Once outside, Padmé looked back at the chrome ship. A shaky breath was taken and she lifted the hood of her cloak to cover her head, setting her face deeply into its dark depths to conceal any form of her features that could be exposed. She kept her frame close to the shadows of the pathway, choosing the far side of the main entrance in case she would need to hide from guards maintaining the premises. The looming height of the Jedi Master statues passed along with the many stairs it took to the archway displaying Jedi murals. From there Padmé hid behind one of the pillars of the archway, just enough in the shadows with enough light to illuminate the entryway before her. It was the perfect vantage point to see any visitor that entered the building.
It was calm outside the Temple. The sounds of few words spoken inside the structure along with the zooming of aircraft above almost deceived the woman to believe that it was just another typical visit. Another task sent to her from the Senate in which she was needed to deliver a message to the council; hiding in the shadows afterwards and awaiting for Anakin's presence to join her in the secrecy of the darkness. However, now, the shadows were becoming overwhelming in the sense that they wouldn't hold their rare moments of shared love. Instead, they felt abysmal, like if she stayed too long in their presence, it would consume her.
Minutes passed and with the time slowing around her, the sense of obscurity filled her. It was like the hurricanes of Naboo. Seeing the storm approach in a grey onslaught only to turn the nature surrounding her somber with rage and fury. There was a storm approaching. A far worse one that kept building in strength and destruction.
A hand went to her chest as the troubled woman tried to cease the fluttering of her heart; hearing the sounds of movement begin to echo off the caverns of the entrance archway. Padmé took a chance and stole a glance around the pillar she had hid herself behind, making sure to conceal herself in the shadows. Despite her heightened senses and the need to know what was happening, she still knew she had to play it safe. She usually would evade things, preferring to take things as they were and accommodate to it. But with the added measure of protecting another life than her own, extra precautions had to be taken always. What her brown eyes saw though wiped all her conditioning from mind. In a distant part of her, there was a tightening in the lower part of her body, a cramping, but it didn't register. The only thing that did register was the cloaked figure ascending the last flight of steps to the ground of the entrance in which she was standing on.
Continuing to keep herself in the shadows, the Senator held tightly to the cement pillar. Her nails scraped the rough surface, filing down as she continued to clench harder to the solid base. It was the only thing keeping her from falling sideways at what she was witnessing.
"Anakin?" Padmé breathed out in confusion, watching the habitually dark cloaked form of her husband walking towards the entrance where she was.
His hood was drawn over his face so as not to be seen - just as she was - but she knew it was him. The sway of his walk; the broadness of his shoulders; the faint gleam of his gloved hand's metal straps. It was what was behind him that threw her off. Rows and rows of white clad Clone Troopers followed obediently behind Anakin's wavering cloak that blew in the artificial Coruscant wind. As he neared, a chill went up her spine. Her small body vibrating from the coldness that loomed over the site like a fog swooping in unexpectedly.
The same dread that had awoken her the first time and settled deeply into her bones during the second wave sparked up like an explosion after humming below in the embers. Her stomach convulsed and Padmé brought her hand up to her mouth to halt any vomit from surfacing, instead, forcing herself to swallow the bile back into place. There was a darkness surrounding Anakin, and she didn't have to be a Jedi to see it. It was there and it was all consuming.
Once he had made his way to the archway, his pace steady and advancing - threatening with the legion of clones behind him and the casting of his long shadow drawing back as far as the last row of troopers - Padmé moved away from the pillar she was hiding behind.
"Anakin?" she called, voice breaking slightly as she made herself known. She attempted to steady her shoulders to appear more strong, but it was done without avail.
The sudden constriction of her throat caused every point in her body to recoil. Hands flew up and took hold of the strained ligaments, clawing at the invisible Force choking her. Her body was lifted into the air with her legs kicking as if it would bring her down - a pathetic attempt and she knew it. Anakin approached Padmé at a deathly three glides but she couldn't get any other sound than the sputtering of her inability to fill her lungs with the oxygen she was deprived from. The hood of her own cloak was still drawn over her face, concealing it as she thrashed around in midair. Every attempt at calling out his name was met with a tighter grip and the sense of lava splashing onto her face with the breaking of blood vessels beneath skin was becoming too much for even her.
"Who are you," Anakin growled, putting fear even in the woman who could never find it in herself to be afraid of him even during his darkest hours.
Once he approached her, however, looking up into the black hole that had consumed her face Anakin finally let go, letting Padmé drop to the floor. Violent coughs racked her body as her lungs shocked her with every intake of air they could clasp onto. Delicate hands gripped onto the floor only to have one go to her stomach in a protective manner.
"Padmé?" she heard him question, fear interlaced in every syllable. She sensed him beside her but on instinct, Padmé drew away from Anakin. The air around him made her sick, both to her stomach and to her heart. He had all but drawn back his hood, agony painted across his features as the Jedi reached a hand out to her.
"An- Ana…" It was no use at that point. The rawness of her throat made it no match for the fluidity of her voice to come out. Whatever darkness she felt before, though, was quickly evaporating and the normal presence of her husband was returning.
Strong hands that felt like home delved inside her hood, drawing it backwards before they were placed on either side of her face. Thumbs swiped at the moistened skin and her reddened brown eyes started up at the blue ones, but she wasn't met with their crystalline familiarity. Instead, an evaporating yellow was drawing into the pupils and before she could control it, Padmé recoiled at the sight.
"Anakin!" she exclaimed, crawling backwards and away from her husband. His name grated her throat and she brought a hand to hold the sore area.
The yellow hue returned to his eyes, a dark crimson rimming the colour in finality that brought terror to the woman before him. She could see fibres of blue try to string their way into existence, and the sheen of water that told her tears were forming.
"What are you doing here, Padmé. I told you to wait for me."
Padmé continued to shuffle backwards and away from the darkness masked as her beloved. The cold floor shooting up the skin that touched it. His form was brutal and whatever it was made the shock that was inside her go on high alert. Shaking hands went to the holster holding one of her blasters but it was quickly taken from her by Anakin's approaching form. She knew better than to take hold of her second blaster, deciding that later rather than now would do her justice unlike the first one. Instead, her hands took hold of her belly, doing whatever she could to shield the unborn infant from what she sensed to come.
"What have you done?" Padmé asked in utter disbelief.
She saw Anakin wince at the question but he made no attempt on answering it. The clones behind him had halted their march, staring straight ahead at the doors of the Temple. Her husband's tall form fell onto his knees before her, reaching out to her arms that were encasing their child. Pain swung through him at the sight of his wife attempting to protect their baby from him. Questions raking through him in hyper-speed as he could feel the darkness leave him. He made an attempt to close the distance between them only to cause Padmé to flinch in return.
"The Jedi have tried to overthrow the Republic," Anakin finally said, trying to explain his case. His voice was slow, though. Menacing, as if it were filled with hate. But Padmé knew hate couldn't be it.
Brown eyes looked up at his - the blue had returned. For a second, she thought maybe the yellow she had seen - the eyes of a Sith - had been a figment of her imagination. "I can't believe it," she told him, incredulity present in her tone. It's the lighting, she reassured herself in return.
Anakin made out to reach his hands forwards once more, ignoring the task he was to fulfill after seeing the face of hers stare at his. Padmé allowed his touch to press onto her despite him choking her, knowing that it had been on his own impulse, possibly thinking of her as an intruder since she was, in fact, dressed as such. She did, however, keep the sight of yellow eyes hovering in her thoughts, unable to fully push them away. His hands clasped onto her face. The calloused touch of his left hand compared to the cold touch of leather from his right caused his wife to tilt her head into his warm presence. There was still something cold in him, she didn't doubt that, but the overwhelming sense of his safety was now taking its toll.
"But you're safe," she reassured, placing her hands on top of his.
He scowled quickly, the ghost of a smile hinting onto his lips but refusing to make a full appearance as he internally rolled his eyes at his wife. "Of course I'm safe, Padmé. I had arrived in time to stop Master Windu's attempt to assassinate Chancellor Palpatine. If it weren't for me, the Chancellor would have fallen under the hands of the Jedi and he would have been murdered." By the end of his explanation, his deep voice had dropped another octave sending chills through her spine once more.
"Anakin..."
Padmé couldn't believe it and it was obvious in the way her face contorted in thought. First the dark presence and now the Jedi's attempt on the Chancellor's life?
Anakin looked down at his wife. Staring at her with an intensity she had never seen from him that caused her own hands to be placed on his face to keep him with her somehow. Something told Padmé to keep his mind with her and she reacted as such.
"The Jedi are not to be trusted, Padmé."
With this statement, brown eyes looked bewildered. Not trust the Jedi? "But Anakin, you're a Jedi."
He pulled away from her touch, the lines between his brow making a full frontal display as he continued to stare at her with such severity, it made her grab hold of his hands to attempt to anchor him from wherever he was venturing off to in his mind. "My alliance is with the Republic, Padmé. I will not betray the Republic."
A look of confusion curtained onto her face. "But Ani…"
Anakin stood, his height looming and making Padmé feel minuscule compared to him. The shadow that cascaded from him, a shadow brought on by the lights alit both above and behind him brought her into the dark. She felt small, unimportant. As if whatever was fueling him in that moment aided in diminishing who she was and what she stood for. "I will not betray the Republic," he reinstated.
Brown, tired eyes looked up at him. The same confusion written across her face was present in the hues of her eyes. With the pain in her throat all but forgotten, the legion of clones awaiting obediently behind and the frozen ice that infiltrated her bones, Padmé lifted herself from the crouch she was in. Small hands balled into fists to the point where her nails were breaking skin but she stood anyways. Her jaw clenched tightly as a fire blazed in her eyes. The power radiating from Anakin was one to be feared, but fear led to hate and she would never feel that. Even if it was what could be felt from the man before her. She would not let him influence her that way, for without her stability, they both would surely be lost.
"So you will not betray me," Padmé countered. Her chin rose to show the dominance she had over herself despite her surroundings being clouded with hatred. She could see the torment in Anakin's face; his eyes watering and rimmed red.
"My loyalties lie with the Chancellor," Anakin shouted back. It didn't make her flinch, though, even if inside it felt like her chest burned.
"And my loyalties lie with you, but what you speak of is madness!"
Fury erupted inside Anakin and the repercussions of it could be felt like a bomb's explosion. His reaction made her wince and she took a small step backwards, the numbing of pain taking over the anger she felt moments prior. Padmé gave her husband a warning glance then looked away towards the approaching trooper. They both gave their attention to the clone but the soldier looked only at Anakin.
"Lord Vader," he began with a deep bow before rising. "We are to execute Order 66-"
"Lord Vader?" Padmé interrupted.
The trooper looked at the woman, but the way he looked at her made her uneasy. An eerie gaze that she couldn't see due to the helmet he was wearing, but a cold one nevertheless. What she felt was robotic, like one from a heartless droid. A gloved hand was held up to the clone halting anymore statements as Anakin turned his attention back towards his wife. With the look upon his face, it suddenly hit Padmé what she felt. It had been sweeping in an undercurrent in her mind, but she finally dipped a hand in and came back with the pure truth.
"Ani..."