Name: Strange Beauty
Rating: G
Summary: Ties in with Ep. III, No spoilers. Nice story, better than recent peices. :D Basically, its a scene of Padme finding herself caught between loving Ani and seeing the side of him that eventually wins out. It's a story of the conflict she faces with not wanting to distrust him and not being able /to/ trust him. Enjoy!

I waited there for him, on the same balcony where we'd been married. My mind raced; he said he'd be here. So he would, right? Of course. We'd been apart for a month because of straining circumstances and missions Anakin was on. But I was waiting, anxiously, for his arrival. I knew he hadn't changed all that much in a month, but I had missed him so. I missed his soft lips that caressed mine. I missed his the way his hair smelled. I missed the touch of his hands, and mainly, the warmth of his arms. Did he miss me as I did him? I knew he did. My eyes searched for the first sign he was coming, even the sound of footsteps. I missed his voice, his wit, his passion. I missed my husband. I leaned onto the ledge, so ready and excited to see him that I became disillusioned with waiting. I closed my eyes and felt the cool breeze on my face.

Then I felt hands around my hips.

"Padmé Skywalker…" A voice sing-songed in my ear.

A voice that sent shivers down my spine. "Anakin!" I whirled around. "Oh, Ani, you came!" I leapt into his arms. "I wouldn't miss it for anyone," He laughed as he pulled me into him, leaning down for a kiss. I missed those soft lips. "I missed you, so much…" I said, and he smiled as he traced the outline of my cheek-bones with his thumbs. "I missed you too." His voice was something I'd realized I took for granted when we were together. I jumped up to throw my arms around his neck. "We have a lot to catch up on. Would you like to go sit down?" He asked. I knew he was tired, I was too. "Obi-wan sends best wishes." He told me, backing off a little. "That's very nice of him. But to be truthful, I'm just glad to have you home again." I smiled and took his hand. "Do you want to go lie and rest?" I asked, seeing his eyelids heavy as he tried to stay awake. I figured that conversation, if it was to be a tired conversation, would feel a little thin. He nodded sleepily and led me back to the guest bedroom. "I want to hold you." He said, unmaking the bed. "And I do want to talk, I'm just very tired…" He yawned and laid down onto it. "I wish I could sleep." I said, holding my head at the temples. It would be heaven to be sleep to him again, to smell his hair & feel his hands; but my headaches had been getting worse lately and sleep would not come easy. "Padmé, are you alright?" He asked, looking seriously at me. I felt so stupid to even begin to worry him like that. "Oh, I'm fine." I tried to reassure him as fast as I could, perhaps too fast. "I don't think so…" He sat up and seemed more awake, his eyes taking on sort of a look of accusation. "If something were wrong, you'd tell me, right?" He took my hand in his. He seemed as though he thought I was hiding something from him. His touch, for lack of better words, was odd. It felt cold and a little out of character. "Of course, Anakin." I said, searching his eyes for whatever he might be suspicious about. "Then tell me what's the matter, please." His voice sounded more warm, and the ice in his touch melted. "I've been having terrible headaches, that's all." I sighed. I felt it was rude to make him worry over nothing the way I had. It was nothing, I was sure of it. At least half sure, anyways. And even if I wasn't sure, even if I was sure that it was the most serious of things, I didn't understand what Ani thought I'd be hiding from him. It was as if he was sure of it, by the look he was casting in my direction and the lifelessness of his caress. I wouldn't lie to him anymore than I would myself.

"That's not what's bothering you, Padmé. I can feel it." He looked deeper into my eyes then I should've like him to, his eyes burning into mine with a look that seemed to be analyzing my smallest movements. It made me seem more nervous than I was, really. "What are you talking about?" My voice sounded more condescending than I would've liked as well. "I-I can't put my finger on it, but I just sense a concealed feeling in you, a disturbance." My hands were folded in with his own, in his lap as we sat face to face on the bedside. "I'm not concealing anything from you." I said, hands on his shoulders now as though I were to shake the sense into him. I really would've liked to do that, because whatever point I seemed to be hiding was lost on me. "Then why do I feel this distrust from you?" He asked, as though I really knew the answer to this question. "I have no clue, but I assure you, Anakin; I trust you." I was hoping my eyes were proving to be sincere, but somehow the crestfallen look on his face seemed to show me otherwise. "You've got to believe me…" I sighed, wondering who or what gave him the idea that I'd deceive him. "I can't say that I do, Padmé." My jaw dropped in wonder. "Anakin, what have I done to deserve this distrust?" I yelled at him, fire and sadness flowing in me. The truth was I had done nothing, nothing like what I'd seen from him. More and more I was seeing that he felt something or somebody was trying to take him away from me, or I away from him; seeing that he felt awfully threatened by anything that didn't include him as he'd like it to. The way he acted scared me. "I don't believe that you've done anything, but I feel differently. I feel as though you're leaving me out on something. I want you to trust me." He said, giving me a stare that was worth its weight in ice, a stare that rested solely on me and nothing else in the room. My heart ached at these accusations, beating painfully in my chest. "Ani," I said taking his hands to my chest to feel my heart beat, "I do trust you, I love you. But the way you're acting now, I feel as though you're changing." The words were hard for him to hear, I could tell by his expression. But he did not stop to think they might've been even harder to say. He jerked his hand way from my grasp and ran it back through his hair. "Changed? Changed!" He demanded, his voice raised. Yet I found I saw him looking suddenly more like the man I loved. His eyes softened, his face more so, in a way that made him look hurt and vulnerable. "How have I changed?" His voice, too, was seeming more light of anger, yet more heavy with concern. "You seem so angry, so quick to suspect. Even where there is nothing to be suspecting, especially with me." All I wanted was to make him understand, to make him see. "Don't you see it in yourself?" I asked him, standing up off the bed. "No, I do not, Padmé. I sensed it that you were holding back from me, and now I know you were. You were holding back your anger for me!" His eyes lost their softness, replaced by a swell of tears. The tears didn't make their way from his eyes, however. "Anakin, I have no anger, just concern." I was speaking with my hands now, voice quivering. "And what happened to the love?" He asked. My mind was bursting, as was my heart. Nothing he was saying was making sense. I couldn't comprehend where this was coming from, not when just an hour earlier I had been worried of ruining his homecoming with my headaches. My head, heart, and stomach all ached painfully now. "It has never left my heart." I replied, holding my temples. "You're hurting me, so badly, Padmé. You're lying to me!" He yelled, now letting the tears fall over his eyes and snake wind down his cheeks.
"Then tell me what I feel, Anakin. Tell me what I am lying about, because I am obviously lying to my own heart as well." I felt my face grow hot, a surge of anger coursed in my body. "I don't know!" He was shouting loudly now, face red and eyes furious. "What is the meaning of this Ani? I said that I loved you and you call my truth on it?" I felt the anger float down and out of my mind, replaced by a sinking, anxious feeling. "Yes. No…I mean…" He took his hands into his hair in a frustrated manner. "Because it's not a lie, it's the truth. It's the only thing I'm certain of anymore. I was hiding my concern because I knew that you'd react to me this way, with hateful stares and words." I was begging something of him, something I knew he could not do. Something I would never dare mention out loud. I wanted us to be as we were, I wanted him to turn back time and to return to being who I'd fell in love with, to be him all the time rather than seeing bits and pieces of that man. "I'm not trying to hurt you, or anyone else! I just feel…" He trailed off. "I just feel.." I sighed deeply, being able to breathe at the hope that soon I'd be smiling at the sight of him reverting back into Ani, my Ani. "Talk to me, Anakin. Now is when I need you to trust me." He looked to one side then the other, searching for words he couldn't find. He stammered occasionally, thinking hard I could see. "I can't!" His face was contorted and different from anything that I'd seen from him before. "You can't trust me or you can't talk to me?" I asked, suddenly realizing that there was no better option in either of those. "I can't trust anyone!" He screamed, voice so dark and angry, like none I'd ever heard. "Why are you doing this? I missed you, Anakin. I wanted you to come home so badly, and now I'm unsure of why, with you acting so…so…" I could not finish that sentence. "So then I'll go." He spoke as though he had already made up his mind. "Ani, no. That's not what I meant!" He was twisting my words as though he wished for this to continue. Did he want to fight me? I felt as though I were losing the Anakin I fell in love with, but found myself questioning how long ago I'd actually began losing him. Her force floated his tunic to his side. "Then tell me, Padmé, what did you mean?" The answer to this question, I did not know. I had no idea what I could say about what I truly meant to this person, this seemingly perfect-stranger, standing before me. "Anakin, my head…" I gasped for air. I don't remember anything, except blackness and the face of that boyish Jedi I married. I remember falling, seeing Anakin's face, seeing the room spin as I wound to the ground. His face was shocked, and I heard him scream my name, but everything seemed far away. I had apparently fainted. I assumed it was somewhere between my headache's throbbing pain and my stressed condition.

I came to laying in our bed, with Anakin sitting at my side. His face, if just for the moment, was pure and beautiful. His hands, both of them, were holding my left tightly. I saw a trail, where a tear had fallen over his cheek. When my eyes met his, they were no longer burning but now were alive and happy. "Padmé, you're alright." He said, breathlessly, as though he had not breathed since I fell. "What happened?" I said weakly, feeling the knot on my head. "You fainted…it was all my fault, Padmé, I'm so sorry." He said, casting an angry glance at the floor. "Don't be, Anakin. I'm alright, I'm fine now, Ani." I spoke without looking at him again. As much as I wanted to, I couldn't forget the accusations and the words he spoke to me. "I am sorry, I should not have accused you of betrayal you didn't commit. I love you…" I could see the pain in him, but to admit to myself that I saw darkness there as well, was something I could not now if ever do. I did not speak, nor look at his eyes. "Please, Padmé, say you forgive me?" He begged, clasping our hands together. "Please, I do not want to speak of this now. I am still in a lot of pain." I touched my throbbing head. "Please, just say it, please, just for me?" He was pleading with me, just wanting me to say those words. But how could I if I didn't mean them? How could I forgive what I didn't understand? I couldn't. I couldn't look into his eyes knowing it was a lie and be okay with that. "Ani, please." I broke our connection through his grasp on my hand, and turned away on my side. "No! Please, listen to me!" He yelled, turning me by my shoulder. "Let go of me, Anakin.." I said unblinking, I could feel the widening of my eyes. "All I ask of you is to accept my apology." He said, using his way of making things sound more simplified when said in his voice. "All I ask of you is that we drop the matter for now, now when I am in pain!" I begged him now. "I'm so sorry, I'm not trying to do this again. I apologize to you, please." He said, stroking my hair. I did not miss this touch from him, I did not at all. It was the touch of a stranger to me. "Thank you." I mumbled to him. "You know I'd never hurt you, you know I love you." To me it sounded more like a question than a statement. A question I always thought I'd be able to answer until just then. I just silently prayed he didn't add a 'right?' to it. I felt the inevitable awkwardness surround us. No longer was his heartbeat anything like mine. It was a new song, it was not what I remembered it being all those nights I slept listening to it. But nothing was as I remembered it. His face looked more sullen now than before, and his temperament was so short. I missed him kissing me, telling me everything was alright and he was there, me actually wanting to kiss him too, or even the nervousness he possessed around me. But most of all I missed not having to recall memories to see those things from him. Now I saw a man, one whom I was meeting for the first time, a stranger in my bed. In mine and my husbands bed. I felt sick at the thought that loomed in my mind, the one that my heart was reluctantly agreeing with my mind on. There was a thought I couldn't breathe at thinking, the thought that I was losing the Ani I loved for good. I hoped he wouldn't wonder about the silence, but he wasn't too foolish to see that it indeed meant something. "You do, don't you?" How could I answer this? I didn't want to hurt Anakin, I didn't want to encourage the wrath of this man's anger, and I didn't know what to say. So I laid in silence, pretending to be asleep. I felt his arms go around me and hold me tightly. And I wasn't sure what to think. I wanted so badly to trust him, but yet I wanted to help him as well. The two seemed opposite. But for then, I just lay there and slept. Problems would wait, because I knew when I opened my eyes, his confusion within would still be there. That in itself was bitter sweet. When I did arise from sleep, I found he was not there. He was sitting in our living room, staring out the window. "You didn't answer me, and I know you weren't asleep." He said, not meeting my gaze. "So would you like to talk about it should I let it die?" He turned to me, and the eyes I met where red with having been crying. "I'd rather just sit, and not talk, Love." I said. My mind hadn't agreed with Love, but my heart had only him in it, and I wanted to rest his mind with that. "Alright." He was unwavering. I sat on the chair that he occupied the arm of. "I do love you." I said, rubbing his shoulder. He twitched at the touch of my fingers, as though he weren't used to it. He placed a hand on mine. "And you'll never know how much I you." He didn't look at me still, like he were afraid of the stare I might return to him. If he had, to me I would not have known how to return it. "I-I do know." I whispered faintly. He turned around then, to look into my eyes. I imagined him as he used to be, a Padawan learner with short hair and one braid; a nervous boy with such a grown up way of carrying himself, as though duality were his one and only personality. But then I let my heart settle on who he was now, and the two were not the same. He leaned in and brushed his lips softly against my own, cradling my head in his hands. "Please do." he said, pulling back to look at me.