The days immediately following Geonosis were a blur for Anakin. He was taken back to Coruscant, and the healers in the Jedi Temple fit him with a cybernetic replacement for his right arm. Anakin didn't know how many hours he spent alone in the Halls of Healing, staring at the shiny gold fingers that used to be skin and bones and fumblingly practicing moving it and picking things up and wondering how the kriff he was ever supposed to get used to it.

Bitterness and grief over his lost limb took up most of his thoughts, but what space in his mind remained was focused entirely on Padmé. I truly, deeply love you, and before we die I want you to know. She loved him. After all the time she'd spent pushing him away and insisting that a relationship between them was impossible, she'd confessed that she actually loved him. Anakin could still hardly believe it, and yet no memory from that day was clearer in his mind than the feeling of her lips on his as they were brought out into the arena.

But she hadn't come to see him in all the time they'd been back on Coruscant, hadn't once come to check if he was all right. At first Anakin had figured it was because she was also recovering from her injuries, but when a week had passed and there was still no sign of her (surely bacta had finished healing the cuts on her back by now), he began to worry. What if it meant—she'd only told him how she felt because she thought they were going to die, but they hadn't died. What if Padmé's absence now meant that she regretted her confession? After all, nothing about the situation had changed. They still couldn't be together. Maybe she was trying to distance herself from him in hopes of pretending she'd never said anything. As far as Anakin was concerned, though, now that he knew she loved him, he didn't think he'd ever be able to act like he didn't know, to just forget about it. But if that was what Padmé wanted, he'd have to do it.

Anakin spent another week fretting over the prospect, and then the Jedi healers finally discharged him with the order that he take another two weeks off so that he could continue recuperating and getting used to his new arm. Obi-Wan stopped by just after Anakin had discarded his healing robe and changed back into his usual Jedi garb. "I came to visit and they told me they're letting you out now," he said; unlike Padmé, he'd been visiting Anakin frequently over the past two weeks. "How are you feeling?"

"Fine," Anakin said, which was partially true. Physically, none of his injuries hurt anymore, but the loss of his arm combined with anxiety over Padmé was making him feel far from fine. "They said I should take it easy for two more weeks, though."

Obi-Wan nodded in approval. "I agree, but I'm sure the Council will be disappointed."

"Why?"

"Well, they're busy strategizing and figuring out where to send all of us off to fight. They want all hands on deck right now."

Oh. They were at war now. Right. Anakin had almost forgotten that in the wake of all his personal issues. His mind wandered back to Padmé, as it always inevitably did, and he found himself saying, "Master, is Pa—is Senator Amidala still on Coruscant?"

"She is," Obi-Wan confirmed. "But I believe she'll be returning to Naboo in a few days' time."

"Oh," Anakin said, heart sinking both at the fact that she would be leaving again so soon and the fact that she had indeed been on-world the whole time and still hadn't come to visit him. Well, he'd just have to go to her. "Since I'm not allowed to do anything for two weeks, would it be all right if I went to see her now? Just to check if she's all right after Geonosis and everything."

Obi-Wan looked at him with an uncannily knowing gaze for a moment or two before saying, "I don't see why not. I'm sure she'll want to see you, too."

Anakin looked at him in surprise. "She will? You think so?"

"Certainly, if her repeated attempts to visit you are anything to go by." Seeing Anakin's confused expression, Obi-Wan explained, "Senator Amidala came here to see you practically the moment she was released from Coruscant Medical, but the healers wouldn't allow her in. They said you needed time alone to rest and meditate. Not that that stopped her from trying again every day since then, or so I've heard."

So she had tried to come see him after all? Anakin's heart soared, but all he said was, "Why wouldn't they let her in? They let you in."

"Yes, because I'm a Jedi and your master. I suppose they didn't want any politicians interfering with your recovery process. I believe they also refused entry to Chancellor Palpatine."

In the back of his mind, Anakin was surprised that the Jedi healers would've been so bold as to send the Supreme Chancellor himself away (and more than a little thrilled that the Supreme Chancellor himself had cared enough to check on him in the first place), but that was secondary to the thought that Padmé had wanted to see him and probably still did. Anakin bid Obi-Wan goodbye and made his way over to the Senate Apartment Complex as quickly as he could, hoping Padmé was home.

As luck would have it, she was. One of the handmaidens (Anakin thought it was Dormé, but he wasn't entirely sure) opened the door and said, "Oh, Padawan Skywalker. Senator Amidala has been hoping to speak with you. Please come with me."

Anakin followed her out onto the veranda, heartrate increasing with every step. Upon their arrival, he spotted Padmé sitting on the sofa with a datapad in hand, frowning in concentration as she read something on the screen. She looked up as she heard them approach, and her forehead immediately smoothed and a broad smile broke out across her face.

"Anakin!" she exclaimed, tossing the datapad aside and hurrying over towards him. She threw her arms around him, and Anakin made to hug her back but was suddenly self-conscious of his cybernetic arm. He settled for hugging her with his left arm while his right hung awkwardly by his side.

At last Padmé drew back, still smiling at him, and Anakin couldn't help but smile too, nerves and anxiety fading for a few moments in the utter joy of just being near her again. "How are you?" she asked. "They finally let you out of the Halls of Healing? I tried to visit you so many times but they wouldn't let me in. I've been so worried about you, Ani."

The nickname that had once made him feel like a child now felt heartwarmingly intimate falling from her lips, and Anakin's smile widened. "Yes, I just got out, and I'm fine," he said. "What about you? Obi-Wan mentioned you were at Coruscant Medical for a while?"

Padmé nodded and led him to stand over by the open balcony overlooking the city as Dormé discreetly left the room. "They put some bacta on the cuts from the nexu, and it only took a few days to heal. I still have the scars, though. They said those would probably never go away." She glanced curiously at his cybernetic hand and ventured, "So…how's your new arm working out?"

"Fine," Anakin said shortly, shaking the sleeve of his robe so that it concealed his hand.

"You don't have to hide it," Padmé said in a soothing tone. "There's nothing to be ashamed of."

He scowled. "I'm not ashamed, I just—" Miss my real arm. Feel like a machine instead of a person. Worry you'll be repulsed by it. Am scared you won't love me anymore. "I just don't want you to see it."

Padmé studied him for a few moments, and Anakin wished (not for the first time) that her mind wasn't so strong because he wanted to know what she was thinking. Then, to his surprise, she started undoing the clasps of her overcoat. She took it off and set it on the sofa behind her, and when she turned around, Anakin tried not to blush as he saw that the gown underneath left most of her back exposed. His eyes were immediately drawn to the thick scars marring her otherwise flawless skin.

"You see these?" Padmé said, reaching around with one hand to indicate the scars. "I got these because I fought in a battle. I got these because I was brave, because I was a warrior."

"Yes," Anakin said slowly, wondering where the kriff she was going with this.

"Touch them," Padmé said softly.

He coughed in surprise. "I'm sorry?"

"My scars. I-I want you to feel them."

Anakin stared at her, but she was still facing away from him so he couldn't see her expression, and after another few moments he reached out (with his flesh hand) and hesitantly traced along the scars. He took his time, noting the contrast between the rough bumpiness of the scars and the soft, smooth skin of the rest of her back. Finally he dropped his hand again, still unsure of what was happening between them but knowing that whatever it was, it was intimate in a way he'd never quite experienced before.

Padmé turned around once more and he saw that her cheeks were tinged a little pink, but she looked up at him determinedly. "We both have scars," she said simply. "I have those and you have your new arm. Your arm isn't something to hide or be embarrassed about. It's a symbol of your courage, Anakin. You took on a Sith Lord four times your age and survived. How many people can say that? That arm is a part of you just as much as your other one is, and just as much as those scratches on my back are a part of me. So please…let me see it. Please."

Anakin suddenly felt himself blinking back tears. He'd never thought of his arm that way, and neither had Obi-Wan or the healers. It'll be an adjustment, but you'll get used to it, they said. It'll work just as well as a real arm. A real arm, because the new one was fake. Get used to it, because it was different and unnatural. And yet, Padmé was standing in front of him and she wasn't saying that the cybernetic was ugly or off-putting or inhuman the way he'd feared she would. She was saying that he should be proud of it, that it was a part of him.

He took a shaky breath and held his right hand out to her, pushing the sleeve back with his left as he did so. Padmé reached out and closed both of her own hands around the metal, and Anakin gave a small smile as he felt the warmth of her touch; the cybernetic had sensors that allowed him to feel everything like normal. To her, it probably felt like holding hands with a droid, but to him it felt just as real as if she'd been holding his flesh hand. Padmé started running her fingers along his own and over his palm and up his forearm and back down again, exploring the cybernetic just as Anakin had done countless times himself since the Jedi healers had attached it.

Then she moved one hand away to take his other hand, still holding onto the cybernetic with her other hand, and she laced both sets of fingers through his. They stood there quietly holding hands for several minutes before Anakin cleared his throat and said, "There was also—um, there's something else I wanted to talk to you about."

She looked up at him. "What?"

Anakin licked his lips nervously, not sure how to phrase it. Then he said in a rush, "So about—about what you said on Geonosis, before they brought us into the arena, when you said—when you said you—you love me? I guess I was just wondering if—I mean, I know you only said it because you thought we were going to die, so since we didn't die, I-I was afraid maybe you'd want to pretend you hadn't said it? The thing is—listen, Padmé, I still feel the same way I always have, I still—I still love you, and honestly I think I always will, but if you don't want to be with me, that's—that's fine, I'll leave you alone and we can pretend nothing ever—"

His babbling was abruptly cut off as Padmé stood on her tiptoes and pressed a kiss to his lips. Anakin was as overwhelmed as he had been during their first two kisses, Padmé's lips soft and warm against his and the flowery smell of her soap filling his nostrils and his heart feeling like it was about to beat right out of his chest and her nervousness and uncertainty and happiness and love echoing through the Force and twining together with his own emotions.

She drew away much too quickly for his tastes, but his heart stuttered again when he saw the poignant combination of vulnerability and hope in her expression. "Does that answer your question?" she murmured.

"Um," Anakin said intelligently.

Padmé smiled and squeezed his hands, which she still hadn't let go of. "I love you, Anakin, and I always will," she said, and his breath hitched. "And I know that this is just as impossible as it was before when I said we couldn't be together, but—but I can't keep denying my feelings now that both of us know it isn't true. I love you, and—" She paused for a second, looking like she was gathering her courage. "And I want to marry you."

Anakin gaped at her, brain short-circuiting. "W-what?" he stuttered.

Padmé was blushing now, but even so she steadily repeated, "I want to marry you, Ani. I-I know this is sudden, but I just—I am so sure I'll never feel this way about anyone else, and now with this war, we don't know what's going to happen in the future. You'll be off fighting on the front lines, and who knows, maybe one of these days an assassination attempt on me will be successful. We could be dead tomorrow, so…I don't want to waste any of the time we have left."

She watched him nervously, waiting for him to react, and Anakin looked back at her, brain starting up again as his shock started to wear off. In all honesty, marriage had hardly ever crossed his mind. First as a slave and then as a Jedi, it had always seemed like something impossible and unattainable, something for other people but not for him. Even in all his wildest fantasies about him and Padmé, they'd always been together in a more nebulous way, not actually married. He never would've thought—but now that he was thinking about it, he found that the idea warmed his heart far more than any of those empty daydreams ever had. Even if they had to keep it a secret, even if no one but them ever knew (or even if someone did find out and Anakin was expelled from the Jedi Order), the thought of vowing his eternal love and commitment to Padmé, of being not merely her lover but her husband, of being able to call her his wife…Anakin realized with sudden clarity that nothing in the galaxy would make him happier.

"Yes," he said, beaming at her and feeling tears pricking the corners of his eyes. "I want to marry you. I love you, Padmé."

Padmé let out a breath, looking overjoyed and relieved and a bit teary herself. "I love you, too," she echoed, and a moment later they were kissing again. Objectively, it was their worst yet, seeing as they were too busy smiling against each other's mouths to actually kiss, but in Anakin's opinion it was by far the best. He wrapped his arms, flesh and cybernetic, around her and held her close, certain that he'd always remember this as the happiest moment of his life. Well, except for the moment they actually got married, of course.

(And the moment Padmé told him she was pregnant with their child, one of the last happy moments he would ever have, but Anakin had no way of knowing what the future would bring.)

After an eternity, they drew apart for breath, and Padmé nestled into his chest as Anakin hugged her tighter, absently stroking her hair with his cybernetic hand and completely forgetting that it was cybernetic. "I'm going back to Naboo in two days," Padmé said a few contented minutes later.

"I know. Obi-Wan told me." Just as he had when Obi-Wan had first said so, Anakin felt a pang at the prospect. But then he had an idea. "The healers told me to take the next two weeks off, so…maybe I can come with you to Naboo," he offered. "I'll tell the Council you asked me to escort you for extra protection."

"That sounds like a good plan," Padmé said, smiling up at him. "We can get married there, maybe out in the country where no one will recognize us."

"At Varykino," Anakin said at once. "By the lake. Where we kissed for the first time."

Padmé leaned up and kissed him on the cheek. "That would be perfect. And then we'll be able to have a little time to ourselves before the Council summons you back."

Anakin's face fell. "We'll have to spend so much time apart," he said softly. "I'll miss you."

Padmé gave him a sad smile and rested her head against his chest. "I'll miss you, too. But I'm sure I'll be back on Coruscant soon for more Senate meetings, and even when we're apart, I'll be thinking of you, knowing that you're out there somewhere and that you'll always love me and I'll always love you."

Anakin was half-tempted to leave the Order then and there so that he could be with her all the time, follow her wherever she went. But he knew the Jedi needed him, now more than ever since the galaxy was at war, so he settled for placing a gentle kiss on the top of Padmé's head and pulling her closer and reveling in being there with her. They may not have tomorrow, but they had today, and that was enough.

Basically, my reasoning for having Padmé be the one to propose is that Anakin's dad is the Force, he was raised by a single mom, slaves probably couldn't get married in any official capacity, and then he was taken away to be a Space Monk, so I feel like marriage would barely even be on his radar as A Thing That People Do (but ofc he does want to marry Padmé when she asks) whereas Padmé imo would be the one who wants a more traditional family structure with Anakin since that's what she's used to with her own family. Anyway, I hope you liked this! :)