So, obviously, the one-shot has become a two-shot (so far). Please excuse any tense inconsistencies. I wrote my last fic, "Pulse," in present tense, and my muse is stuck in it. I think I fixed 'em all, but a few could have squirmed away.

Onto the wedding night: Duty delayed, a Jedi on his arse and nobody puts Padme in a corner…

Chapter 2

"You look beautiful, milady."

The recipient of Dorme's sincere compliment stared critically at her image in the mirror, eyes empty as a rain barrel on Tatooine.

Tatooine again? Padme groused inwardly while smothering a scowl, since newlyweds would hardly emit such expressions so soon after the "I do"s.

Thank the goddesses, she mused ruefully, her faithful handmaiden didn't follow-up with the oft-repeated "You must be quite happy." The bride had tired of her appropriate response fifteen terse "Yes, I must be"s ago.

That was nearly the same time her relief that her obscenely long wedding day was nearing conclusion had transformed abruptly into panic, as she'd realized her wedding night had yet to begin.

If nothing else had driven the realization home, Padme had to look no further than the sleek, somewhat racy alabaster peignoir that reflected back at her, cascading from her slight shoulders with the delicacy of a Nabooian waterfall, yet clinging to her curves with an undertow of sin.

"You must be very happy," Dorme cooed, eyes and fingertips busy arranging a flimsy robe of ivory shimmersilk artfully around Padme's shoulders with a semi-smirk of coyness. "And a trite nervous, too."

I would be overjoyed, the bride thought as she envisioned snatching one of those shapelessly muddy cloaks of which the Jedi were fond to cover every standard inch of her skin, if the galaxy would stop telling me how happy this masquerade of a marriage should make me.

Fleetingly, she wondered if her faithful handmaiden's loyalty to Naboo extended to impersonating a blissful bride in a revealing scrap of negligee.

Instead of asking such a deed, however, the senator merely emitted a cool nod, accepting Dorme's fussing as welcome postponement of the inevitable. She did not speak as Dorme's practiced hands flitted from the crown of her head to smoothly tame a tangle of curls that had escaped a Corusca gem comb, nor did she breathe as her handmaiden arranged the bodice of her peignoir so it subtly accentuated her breasts, all the while making pleased clucking noises that conveyed her excitement.

At least one of us is excited, Padme thought, her meticulously applied cosmetics marred by a decidedly sullen frown.

She recalled the fevered kisses from her bridegroom every blasted time guests had clinked upon celebratory flutes of champagne, and Clovis' passion-laced adorations, far too wet upon her skin.

Finally, her hands stilled on Padme's quivering shoulders, Dorme drew back and stared, pleasure and a nip of envy narrowing her eyes.

"Because it merits repeating, I say again, milady," she breathed, "you are truly a vision of beauty."

And yet, the senator mused, bitterly, I feel everything but beautiful.

What did she feel on the cusp of consummating a marriage never intended? She'd not so much as blinked at promising herself before the holy man and the galaxy itself, but surrendering her body to an audience of one, her erstwhile husband?

Bartered. Trapped. Betrayed.

Betrayer. A flash of blue as vibrant as the sun-touched lakes just outside her bedroom came and went, but Padme scarcely had time to match the shade to the eyes of a handsome young Jedi glimpsed earlier before the door opened abruptly and she reflexively clutched the barely-there robe to her neck.

Her groom – husband seemed so permanent – halted with a start, eyes widening as they wandered with sultry appreciation over her form. Dorme fled without a prompt, leaving Padme bare and rattled, the cadence of wrongwrongwrong whispering through her brain.

Clovis' intense stare gave the impression that Padme was a morsel of his most favorite pastry, dangled tantalizingly beyond reach for years. She shifted, acutely uncomfortable, as if he was already sampling her skin and all she desired was to shake a touch her subconscious had already rejected.

How, she chided herself angrily, had such a carefully constructed plan degenerated to this?

"The only weakness we can identify in Clovis is you, Senator," Mace Windu had informed, voice low in that placid manner of the Jedi. "Regrettably, the personal cost of what we ask is high, but the galaxy itself hinges on what you can discover."

Then, as the Jedi High Council had unburdened their suspicions regarding Padme's former paramour, she had felt her chest tightening with every accusation. Separatist collusion. Banking Clan subterfuge. Clandestine clone army.

With a look as somber as his nondescript robes, Windu had laid out the plan: Infiltrate and report. Gain his trust. Keep yourself safe.

Matrimony had not been mentioned that fateful day. Since none had anticipated that the plan could possibly include a ceremony steeped in Nabooian tradition on the balcony of her parents' lakeside home, the word consummation had not been uttered, either.

And yet, here she was. Still playing the part of euphoric bride in white, down to the delicate fringes of lace.

Padme gave herself a stern mental shake, fortified by the knowledge that the security of the galaxy may rest upon her slender shoulders. As always, duty would come before all else.

"I wasn't expecting you," Padme began, an unnatural pause where her spouse's name should have fallen. If he expected her to reciprocate his gaze of devotion, she did not. Her eyes fell instead to the darkness of the bay window, moonlight illuminating the gentle lapping of the waves; the image steadied her. "In Nabooian culture, it is customary for the bride to come to the groom."

Clovis' mouth tilted, vision skimming from her bodice to her forehead in a lazy sweep. For the first time, she noticed a jeweled bottle of the finest Nabooian champagne in his hand, two goblets tucked between his fingers. "Can a groom not be forgiven his eagerness? It feels far too long since we parted on the balcony. The last ferry left a standard hour ago."

A tide of relief surged when he released her from his stare to place the goblets on an end table, filling each with a practiced hand. A slight wobble indicated he'd already partaken of several glasses himself. Extending the sparkling liquid, her husband informed silkily, "We are finally alone, my love."

Padme found herself stifling a pulsating urge to bolt, dive from the walls of the balcony and swim her way to freedom.

"All of our guests have departed?" she stalled. "Did my father remember his cane? After that unfortunate fall last year, he should not be without it. Perhaps we should check their quarters – "

She sensed a stab of impatience as the goblet in Clovis' palm clinked against his freshly-cut wedding ring. "I made certain your family left with all of their accessories, darling. And I made the ferry captain promise his crew would monitor the intoxicated dignitaries so no one ends up overboard." A grin of self-satisfaction followed a smirk. "I even instructed the staff to feed those blasted Jedi who intrude upon our honeymoon."

Jedi. That meant Master Kenobi and his padawan had been given an ample meal of leftovers in the hidden confines of the serving quarters. Their stomachs full, they would be well focused to protect her as she embarked on the fancies of newlywed bliss.

The dangerous blonde with the suns-glazed skin and piercing eyes would keep watchful vigil outside her bedroom, fully cognizant of what was to occur within it.

Wrongwrongwrong. This time, the drumming seemed to originate strangely from her heart.

Padme willfully accepted the goblet, raised the crystal and sipped carefully of its contents as Clovis drained his in a hearty swig, then reached his free hand to part her robe with more clumsiness than she expected. Nabooian champagne was much stronger than its counterparts throughout the Mid-Rim, she knew; its sneaky kick could quickly incapacitate those uninitiated to its potency.

When her skin rebelled as if stung by a hive of raging bees everywhere her husband's hand touched, then her stomach retracted in a painful cinch, the duty-bound senator made an uncharacteristically rash decision.

Snatching herself from Clovis' grasp, Padme walked toward the door, managing a convincing tease as she crossed the threshold alone and of her own two feet. "Then I will keep you waiting no longer. Come, dear husband."

Clovis' unintelligible pant was lost in the final string of words thrown over her shoulder, "And certainly do not forget the champagne."

She'd be sure to retrieve another bottle on her way to the bedroom.

x x x

x

Of every emotion Padme had predicted for her wedding night, deviously victorious had certainly not been one of them.

The senator suppressed a chuckle as she stomped down the corridor, jumping two steps at a time toward the serving quarters. Drained of her appetite before, she found she was fairly ravenous now. And why was she silencing herself? She'd just left her silver-tongued, octopus-handed husband in a drunken heap, snoring with such ferocity that surely not another sound could be heard above it.

So she laughed. Loudly, uproariously, as she bounded toward the kitchen with a glee she had not felt in some time. Blast them all, Jedi and traitor alike, for thinking she would be cowed into submission! Padme Amidala had conceded to this scheme in a desperate attempt to gather intelligence against a turncoat. Padme Naberrie, however, had just plied her dear husband with enough loaded spirits to re-bury the undead; she would relish this small victory, and mightily so!

For one night, at least.

Padme was so involved with exalting her triumph and skipping over the last three steps that she didn't notice the figure standing on the last step.

The first two went without incident; when her bare feet landed on the third step at precisely the same moment her unknown companion began his ascent, however, the hapless bride managed to do what very few beings in the galaxy could boast: topple a vaunted Jedi with a firm, inglorious thud.

"Hey!" Though startled, the Jedi called instinctively on his storied reflexes to catch her, folding her frame softly into his. Stunned, Padme held tight to the much larger body that shielded her as Jedi and senator tumbled downward as one. The impact knocked the breath clean out of her, and yet, quick as they had come together, she was settled against him, unharmed, the sculpted planes of his body absorbing the brunt of the fall.

In an instant, Padme Amidala Naberrie Clovis found herself pressed into the synstone-hard chest of Anakin Skywalker, silken white peignoir mingled with coarsely woven robes and noses nearly touching as each raised a startled head to the other.

Then, the Jedi was smiling below her, a languorous motion that diffused warmth through her every cell as he tightened his hold – completely unnecessary, as the moment of collision had passed.

"Senator Amidala," Anakin announced, and Padme was certain she had never heard her name verbally caressed like that. Interestingly enough, he did not acknowledge her newly-acquired name bestowed only hours before. Cerulean eyes crinkled slightly, danced with a dash of amusement, and made the urge to shrug herself from the security of his embrace abruptly retreat.

His next words, however, made her want to smack the entirely-too-pretty face that was framed by a halo of curls Padme figured were in a constant state of disheveled, despite a closely-shorn style. No, she did not want to reach out and capture a ringlet, not even the one shadowing a crystalline eye that was far too bright.

The alluring curve of his full lips nearly made her forget why his words had so enraged her. Once Anakin repeated them, however, Padme wrenched herself from the Jedi's embrace with a scowl that reminded him of neither bride nor angel, though the color of her attire should have hinted at both:

"Aren't you supposed to be somewhere else, milady?"

To be continued… sometime soon, but not too soon. May is a kickarse month for me, but I will get back to this. I'm seeing maybe two more chapters, which, with my tendency to elaborate, probably means five.

Thanks to those who read this when I posted it as a one-shot eons ago: Queen Naberrie, secdie, Jedi Master Misty Sman-Esay, dragonmaster 63, Dark Mistress of the Sith, Skywalker's Phantom and Talicor. I hope you're still around to enjoy the update!