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A few days later, Padmé was thrown off as she stepped out into the hallway and came face-to-face with Obi-Wan. "Hello, Obi-Wan," she said, not entirely able to hide her surprise. "I didn't realize you were on duty this morning. Where's Anakin?"

"He has the weekend off, ma'am, and I'm filling in for him," Obi-Wan informed her. "He was supposed to tell you ahead of time…"

"Oh, that's right, he did tell me," Padmé said quickly; she now recalled Anakin briefly mentioning it a day or two before. "I guess it just slipped my mind."

She tried her best not to feel too disappointed as she headed across the hall for breakfast. Thus far in her presidency, Anakin had been one of the only staples, one of the only people who was there by her side every day; in fact, as the day progressed Padmé was startled by how keenly she felt his absence. They'd only known each other a month, how was she so attached to him already?

Perhaps it was because, as the media was so fond of discussing, there was no First Family living with her in the White House. Of course she kept in touch with her parents and sister, but they all lived back home in Massachusetts. Here in DC, Padmé had no family with her, no spouse or partner, no children. And so maybe since Anakin was the person she spent the most time with, she'd subconsciously been using him to fill the void of loneliness that she always refused to acknowledge existed.

Padmé wasn't lonely, for the record. She wasn't. She had all her work to keep her busy, so busy that even if she did have a family of her own, she wouldn't have enough time for them, and that wouldn't be fair to them. No, it was better that she was single and childless. That left her more time and energy to focus on her political responsibilities.

Still, as Obi-Wan spent the entire day politely rebuffing her attempts at long conversations and insisting he didn't want to distract her, as Padmé thought about the easy rapport between her and Anakin she'd been taking for granted until now that it was suddenly gone, there may or may not have been a tiny part of her that did feel a little lonely.


Anakin, meanwhile, was having a much better day. He slept late, didn't even bother getting out of bed for another half hour after he woke up, slouched down the hall for breakfast wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt, then returned to his room and planned to spend the day doing nothing at all. He'd been looking forward to his weekend off all month.

But…he did feel oddly empty at the thought of not seeing President Amidala again until Monday. Well, he supposed, he knew her schedule like the back of his hand; he could easily go for a stroll through the White House and casually bump into her at a time and place he knew she'd be. Not that he cared that much, of course. He just missed her a little bit, that was all. After all, he'd spent the majority of every day for a month with her. It was natural for him to feel strange without her, just as it was natural to feel strange when any routine was disrupted. Yes, that was all it was, the disruption of a routine.

Around three, Anakin pulled out his laptop and Skyped his mother. He felt guilty that he rarely had time to talk to her at length, so he'd promised to talk as long as she wanted that afternoon since he had the day off.

"Ani!" Shmi said as soon as the call went through, beaming at him.

Anakin smiled back, trying to fight back a sudden wave of homesickness. He hadn't lived at home in ten years, but even now he still missed his mother sometimes. "Hi, Mom," he said. "How have you been? How's work?"

"Oh, the usual," she said with a chuckle. "Nowhere near as exciting as your job, I imagine."

"I wouldn't be so sure about that," Anakin replied. "Pretty much all I ever do is sit in on political meetings or loiter in hallways. I don't even know which is more boring."

Shmi laughed. "Still, it must be exciting to work for a new president, right?"

"True."

"What's she like?"

Anakin pondered the question for a moment. "She's…she's amazing," he said honestly. "Right off the bat she was asking me and the other agents where we're from, what our families are like, what we like to do in our free time, that kind of thing. She actually cares about getting to know us as people instead of just pretending we're invisible like she's technically supposed to. And she always makes a point to learn other staff members' names when she runs into them, and then she even remembers all of them afterwards. Valorum never did that kind of thing. Oh, and you should've heard the things she was saying to the Senate Finance Committee in their budget meeting the other day. I mean, I guess I probably shouldn't tell you, but it's not like you're going to blab to anyone, so…"

Anakin ended up prattling on and on about President Amidala for much longer than he'd intended, and it was only when he stopped for breath that he realized Shmi was giving him a knowing look. "What?" he asked.

"I know that face."

"What face?"

"That face you're making right now," Shmi said. "It's the same one you always had when you were nine and you were telling me how you were going to marry our next-door neighbor."

Anakin immediately turned crimson and replaced the smile he hadn't even realized he was wearing with a frown. "I'm not—I wasn't making any face," he protested.

"You were, and now you're blushing," Shmi replied, looking delighted. "You have a crush on President Amidala, don't you?"

"A-a crush? Mom, I am thirty-one years old, not twelve," Anakin said with as much dignity as he could muster—which, considering his face was still incriminatingly red, wasn't much. "As if I'd even be allowed—I mean, that would be so inappropriate. And unprofessional. She's my boss, sort of. I'm definitely not allowed to have feelings for her. Which is totally fine, because I don't. I just admire her, that's all. She's the president, lots of people admire her."

"Yes, but I bet most of them don't admire her as much as you do." Anakin opened his mouth to defend himself, but Shmi cut him off with a gentle laugh. "All right, all right, I was just teasing you, Ani. I'm sorry for making you flustered."

"I'm not flustered, because I don't have feelings for her," Anakin grumbled. "The very idea is just—just ridiculous." He cleared his throat. "How's Cliegg? And Owen?"

Shmi smiled and, mercifully, went along with the subject change. "Both great. Owen was over for dinner the other night and he brought his new girlfriend."

"Oh yeah, Beru, right?" Anakin asked, remembering Owen had mentioned her to him a little while ago. "What's she like?"

"Wonderful. One of the sweetest people I've ever met," Shmi said happily. "They're very well-matched, too. I think it's going to last a long time."

"That's great."

Shmi continued filling him in on local gossip for a while. She was right to say it wasn't as interesting as the goings-on of the White House, but Anakin still liked hearing about what everyone back home was up to. Cliegg Lars was her boyfriend of three years and his son Owen was about Anakin's age. When they'd first gotten together Anakin had felt weirdly jealous; it had only been him and Shmi for his entire life, and part of him had subconsciously feared she was trying to replace him with a new family now that he lived so far from home and wasn't able to visit very often. Fortunately, his rationality had won out soon enough, and now he was glad that Shmi wasn't lonely and living in their house all by herself. He still wasn't particularly close with Cliegg or Owen—his relationship with them was entirely built on Skype calls and a handful of brief trips back to Arizona—but nevertheless they got on pretty well.

It was another hour or two before they hung up, and then many more hours before Anakin went to bed, but when he curled up under the blankets that night he was still thinking about Shmi's accusation that he had a crush on President Amidala. Utterly ridiculous, he told himself yet again. Just because he had lots of praise for her didn't mean he had a crush on her, it just meant she was a good person whom he had high regard for. He liked her professionally and maybe even platonically—their working relationship was starting to border on genuine friendship—but certainly not romantically. She was the kindest, smartest, most beautiful woman Anakin had ever met, but he definitely didn't have a crush on her. Not in the slightest.


On Monday morning, Padmé couldn't hold back the smile on her face as she stepped out of her room and saw Anakin once again waiting for her in the hall. He smiled back, the corners of his eyes crinkling in the way she'd come to love. Wait, what? "Good morning, ma'am," he said before Padmé had time to puzzle over that thought.

"Good morning," she replied. She began walking towards the dining room and Anakin fell into step beside her. "How was your weekend off?"

"Very restful."

"That's good to hear. You definitely deserved it."

"Thank you, ma'am. You deserve a weekend off, too," he added, grinning.

"Yes, well, unfortunately it's not so easy to find someone to fill in for me for a couple days," Padmé said wryly. Belatedly, she realized that had come out sounding rather snobby, but to her relief Anakin just laughed and agreed, not seeming at all offended.

Upon their arrival, Padmé took a seat and started helping herself to some eggs as Anakin stood against the opposite wall. He wasn't strictly required to hang around while she ate—her private dining room was secure enough that she could be on her own—but he often did if she didn't have company so they could continue to chat for a few minutes. Padmé always wanted to ask him to join her when she ate, but never did because she knew he'd already eaten and figured it would probably be rather inappropriate for her to even offer. She wished he'd at least sit at the table with her, but again, that probably violated some silly etiquette protocol or other.

"What did you do all weekend?" she asked before taking a sip of coffee.

Anakin shrugged. "Not much, really. I did get a chance to Skype my mom, though, which was nice."

"Oh, that's great," Padmé said sincerely with another smile. Even having known him for only a month, she'd already gotten the impression that Anakin and his mother were very close. "You said she's your only family, right?"

"Well, she's been dating someone for a few years and he has a son, so I guess they're kind of like my unofficial stepfamily. But before that it was always just the two of us," he said, nodding. "My dad walked out when she was pregnant and she never got married or had more kids, so…"

"Oh," Padmé said, surprised. She had gotten the sense that Anakin's father wasn't in the picture, but this was the first time he'd explicitly said anything about it. "I'm sorry to hear that, about your dad."

Anakin made a face. "Don't be. He was a total scumbag, at least from what my mom's mentioned. She said she's glad he was never part of my life."

"Oh," Padmé repeated, once again struck by how vastly different Anakin's background was from hers and most of the people she knew. Then again, growing up in an upper-middle-class New England family meant that all through school and college she'd mostly only come into contact with other upper-middle-class New England families. And then she'd immediately gone into a career field that was also filled with social and financial elites.

Anakin cleared his throat; his cheeks were a little pink, as if he was embarrassed for doling out too much personal information. "So anyway, yeah. Just me and my mom, and now Cliegg and Owen," he said. "And obviously that's how it'll be for the foreseeable future too."

"Obviously?" Padmé asked, confused by the choice of words. "You don't want to start your own family someday?"

"I just meant, my job isn't exactly conducive to family life."

"It isn't?"

"Well, I spend most of my time with you, ma'am," Anakin said. "And even when I'm off-duty, I'm still actually on-duty in case there's an emergency or something. So I wouldn't be able to spend much time with my hypothetical family, or even be in a situation to meet someone and fall in love in the first place. I don't think any of the other agents on your team have kids, and most of them don't have spouses or partners either."

Now that he mentioned it, Padmé realized that indeed, hardly anyone had said anything about children or romantic relationships when she'd asked about their families, only parents and siblings. "I guess that makes sense," she said.

She'd been eating in silence for several minutes when Anakin suddenly said, "Do you ever get lonely, ma'am?"

Padmé looked over at him in surprise, and he flushed a little as their eyes met. "Sorry?" she said.

He shrugged and stuffed his hands in his pockets. "Well, we were talking about me not having a family of my own, and you don't either, ma'am, so I was just thinking…I served President Valorum before you and he had a wife and kids, and he was always so excited to come home to them at the end of the day and just relax with them and not have to think about politics anymore," he explained. "So I guess I was just wondering…I mean, it must be hard. Doing this job alone without anyone to share the burden with you. That's all." He swallowed and looked at her nervously. "I don't mean to pry, I'm sorry if that was out of line—"

"No, it's all right," Padmé interrupted. "You're not the only one. The media and my mother have been mourning my lack of a First Gentleman since election day." They both chuckled, and then there was a brief silence as Padmé gathered her thoughts before continuing. "I've always been…independent, very independent, and most of the time I'm happy enough to be on my own. But…sometimes I do get lonely, especially now that I'm living in this huge place all alone. Sometimes I wish I had a family to come home to, like you said. Obviously I talk to my parents and my sister all the time, but…it's just not the same as having someone here with me."

Realizing she was starting to overshare, Padmé quickly cut herself off, feeling rather embarrassed. Then before she could stop herself, she was asking Anakin, "What about you? Do you ever get lonely? You did just say that being an agent isn't conducive to family life, but you didn't say whether or not you minded."

"I do sometimes. But it's hard to be lonely when I spend most of the day with you, ma'am. A-and with the other agents too, obviously," he hastened to add, cheeks turning red, and Padmé's stomach inexplicably squirmed. "I actually have always wanted a family of my own, though, so I figure I'll retire after you're out of office, and then maybe I'll get a more normal job, meet someone, settle down, have kids…"

The wistful expression on his face was doing funny things to Padmé's heart. "That sounds nice," she said, equally wistful. "Though I'm sure the White House will be sorry to lose you."

Anakin smiled at her. "Thank you, ma'am. But I can't do this job forever, I'll burn out. It would be almost as taxing as if you had to do your job forever."

Padmé grimaced at the thought, then laughed. "Touché."

After a moment of comfortable silence, Anakin ventured, "Would you also want to get married after you're out of office, ma'am? Or maybe even while you're still president?"

"Definitely. I've always wanted to get married and have kids." Padmé smiled ruefully. "But I don't imagine it having much chance of happening anymore."

"Why not?"

"Well, right now I'm not really in a position to meet someone any more than you are. And besides, who's going to want to marry the president, or even a former president? Only someone who'd be trying to take advantage of my power or use me to further their own ambitions," she said. "Any kind, decent, humble person, the sort of person I'd want to marry…they'd never want to marry me and deal with all the publicity and craziness that would go along with it."

"Maybe if they loved you," Anakin said rather suddenly.

Padmé stared at him, and he blushed again. "What?"

He cleared his throat and embarrassedly looked down at his shoes. "I just meant, if someone loved you, ma'am, if they truly, deeply loved you, they'd be willing to put up with all the other stuff. They'd think you were worth it."

Now Padmé was blushing too, and it took a moment before she felt composed enough to say, "Well, then I guess I can only hope I'll be able to find that person."

"I hope so too." Anakin promptly turned even redder and quickly added, "For your sake, I mean, ma'am. If getting married and having kids is something you want, then I hope you get to do it."

"Thank you." Padmé gave him a small smile. "And I hope you get to do it, too."