As soon as the door closed to their room, Anakin found himself flung through the air and onto their bed. He was immobilized, and while he could fight back, he didn't want to. There was no lie, after all. He did like it when Darth Mirayya was angry, when she had that extra spark in her eye, literal spark.
"Vader," she hissed, leaping onto her bed like a wild nexu. She straddled him over his chest and placed both hands firmly onto his neck. While she could easily choke him through the Force, she still preferred the physical contact to his smooth skin. "You're treading on thin ice right now."
"I'm from Tatooine," Anakin spat back defiantly, the grin never leaving his face. "I don't understand this ice you speak of."
She slapped him across the cheek, hard enough so he would feel it, but not so hard to actually hurt him.
"You understand the stakes, don't you? If the Jedi find us out now..."
"You think Obi-Wan would believe an actual Sith dare joke around about the Dark Side with a Jedi," Anakin gasped out. She wasn't trying to choke him seriously, but he was having trouble breathing nevertheless. "This is my trial, isn't it? And if anything I think we allayed his suspicions."
He felt her fingers relax around his neck. It felt nice now, so he reached up and grabbed his Sith wife's forearms, massaging them gently so that she would keep her hands on him. "And my shielding was superb, wasn't it."
"You were good," Padmé relented. She could not stay mad at him. This was what she had signed up for, after all, engaging with someone so young. Anakin was at the age now where he was probing, pushing his boundaries, whether with her and his training, or on a mission such as this. It was the only way he would learn, on the path to becoming a master himself. "I did little out there. Your own shielding was enough to hide both of us from a seasoned Jedi. But this was a controlled situation...the real test comes if we are under duress."
"I know," Anakin said with a tiny whiff of impatience. While he appreciated everything Padmé taught him, right now, in the positions they were in, he would have preferred her to finish the lesson and commence his 'punishment' instead.
Clearly Padmé felt the same way, as Anakin felt her start to grind herself against his chest. "Just...try not to slip up about Kamino."
One of the tidbits of information they had found from Palpatine's files was how he had manipulated a Master Sifo-Dyas into creating a giant clone army for the Republic. Sidious had grand plans for this army, but with him dead, the cloners were still continuing their work in ignorance to all but the two Siths, the original Jedi who commissioned it, and whomever he decided to confide in. It did not bring comfort to Padmé that Dooku was among Sifo-Dyas's closest friends.
"Don't you worry, old maid. I know what I'm doing." Suddenly he felt himself immobilized once more as Padmé fingers tightened around his neck again.
"So I'm old," Padmé whispered, shifting her body so that she was practically sitting on his neck, "but I'm no maid...Skywalker."
"Prove it," he barely was able to gasp out.
Obi-Wan was already up in the cockpit and meditating when he saw his two charges enter. Neither one seemed all too rested, and he swore he saw light bruising on the younger man's neck.
"Rough night," he asked, eyebrows raised skeptically at their state. He had sensed great turmoil from within the ship the previous night, and expected that the Senator would have tightened the leash on her husband today. But not literally.
"Oh, the usual," Anakin quipped, brushing away the odd glares from the Jedi as he resumed monitoring the controls.
"So you insult your very powerful senator of a wife on the regular? Got it."
"We don't all get to travel the galaxy, master Jedi," Padmé said in a conciliatory manner. "Ani and I don't always get the best sleep on a ship."
"Yeah," Anakin added, "she moves around in her sleep like a crazy sith lady."
"Hffmm. Bet it still beats sleeping on a bed of rocks and bugs."
"Was this before or after the gundarks, Obi-Wan," Anakin asked, and Obi-Wan wondered about the boldness of the young man, so quick to be familiar with a stranger.
"Both." Not for the first or last time he wondered how the boy would have fared as a Jedi. His bravery and courage was unquestioned and would have served as great assets for the order, but there was now a lack of reverence in the young man that he did not recall from nine years ago. Clearly, his close relationship with a queen from a young age had emboldened him in contrast to his humbler roots, but Obi-Wan had a feeling that this aspect of Anakin's personality was integral to him regardless of upbringing. So he would have tried his patience as a Padawan, Obi-Wan mused, whether mouthing off in front of other masters, or throwing a wrench in his more delicate diplomatic missions. Of this was one. "Let's just hope that this mission will be the quick and comfortable kind. We're staying in the Governor's palace, after all."
"With the considerable opposition I've had on a bill that would seem innocuous to most, I doubt that will be the case." Padmé appeared pensive for a moment. "And your mandate does include investigation, does it not? Into the domestic situation on the planet?"
She was clearly leading him somewhere, Obi-Wan realized. A small part of his brain told him that observation of these two would be crucial to his mission as well, thought he could not guess as to why. "I will certainly keep my ears open, but my mandate allows me to investigate, not intervene. From what I hear, the conflict is pretty standard, is it not? A small scale civil war, the local crime lords revolting now that their lust has moved from credits to power?"
"That is correct, master Jedi," Padmé said in a tone that clearly indicated he was wrong and that she knew better. "The rebels are slavers, from what I hear. My bill will give the Governor more authority to fight them on account of that, in addition to more resources from the Republic and the Jedi. So why would he oppose the prospect of additional resources?"
"You think the Governor has something to hide?"
"I think the negotiations will drag on long enough for you to conduct a thorough investigation."
Obi-Wan could have swore that she winked as she spoke. Their shared past had taught him not to underestimate this young Senator and former queen and that, while her motivations were pure enough, she was not above using deception and subterfuge to get her way. But what was the role of her very young husband? On the surface they seemed a typical young couple in love, except there was nothing typical about them. Amidala was already a rising star in Coruscant, and Obi-Wan sensed that her role in the galaxy, her ambitions, eclipsed her current position as a mere senator. And Anakin...a former slave, the greatest midi-chlorian count in recorded history, a vast reservoir of potential completely untapped, potential to have rivaled even Master Yoda as a Jedi, yet here he sat, just another common teenager, though with a rather uncommon wife. Despite their most unusual backgrounds and courtships, they seemed every bit the normal couple, yet that elusive, nagging sense that there was something off about the picture in front of him could not escape Obi-Wan.
Qui-Gon had thought him the Chosen One, a prophesied being who would slay the Sith. Yet wasn't Obi-Wan the one who killed Darth Maul? And while he heard the high council still debated whether Maul had been the master or apprentice, and identity and whereabouts of the other elusive Sith out there, Obi-Wan, even though he would admit he was no master Yoda or Windu, could feel that the Force was so much cleaner, clearer since that fateful day on Naboo. Siri Tachi had the oddest hypothesis of all, that maybe the Sith master had been on the droid control ship, and that young Anakin had unwittingly killed him, thus fulfilling the prophecy. Dooku, his grand-master, seemed to have ideas as well, though he never voiced them outright to Obi-Wan aside from cryptic comments about looking deeper into the Trade Federation crisis, and how the Jedi still did not grasp the full picture from the events of nine years ago.
It was apparently not long after they landed that Amidala was correct about Rylothian intentions. The Governor, Lune Nikmas, was unlike other powerful twi'leks in that he was exceedingly gaunt, but Obi-Wan sensed from him more evasiveness than the average politician. The welcoming committee took up most of their time the first day in elaborate ceremonies, leaving little time for anything of substance. Where the young Senator did try to broach the subject of the slave bill, the Governor and his councilors were quick to change the subject, their disingenuousness apparent even to Anakin, who frowned in disapproval the entire time. Their bedquarters in the governor's palace were grand, and despite her reputation as a workaholic, Padmé quickly rushed her husband to bed that evening.
In another life, Obi-Wan thought, his mind returning against his substantial willpower to those months he had spent on Mandalore, to the young, frightened, courageous Duchess who, despite her youth, was already willing to die for her beliefs. And he for her, if only she would ask. But she never did, and though Obi-Wan knew that he could sense the truth of her feelings for him, reciprocated, he had long banished them to the recesses of his mind. Until now, as he watched the carelessness of the young lovers he kept watch over, and how despite the very scandalous aspects of their marriage (after all, even he had heard about the Queen robbing the cradle at the time, from watching a holotabloid on a distant outer rim planet), Padmé Amidala had been able to survive and thrive, not just balancing, but combining her duty along with her personal life. If it were possible for her, then it would've been possible for Satine as well. But then where would that have left Qui-Gon? Who would have killed the Sith? Not that he would put a disproportionate weight on his own abilities, especially on his younger self, but the odds were greatly stacked against them. Had he still been sent, could Qui-Gon have escaped Naboo with the Queen alone? And if he couldn't have, then Amidala would be a hostage at best, and Anakin a slave, and all this happiness between them now wisps of stardust.
Obi-Wan Kenobi rarely allowed himself the luxury of distraction, but whenever it did occur, it seemed to be at the worst of times. A tingling feeling in the Force warned him to attention, but not before a massive blast shook the walls of the palace, its epicenter in the suite next to his. By the time he ran in, it was too late. Half the room was blown away, the missing walls exposing the charred remains of the bed to the blistering winds from outside.
Nightshade's sydneylover150: We'll see...it won't be an easy sell I'm sure!
spirouFR: Thanks for reading and reviewing!