"Alright, that's it," Padme announced, crossing her arms and stomping her foot. "You've been working all day." Although she found it adorable that Anakin took it upon himself to clean out her garage and fix all the hundreds of broken machines that she'd given up on, his...er, focus, made her feel like there was unnecessary distance between them.

As soon as the words left her mouth, Anakin's attention was immediately averted from the screw driver in his hand to her in the doorway, and she was left momentarily stunned.

Oh god, those lips. Jesus. "Uh- I- well, aren't you hungry?"
Anakin smiled a little bit and shook his head.

"Are you sure?"
"Yes," he said softly. But the tiny teeny grin was still in place.

"Well then..." Padme thought for a moment. "Want some lemonade?" Then she rethought. "Oh wait. We don't have. But I could make some, if you want. Or how about punch? I think I have some of that in the..." How smooth. "Whatever. How about liquid?"

Anakin chuckled and put the screw driver down. "Anythings fine."

"But what do you want?" Padme pressed. "Nothing isn't an answer."

"Do you want me to eat?"

Padme let out barely there gasp of surprise before her nose started to hurt.

His words were a venture, something that wasn't a normal thing for him to say. And once she realized this, Padme very much wanted to run up and hug him and cry and thank him for his courage because even though he didn't know it, it meant the world to her that something she hoped she had been offering made Anakin begin to crack at the hard walls of the shell he enclosed himself in.

However, Padme quickly collected herself before her overdone reaction could make Anakin second guess his actions, and she breathed out a small but elated smile and nodded fervently. "Please, darlin'. I've got sandwiches."

Anakin laughed. Her southern drawl was impeccable.

"I think," Padme mused, "I should become a professional sandwich maker. I mean, this queen thing isn't working out well."

Anakin just looked at her, but his eyebrow was cocked and his lips were curved. The only thing missing from the picture was a few words. But we would get there, Padme assured herself.

"What be your opinions on this, mate?"

Anakin shrugged. Oh the shrugging, Padme though with disdainful cheer. How lovely it is to watch. The self deprecating shrugging of Anakin.

"Oh come on, you must have some thought on that."

Nothing.

"Okay, then, how about this. Why won't you answer? Just answer that." She smiled encouragingly and continued, explaining, "Because I love to hear from you. I really do. I think you're smart and funny. So it's not fair to me for you to be quiet all the time. Therefore, you owe me this one thing. Why do you not answer me? Be completely honest."

Anakin's eyes were clouded with fear, and he looked up at her with a vulnerability that she'd never seen on him before. It was almost as if he was begging her to tell him to just keep his mouth shut, to not force him to spew out the truth.

But something inside Padme told her that in order for Anakin to ever get better and to trust her completely and to have more answers and better like the one from the garage, he needed to tell her what it was about her presence that... freaked him out.

So she looked on with ease and a gentle smile, but she was so totally unprepared to hear what left his lips that she felt as if her world had been shocked with a bolt of electricity.

Anakin turned his head down, opened his mouth a released silent sound for a moment, and then he whispered, "Because you could kill me."

Sharply inhaling, her hand covered her mouth and Padme's chair screeched as she shoved herself away from the table. "Oh my god," she muttered horrified. "Oh my god." One couldn't possibly fathom how utterly disgusted she was with herself. This is what Anakin, after everything, he thought she would do? That she would abuse her right of power and murder him? Didn't he know that she would positively die protecting him, or anyone else close to her, for that matter?

Jesus Christ.

What kind of sick, sick person was she?

Lost in her thoughts of loathe, just now she realized that Anakin had defensively done the same.

So she kept the tears out of her voice, tried to steady her shaking core, and put her misery aside for a moment to focus on the task at had. Anakin obviously had a completely warped image of her in his mind that totally threw all the hopes she had for him and the two of them and him in terms of the two of them out the window and even though it killed her inside, she needed to try and fix that horrible point of view of his.

"Anakin," she said thickly. "I pushed my chair away because I got shocked. In fact, I got horrified. I mean, I never thought I was a bad person, but I always knew I wasn't an angel either. I guess though I was wrong about the first part. Something I've done made me seem like a very very very bad person, and I'm sorry that I haven't been able to give you a better idea of myself. But nothing I'll do will ever hurt you, not only because I don't have the right but because I don't want to and I care about you."

And these next words, she said with out thinking and she felt them rip her insides about. "Maybe, if I'm going to make you feel like that, though, and if I bring you down all the time, then it would be better for us not to be...liv-working...together. So I'll see what I can do."

"I'm sorry."
And now that she'd said everything possible to completely tear out her soul, one would think that she'd looked at Anakin once or twice.

But she didn't and maybe if she had, then maybe she would have seen the tear leaking down his cheek and maybe she would have realized how his eyes were begging her to stop and let him explain and maybe if she'd though to do all that and if she didn't over react, then she never would have let her panic blind her and she would actually see where she was going and her skull would be all in one piece.