forcefully beside her spine, what adrenaline was left still coursing through his veins alongside something else that came up whenever he found himself in such a close proximity to the woman.

It didn't help his case any that what they were about to do could successfully kill them both in a matter of seconds.

Having been the target of bounty hunters and would be assassins for years, Padmé Amidala wasn't about to let the risk of death once again impede the few moments she got alone with her husband.

Never mind the small crowd watching them.

Upon hearing of the Nabooan Senator's planned expedition to Tatooine Anakin Skywalker had not exactly been her biggest fan, but he quickly jumped on the bandwagon once he was told that her main goal—other than to follow through with yet another attempt by the Senate to persuade the Hutt Clan to at least ally with the Republic—was to somehow find a means of abolishing slavery on the small dusty planet. Something had hardened in his eyes as she'd said this, but she hadn't found the heart to push it.

Jabba hadn't exactly been the most welcoming host, but at least the raceway air smelt ten-fold better than what there was in the lounge. Even Captain Rex had made it a point to get a few kilometers away from the place before he took in a few good inhales; Ahsoka hadn't been quite so subtle.

With their small entourage keeping a close eye on the two—some more out of sheer curiosity than suspicion—Padmé leaned further back into her husband's embrace, trying and failing to keep her attention on what he was saying rather than what he was doing.

". . .this gauge here monitors your speed while this one—"

"You're kidding." Ahsoka leveled her gaze with her Master, her arms folded in the manner that she seemed to have adopted every time she spoke to him. He matched her stance with the subtle narrowing of his eyes.

"For the last time, no." The thin awning they were debating under did little to protect them from Tatooine's non-so-lenient winds, as proven by Padmé as she raise her hand to her face to block the sand while Rex and Obi-Wan ventured into some shop in search of food with some sort of taste.

"You need to keep an eye on this one, because once that dial reaches the red zone—and of course it's red—you might as well kiss your butt goodbye—"

With his back to the wind Anakin turned to his wife to get her take on the situation, suddenly paying mind to the fact that she'd been squinting at them with her cloak pulled above her mouth to keep out the acrid taste of dirt and whatever else there was out of her mouth. He took it upon himself to move a bit closer to the woman who'd remained silent for most of the time in order to provide her with some shelter. She nodded in mute gratitude and loosed her hold on the cloth just a bit.

Removing her hood from where it had snagged on the rotting wood above her, Ahsoka followed her teacher's cue, the three huddled together while waiting for something to eat. Ahsoka hacked into her hood in a not so dainty manner before deciding to fill the Senator in on their current debate.

"Skyguy here claims that he won some Boon Ever race when he was a kid—"

"Boonta Eve." The Jedi interrupted with a grimace that had nothing to do with the fact that he was currently on a planet he despised with every fiber of his being. Even if she wasn't going to believe him she could at least get the facts straight.

"Whatever." The Padawan huffed while a handful of figures that appeared to be Jawas scurried out of the hovel. The weary trio then took it upon themselves to occupy the sudden vacancy by ducking into the low doorway and into the musty air.

There was a pause before Padmé realized that Anakin was waiting for some form of response.

"You have been listening to a word I've said, have you?" He quipped with a grin.

"I was listening!" She shot back in an indignant manner, much to his amusement.

"All right," He said after a chuckle and then pointed to one of the more obvious levers. "What does this do? And no, 'makes us go fast' doesn't count." He shifted again in the small seat they both shared, which only resulted in her pressing herself closer to him while she re-situated herself on his lap.

"No, that one allows us to prevent death." She muttered, grinning to herself, even though he couldn't see. She could feel his smile from the way his chin dug into her shoulder. For the most part the sand encrusted goggles had proven more of a nuisance thus far—the ability to have seen the profile of his face right then would have been a nice touch to their otherwise rare moments together.

"So long as you jerk it quick enough." He stated with too much finality for the moment as he fingered the brake lever he'd been pointing to. "But good, for a second there I thought you'd forgotten."

Padmé sighed into her glass once more while her husband defended the title he'd received as the only human to have ever actually competed and won in a pod-race to a girl who was having a hard time buying into it. In all honesty she truly hadn't expected much out of the trip to the desert planet—maybe a short audience with Jabba, sure, but a raging debate? That had been fairly unexpected.

Anakin Skywalker was not one to let his wife go wander around the galaxy without protection of course, so by all means he offered his services as an escort to the targeted Senator. Obi-Wan and Ahsoka had merely trailed along, as usual. Nonetheless Padmé Amidala wasn't about to let a whole squadron put their lives on the line just for her, but she'd had to settle for the added escort that was Captain Rex and two of his men that were doing little to hide their growing interest in the idea of a boy pod-racer.

"I find your lack of faith disturbing." Padmé muttered under her breath, a bit off-put by the idea that Anakin hadn't assumed she'd remembered something he'd only said a minute ago.

He snickered. "I'm sure there's quite a few things that disturb you, and the amount of faith I have in you isn't one of them. In fact, I'd say you have a lack of faith in me."

"Really," She breathed, steadying herself while he prepared the small repulsorcraft for what ought to have been dubbed 'lift-off.'

"Hmm, " He hummed, shifting around a bit as he checked and double checked every gauge he could see. "Weren't you the one who doubted I could get Watto to find my old pod and then get him to allow us to use it?"

"You cheated," She murmured with a mock pout, doing what she could to fold her arms. "Using that little Jedi trick of yours was a bit low, don't you think?"

"Cheated!" Anakin said with a puff of air that toyed with the hairs on the back of Padmé's neck. "Of all the things you're going to accuse me of. . ." He paused for a moment, brushing his lip against the lobe of her ear. "Cheating?"

"Don't," Padmé did her best not to stammer as her husband subtly kissed the corner of her jaw. "Not right here."

Anakin would have scowled had he not been so amused. "They're not going to notice anything, love. All it looks like is two people crammed into a pod—because there is—because a certain someone was going to be difficult."

"How is my obvious victory in a certain bet being difficult?" She replied, doing what she could to turn and face him. "Especially considering the fact that you took it upon yourself to mess with that man's mind?"

He turned toward her and allowed one of his eyebrows to rise along with the corner of his mouth.

"You never said Jedi mind tricks weren't allowed. I'm calling your bluff." With his back to the rest of their party he impishly stuck his tongue out at her. "And you being here right now is somehow supposed to be you calling my bluff. See how that works?"

"Fine." Anakin huffed, smacking his flesh hand against their table. What silence there was fell upon the small band as he scoped the marketplace after the momentary sandstorm. Once he finally found a way of proving himself he just about beamed at them. "If I can convince that guy—" He gestured to some creature fluttering about with its back to them. "—to let me borrow one of his pods, I will show you."

"I highly doubt he's just going to 'let' you borrow one of his pods, Master Skywalker." Padmé stated, wiping sand away from her sleeves. His grin still stuck even while Obi-Wan studied the figure his former Padawan had been pointing to as if he had some familiarity to it. Anakin leaned in toward the Senator, earning a smirk from Ahsoka at her Master's antics.

"Would you to like to place a wager on that?"

Gambling had never been one of Padmé's more prominent hobbies, but the bets made between her and her husband had always been more for sport than anything. Then again, he tended to win most of the time with those stupid guilt trips he'd like to pull. Or The Face.

She smirked back at him. "Fine then."

So how was she to know it was Watto that Anakin strolled on over to? And how was she too know that he was all too eager to see his former little wonder boy out on the track just so he could bet on him again?

Of course, Anakin's wager had been "If I win, you owe me a kiss" with a wink (neither of which Obi-Wan had been fond of, but the clones really didn't seem to care either way and Ahsoka was more along for the ride than anything. ) whereas Padmé had wagered "When you lose ("What, you're not even going to give me the benefit of the 'if?'") you have to take me out in it."

Anakin had made it loud and clear that he'd won the bet, especially judging from the way he meandered back over to his wife and given her a dip kiss in full view of anyone walking by. ("Hey! You promised me one when I was younger!" He'd said jokingly, to which she'd responded: "We were flying through space and we were half-asleep! Why do you remember all these tiny little details but never the big picture?")

"Are you calling this a draw then?" She murmured as he held her just a bit closer.

"Among other things," He murmured, nuzzling the side of her neck discreetly. Obi-Wan and the others were much too far away in the stands, but had he been any closer Anakin would have expect him to be pulling the two apart long before now. The fact that he'd been kissing the side of her neck and holding her in plain view ought to have been proof of that. "Are you ready?"

"If that's what you want to call it," She said softly, just barely loud enough for him to catch. He gave a soft grin and enveloped her small hands in his much larger ones over the mechanisms that would serve as their steering wheel.

"Hold on, love." With that he laced her fingers over the throttle and told her to brace herself as he prepared the large turbine engines.

She flinched into his chest against the roar as they and the power couplings linking them came to life, their snarls still not loud enough to cover the delicate "I love you" her husband whispered into her ear before he told her to gun it.

Padmé then succeeded in knocking the breath out of herself as she slammed into the front of the packed cockpit.

Anakin swore under his breath and flipped a switch, pointedly ignoring the worry he felt from his Padawan as she leapt to her feet, the two tag-along clones following suit. Rex and Obi-Wan remained seated where they were, both figuring Anakin ought to be able to handle himself by now. It didn't hurt that the small screen that were watching the worn pod on had a 'Replay' option.

"Now gun it." He shouted over the twin turbines, taking her hands in his again. As they shot forward he felt the urge to repeat the advice given to him by Qui-Gon many years before, granting both a smirk and brief feeling of loss. "Feel! Don't think! If you over-think it you're going to end up embedded in a wall!"

Padmé had to admit she was greatly impressed by the ease with which he took the first not so smooth turn, considering the fact that they were probably going well over the seven-hundred kilometers/hour he'd said a pod was capable of.

Oh, the gauge said eight-hundred kilometers/hour at the moment. And here she was thinking they'd been going at a much more humane speed.

At the rate they were going and the idea of others on the track with them—Anakin had 'convinced' the man currently in charge of the raceway to allow them on a trial run for the fun of it—Padmé could hardly see herself racing here alone. She was still amazed by the ease and finesse with which the man whose lap she was seated on had won when he was nine.

He pressed a kiss to her shoulder as they reached the straight-way, revving the two engines just a bit more while they both had a vague memory of one of the Steelton cables coming loose in the Boonta Eve Classic years before.

"It might look easy or difficult depending on who you ask," He yelled over the wind and rumble of their podracer. "But it's mostly about how you—ACK!"

Padmé gasped as they jerked to the side, she herself forcing them back onto the correct path before they barreled into the rock outcropping they'd been speeding towards. She did have to laugh as he tore one of his hands away from steering to wipe away the insect that had slammed into one of his goggles.

"Fantastic," He groaned to himself with his impeded depth-perception. "You think you've got this?"

"No," Her voice wavered as she replied, not overly in-tuned to the Force or capable of the inhuman physical attributes that Anakin or the other racers had possessed. Their speed dropped significantly as Anakin fought off bug guts and Padmé focused on one direction: straight.

They jerked again as he retook control and climbed up another few hundred kilometers/hour, successful in completing another lap without too many mishaps. (His attempt to kiss her cheek and she his had resulted in them whacking their goggles against one another.)

But Padmé wasn't one to brood if she could help it (Anakin may have been a different story), so she would take what she could get when it came to time alone with her husband, even if it wasn't as romantic as either of them would have liked.

One of their first and only public displays of affection and it hardly meant anything to the rest of their party. Then again, perhaps the dirt smeared across their faces and the risk of death at every sharp turn didn't particularly help the mood any.

"Just a little closer, love." Anakin murmured into her ear, his words garbled by the harsh wind that resulted from going much too fast than we presumably legal. Considering it like being in lightspeed: the speed was there, but the cruise control was not. In a risky maneuver he removed one of his hands from hers to wrap his arm around her waist, just holding her that much closer to him.

If they were to crash and die in the moment, as least her last thought would be of how much she loved him.

First and for most he was Jedi to their chagrin, and then secondly he was a husband. But there were those rare moments when he was just a young man in love that tinkered in mechanics and had adventurous desires to see the galaxy.

In that moment, maybe she understood him just a bit more.

She didn't want him to let go.

The Nabooan had to admit to a mixture of disappointment and relief once their pod stopped in the same general area they'd started, finding an opportunity to lean back into her husband as he wrapped his arms around her to her sigh as her senses came back to her. Another public display of affection that left none the wiser.

"That was so cool!" Ahsoka breathed, tromping her way through the dust and sand toward them, Obi-Wan and the others following in leisurely pursuit. Padmé tilted her head up to look at her husband's grin, his chin pressed gently and subtly onto her crown.

"Oh sure, now you don't think I'm kidding." He shot back jovially; finally take note of Kenobi's glance Anakin shifted so that the couple could exit the podracer they'd both been crammed into. The young Jedi Knight quickly hopped out first in order to turn and offer the Senator a hand out.

She wriggled her toes as her feet pressed into solid ground again, noticing that Anakin had yet to release her hand, instead bringing it to his lips as he bowed to her.

Padmé wasn't the only one who chuckled as his lips left smudges of dirt on her knuckles.

"What?" Anakin quipped, not overtly embarrassed by his rather rash antic. Ahsoka bit her lip and chuckled, biting just a bit harder when she fully took in her Master's face. He turned from the bemused Obi-Wan to his wife and repeated his inquiry, only for her to burst into laughter as well.

"Oh, your face!" She chuckled; Rex motioned to his own cheek with his hand at Anakin's momentarily confused scowl which rapidly turned into a smirk of his own.

"Mine? What about yours?" He laughed, dragging his hand across his face which only resulted in the others laughing that much harder as he peeled off his goggles.

"You're just smearing it now, Anakin." Obi-Wan said through his own chuckles, for once not really offering the young man any aid while Padmé removed her own worn goggles.

"Figures," His exasperated tone contradicted the smile on his face mirroring the one on Padmé's. "Everyone's a critic." Rex offered his own words of advice as to Anakin 'making more of a mess of himself' before addressing the jabbering Padawan who now regretted disbelieving her Master earlier.

Anakin's smile even with the dirt and remnants of bug guts was one of those rare ones he saved only for his wife—the ones that showed true happiness and joy rather than a victorious smirk or the looks of devotion he'd once given her upon their ten-year reunion. But right then the look on his face and the emotion in his eyes brought back memories of a young boy asking if she was an angel that quickly morphed into a grown young man whispers words of love stolen in brief snatches in secret rendezvous they rarely shared.

And in that moment, she'd never loved him more.

Even Obi-Wan wasn't sure what to do or say when Padmé returned that kiss Anakin had won from their earlier bet.

But then again, these guys could keep a secret, couldn't they?

Anakin, of course, hadn't had much to say on the subject either. He was a bit preoccupied at the moment.

A/N: Fishy, this art trade was amazing. I think we need to do another one. Not immediately, but sometime in the future. XD
Ah well, I had fun with this. It was a lot of fun to write, and I'm hoping you'll have more fun reading it. :D

Thoughts are appreciated but not demanded. But we need to spread the Anakin/Padmé love. c:

But thanks to you, Fishy, for being so awesome.