Title: Touched by an Angel
Author: SilverDragon
Summary: Yes, it's been done before...but...Anakin proposes to Padmé in the aftermath of new realizations regarding his true feelings.
Notes: Slight angst in the very beginning, but I tried my absolute hardest to keep the actual story and the epilogue from anything mildly angsty. Therefore, it's mostly light romance.
Prologue
He missed her, already. Silent tears coursed down his cheeks as he looked into the blazing fire, feeling a ball of rage rise up within him, as hot and angry as the flames licking up the wood greedily. Shmi's head lolled back against his shoulder.
"Mom," he whispered softly, "I will avenge you." His arms tightened around the lifeless body. Everything he had worked so hard for! To save his mother...and now it was done and done. He had failed. She was dead. Ten years of training, wasted. He had worked so hard, come so far, risked so much...only to spend a few seconds of a tearful reunion.
The ball of anger curled up and gnashed out, eating away at his heart. It was the Tusken's fault. They deserved his anger. They deserved everything he could dish out and more! They deserved a lifetime – no – three lifetimes of suffering for what they had done. His mother had never bothered them. She had only been goodness. She had only tried to help others when she could.
Why? Why her?
Why take the good and the innocent when evil was free to roam and terrorize as it wished?
His neck stiffened. He could bring justice to this. He could bring justice. The beam of the lightsaber hissed alive in the small tent. He stood, flickering the blade from side to side, feeling the righteousness move through him. She was dead. He couldn't change that. He had failed.
But he could regain some credit. He could bring justice.
The flames crackled.
Touched by an Angel
Nineteen-year-old Anakin Skywalker stared resolutely at Padmé. His charge. His job. His love. It surprised him, how strongly he felt about her. Oh sure, when he had been nine he had been attracted to her undeniable beauty and strength. When he had met her again, those feelings had only surged. But it hadn't been until the execution scene down on Geonosis that he had seen a glimpse of her true self, the fighter she was behind the diplomat.
He loved it. And he loved her more because of that.
His smile broadened as Padmé breathed gently, in and out. What was she dreaming of? Home back on Naboo? The smile lingered on his expression as he recalled the day in the meadow, when he had seen a side of her that was not Senator-like at all. Padmé had been with him that time. Yet, how many times had he admired how Amidala handled difficult bureaucrats as easily as he handled a seeker droid? Amidala and Padmé. They held the two qualities Anakin craved – and when both were the same person, it made his choice that much easier.
"I love you," he whispered quietly. She had to know, didn't she?
He had shown it, too often. Anakin knew his behavior on that mission hadn't been becoming of a Jedi. Even Padmé's family had seen his devotion to her! But, a nagging voice in his head echoed. You never told her just how much you love her. She thought it was just an infatuation, one that you could live with.
Was that what she thought? Anakin wondered. That once tomorrow came, he would leave again for Coruscant, she would return to Naboo, and they would have nothing to remind one another of the times they had spent? How they had fought death together? The kisses they had shared, those intimate moments, those times when Anakin felt as if his heart would burst forth from his chest and flutter with joy...would it all simply disappear?
He knew he had to make it go away. He had to forget everything had happened. Obi-Wan would continue with his training. He would become a Jedi Knight. The past two weeks would be erased. And yet...
Never, Anakin thought resolutely. He had only felt this open love, the urgent need to protect, to take on the world for her happiness, with only one other person: his mother. To feel that again and have unconditional love coming back at him...it alleviated the pain of the death of Shmi. He had been able to go on because of Padmé. Without her...Anakin drifted away from the thought, knowing just how close to breaking point he had been merely days earlier.
Anakin closed his eyes, leaning back and resting out calloused palm on Padmé's. Her eyes fluttered open. "Ani?"
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to wake you," Anakin said softly, smiling as he took in his angel. Clad in her silk nightgown, with illuminant blue shadows brushing her shoulders and face, Padmé simply looked marvelous tonight.
"Don't go. Your presence is soothing." Padmé smiled, squeezing his hand with her own, playing with the fingers. "You should get some sleep," she chided, "You have a big day planned for tomorrow, with your Council wanting to squeeze every last detail from you."
"I know," Anakin said resignedly.
She smiled, dropping a gentle kiss on Anakin's palm. "You've been thinking Jedi thoughts again," she said. "Anakin, we will see each other again. I am a Senator. I have business to do on Coruscant. We'll be on the same planet half the time!"
Anakin shook his head. "It won't be the same."
"Then how do you want it?"
"I don't know," Anakin pleaded, "A Jedi can't love. And yet..."
"The heart knows no boundaries," Padmé finished. "I said to you, some time ago, that if you follow your thoughts through to conclusion, they will take you to a place we cannot go. I'm beginning to think I was more than right. Yet that doesn't make me happy. Not at all."
"I couldn't make you live a lie," Anakin said. "You're too...unspoiled for that."
"Unspoiled, Anakin?" Padmé resisted a smile. "Like an angel?"
"You are like an angel because you are one," Anakin insisted, effortlessly pushing himself up to kneel at Padmé's side. "I wanted – I wanted to say...I love you." There. It was out and in the open. Why were these three words harder to get out than fighting a Sith Lord? Anakin wondered fleeting, rubbing his hands against his tunic. Who knew he had sweat glands there? And why was his breathing suddenly so strange and foreign to him? And for Force sakes, why did he have to blush at this very moment?
"I told you," Padmé whispered, her mouth barely moving. "That I loved you. I didn't say it just because we were going to die. You are...everything to me. I love you more than...anything, really." Anakin's heart leapt at the words; he leaned forward to kiss her, his padawan braid gently brushing her smooth and rounded nose.
"But what can we do about it?" Padmé whispered, the words barely audible, even as Anakin's lips slid onto hers.
"The Jedi way is to forget about it," Anakin said, even as he latched onto her lips and reached for her tongue with his own. The two held the kiss before Padmé spoke.
"The Naboo way is to marry."
***
"Somehow I get the feeling I haven't done this properly," Anakin whispered, uncomfortably tugging at his cloak hem. Padmé saw his discomfort and smiled, graciously running one hand up his bicep and back down.
"Relax, Anakin. You're doing fine."
"Whatever you say," Anakin sighed. He fingered the tiny box hidden in his tunic belt.
Padmé gave him a light kiss on the cheek. "When you come out, I'll be waiting," she said, her beautiful brown hair emitting the light scent of flowers. Anakin breathed in deeply, feeling his muscles slowly lose their tension.
As Padmé left the small room, Anakin grimaced to himself, pacing and attempting to straighten his tunic at the same time. Deep in the back of his mind, he had a feeling those actions were counterintuitive, but he couldn't stop himself. At long last, he let out a breath, exuberating Jedi calm. He had trained ten years to do so, after all!
Slipping the small box into his billowing cloak sleeve, Anakin released a short choppy breath before pushing the door open. The path before him was littered with flowers – red Juppies that Padmé had personally picked out. The sky was painted a brilliant flash of blue, the clouds were full and happy...all was at peace on Naboo. Anakin took a step forward.
He rounded the corner and saw – her.
"Force," Anakin breathed. The sunlight glinted off the amber hair, throwing a radiance of gold into Anakin's sight. And her outfit! Slender wings rose from the small of her back, sparkling underneath the golden rays of the sun. She was an angel.
"Your angel," Padmé said, slowly walking towards him.
Anakin flushed. Had he been thinking aloud again?
Then he remembered his role. Approaching her, Anakin quickly dropped to one knee, keeping his head bowed accordingly. The box fell out of his cloak sleeve. He popped it open, revealing a small carving of an angel from japor snippet. "Padmé," he said seriously, "Will you marry me?"
He looked up then, to see twinkle in her eyes.
"Oh, Anakin," she smiled, "Traditionally, the man offer a ring."
For a brief moment, Anakin furrowed his brow until the idea hit him. Unclipping his lightsaber from his belt, he cracked it open and removed a small bit of crystal from it. Twisting some more wires free, he concentrated on the Force, remolding and bending the metal to his wishes. With the japor snippet angel, he placed the crystal in the heart of the angel and attached the entire thing to the metal ring he had created. "Will you marry me?"
Surprise radiated from Padmé. She reached out one hand, holding the ring with awe. "You didn't need to do that," she said, "I love you, Anakin. Nothing will make a difference to that. Not what you give me when you propose. You didn't need to destroy your lightsaber for me - for this ritual!"
"I didn't need to," Anakin breathed as Padmé slipped the ring on, "I wanted to. You see," he murmured in her ear, gathering her into his strong embrace, "The lightsaber is a part of who a Jedi is. And now, a part of me will be with you always."
She closed her eyes as she leaned against a broad shoulder. "Anakin," she murmured in his ear.
"Yes?"
"The answer to your question is yes."
Epilogue"You are unusually happy," Obi-Wan remarked dryly.
Anakin smiled, "Obi-Wan, have you ever..."
"Ever..." Obi-Wan pressed when it become clear Anakin had no intention of finishing.
"Been touched by an angel?"
Obi-Wan drew back from his padawan, astonished and not bothering to hide it. "Well, no, I haven't," he admitted, "I've come awfully close, though."
Anakin's eyes were closed as he leaned back. "I have, Master," he murmured. "She lifted me off the ground and into the heavens above when my own wings forgot how to fly."
The End