Chapter 6

Anakin was silent as Padmé joined him at the fire thirty minutes later. He wordlessly held out what they'd saved for her for breakfast.

"Thanks." She collected the tin and settled on a nearby rock, more comfortable now that she was dressed as she was used to, her blaster strapped firmly in place on her thigh. She dug in. "Sulking doesn't suit you."

Her casual comment drew his gaze up sharply. "I wasn't."

"You were. The tilt of your eyebrows and the slight pout in your lips gives you away." She grinned, spooning the first bite into her mouth and making a face. "Stang! This stuff is horrible!"

"Either eat it or go hungry."

"Lighten up, Skywalker. Just making conversation."

"You've made it abundantly clear you don't want to speak with me Captain."

"On the contrary." She smirked, taking another bite. "I don't want to do anything but speak with you. Your Barriss might get it in her head to forget her Jedi training and be rid of me if I did otherwise."

"She's not my Barriss!" Anakin's exasperation was accompanied with a sour expression. "Quit calling her that."

Padmé merely grinned, tongue in cheek. "If the saber fits."

The look he shot her was dark. "This saber doesn't fit, now would you kindly drop the subject?"

"Performance issues?" Padmé snickered.

"Drop it."

"The way I dropped you?"

"Over the side of a cliff?"

Her smirk was self-satisfied. "I was thinking more in a figurative sense. It must really irk Barriss you can't perform because of me."

"It has nothing to do with you!"

"Ha! So you do admit it; you can't perform!"

"Insufferable woman!"

"Prude," she tossed back, her favorite comeback to his exasperation. She placed her dish aside, watching him carefully. "Maybe we can fix that."

Anakin jerked. "What?"

Padmé rose to her feet and stalked slowly towards him. "I've had enough of your prudishness, Master Jedi. I think it's time I did something about it."

"Rule one."

Padmé stopped in front of him, crouching but not touching. "Am I touching you, Skywalker?" Her voice was a throaty purr. "Tell me something."

He swallowed hard, and she saw the signs of tension and frayed nerves she'd come to associate with his eventual capitulation. "Anything if you'll back away."

She leaned forward, placing her hands on either side of him and bringing their faces nose to nose. "Does she turn you on, Master Jedi? Does she make your blood burn, send shivers of longing down your spine? Does she leave you with sleepless nights full of passionate kisses and images of sweaty limbs entwined in hot, steamy-"

His hand slapped over her mouth, cutting off her words. His eyes were dark now, the stormy sea of black she'd come to recognize as Anakin losing the battle with his control. "You're playing with fire, Captain."

Her tongue darted out to lick the pads at the base of his fingers. The barest of touches, but his eyes flickered in response and she knew, that he knew, that she knew how it affected him. She tilted her eyebrows in challenge. She felt the shudder that slid through his body. She lifted one hand, her eyes twinkling, and held up a finger.

Anakin's gaze went to it and she poked his hand and then held it up again. His hand dropped as he realized what he'd done.

"Rule one, Skywalker." She grinned cockily. "You broke it, not me."

"I'll answer your question if you'll answer mine."

Padmé's lips spread into a smirk. She hadn't moved from their close position and she could almost feel the effect her nearness was having on him. What he didn't know was the amount of willpower it took to hold herself back. "I never could resist a bargain."

His eyes flickered. "Are you bragging or complaining about your sleepless nights, Captain?"

Padmé stared at him blankly. He knows. The words echoed around in her mind as she stared at his knowing look. He knows! He knows about the dreams. The frustration. He knows about your fantasies and your - She cut off her line of thought and managed a shaky smile to deny his accusation. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"No?"

She shrugged. "You've given me nothing to be sleepless abo-."

The distance between their lips was closed so quickly Padmé had no time for thought, only reaction. Her mouth had been open, in the process of forming words when he'd claimed it and he did so boldly, hungrily, like a man possessed - or driven to the ragged edges of his control. His tongue darted into the open recesses of her mouth, claiming it boldly as his hands splayed across her back and delved into her hair. He dragged her down, across him, flattening her from chest to waist against him.

Padmé's arms went around his neck, her hands hungrily seeking the silk of his hair and finding it quickly. She buried her hands to her wrists, tilting his head possessively as she kissed him with a hunger that mirrored his own. She tasted desperation and passion on his lips and a hint of confusion. She banished it, thoroughly claiming his mouth as she ached to claim his body, her knees straddling his hips as she sank down to his lap.

Anakin used the leverage of the wall to push himself to his feet, never breaking the kiss, never losing the contact, and Padmé felt the low rumble in his chest more than heard it. Her knees slid over his hips, down across his thighs and finally, her feet touched the ground again, the tips of her boots making contact. He ravaged her mouth and she let him, teasing him with her teeth and the tip of her tongue even as fire spread from her belly, engulfing her limbs and making her thoughts hazy.

This kiss, so different from the last kiss they'd shared, sent her senses reeling and drained any coherent thought from her mind. There was only Anakin. The taste and feel of him as she was pulled flush against him. And the knowledge that she was on fire; a fire only he could quench.

He pulled away first, and she slowly opened her eyes, her senses reeling, the feeling like she's been put through a negative-G machine making it difficult to form any kind of coherent sentence. His gaze was stormy, dark with suppressed emotion and want. He spoke in low tones. "I haven't slept with Barriss."

She stared at him completely uncomprehending as his words were slow to sink into her brain. She recovered far slower than normal, her limbs still heavy, her knees shaky from the kiss that had rocked her to the core. She swallowed a couple of times and cleared her throat, knowing the confusion she couldn't hide would be plain on her face. "But... the nail trails-"

His grip tightening on her fractionally as his fingers splayed possessively across her back. "She caught me off guard the day you came out of the healing trance. It was her way of telling me she wanted things the way they used to be. And before you ask, yes, I did kiss her - or rather, she kissed me."

"And you expect me to believe you didn't enjoy it?" Padmé's heart skipped a beat as she took in the implications of his words. He hadn't succumbed to Barriss' charms? But why, when he'd been so eager to see her?

Anakin smiled wryly. "No. Because you probably wouldn't even if I was telling the truth."

She had to give him that. Nothing he could have said would have convinced her otherwise. She pulled away and out of his arms, using one hand to balance herself on the rocky shelf to the side before rising unsteadily to her feet. She stared at him, wondering what kind of game he was playing. Kissing both her and Barriss and enjoying them both? One if he couldn't have the other? Was that it? Was he just keeping his options open now that he'd had a chance to think about what she'd said regarding the next generation of Jedi?

She stepped back, watching him carefully, searching for any sign that she'd misunderstood him, but for once he was almost completely unreadable. Or her brain was simply too muddied by his kiss to understand what she was seeing objectively. The thought frustrated her to no end and a frown found its way onto her face. "You know Skywalker, I probably wouldn't believe even if you said you did. I have to hand it to you, though. You sure know how to keep 'em hanging."

He blinked, blindsided by her off-hand accusation - an accusation he didn't understand. "Keep what hanging?"

Padmé backed up, crossing her arms over her chest as she organized her thoughts. She stopped, planting one booted foot on a nearby rock and leaning forward on her knee as she regarded him silently. Was he toying with her or was he really serious?

"Padmé? What are you talking about?"

Her smile appeared; a wry tilt of her lips. "I was referring to the females around you, but if you can't even deduce that, you really are more naive than I thought."

He flushed, straightening his clothing and his posture. "I know enough."

She grinned roguishly. "Oh do you now? Enlighten me."

He pushed to his feet, his look dark as he stared at her from his position. Padmé could read his frustration in every line of his body, the way one of his hands was clenched at his side, and the other seemed to be relaxed. An un-observant observer would never have guessed his dark expression to be more than frustration with her words. An observant observer would have easily noted the strain around his mouth and eyes, the furious pulse at the base of his throat and noted the catch in his breathing.

Padmé assumed an indolent posture as she watched him, knowing he'd never pick up on the same physical cues she did, and cocked her head as she watched him fight with himself. Her grin widened. "There's more to knowing than simply knowing, Skywalker. Surely you're Jedi enough... man enough to know the difference between knowledge and experience."

He shook himself and she practically saw the way he cloaked himself in the Force, allowing the energies to wash away his frustration. But this time Padmé also saw that he had to fight for that cloak, that he wasn't having an easy time of banishing the emotions despite his Mastery of the unseen power. "I know." He replied softly, the tension ebbing from his face. "But I also know you're deliberately bating me. What's wrong Captain, surely a kiss isn't going to leave you sleepless."

Padmé's grin didn't falter. "Over a kiss? Like I was saying before you decided to get physical; you've given me nothing to be sleepless about, Skywalker. Maybe if you'd experienced the galaxy like I have, you'd understand why."

His gaze narrowed. "Just how many... experiences have you had, Captain?"

Padmé straightened. "Far more than you, Master Jedi. I haven't been so limited, or limiting, in my choices. Unlike the Jedi, I was never bound by any code other than my own."

"One without morals?"

Padmé smirked. "I'm sure you see it that way. Why don't you try looking beyond your precious order for a few minutes and take a look around you. Beyond me, beyond Barriss, and at the cultures you and your fellows fought so hard to protect. Just because we're different doesn't make us any less honorable or any less worthy of your respect. Unlike you, I don't limit myself to those things I know."

"I never said-"

"You didn't have to." Her smile disappeared. "You've judged me since the day we met based on my profession and imagined indiscretions. All things in the horribly sordid past that your imagination has been torturing you with and rather than ask you simply assume! Unlike you I've made no pretenses at what I am, Master Jedi. I am a jaded, bitter woman who wants to help make the galaxy a better place and earn a credit or two while I do."

"And sleep with half of it in the process."

"Ha!" She crossed her arms over her chest. "I'll have you know I'm very picky about my partners - not that you would believe that, would you? You've already judged me and pronounced me guilty without a shred of evidence that I'm as wanton as you believe me to be!"

"Your actions speak for themselves, Captain."

Padmé's eyes narrowed. "Then my actions were wrong. I thought I saw in you a kindred spirit. Someone who had been ripped from the very fabric of their being by force and not choice. I thought I saw a core of compassion tempered with understanding. Someone who desired to make a difference. Now I simply see that all of your vaunted Jedi teachings about acceptance and understanding and little more than propaganda."

"Now who's making assumptions?" Anakin demanded evenly. "If it bothers you so much, why don't you just leave?"

"I will - I don't stay where I'm not wanted. Good day, Skywalker."

Anakin's jaw dropped as she turned on her heel, marched to the make-shift tent to collect her jacket and proceeded to head for the exit of their campsite back into the chasms and ravines that were days away from the single suubatar they had left.

Anakin moved belatedly, darting forward to grab her by the elbow as she was about to slip out of the campsite. He froze as the cool metal of Padmé's blaster was suddenly and precisely against his forehead, the end digging a round circle in the flesh between his eyes.

Padmé's brown eyes were as hard as her blaster. "Remove your hand."

Anakin did so, slowly, letting his fingers uncurl one at a time before pulling his hand away and outward. He saw perfectly from his angle staring down the barrel of her blaster that the safety was off and it was set to kill. If she wanted, she could have shot him there, at that moment, and he wouldn't have been able to do a thing to stop her. He licked his lips, staring beyond the barrel at the coldness of Padmé's gaze. "What... what about your fee?"

Padmé stepped back, leaving the blaster against his forehead, right between his eyes, until she was standing an arm's length away from him. "Unlike some Jedi I know, I never renegade on a job no matter how much - or how little, I'm being paid. I'll be back, but not until I'm ready. I find the company stifling."

The weight against Anakin's forehead suddenly vanished and Padmé stepped back into the canyon that separated their small camp from the rest of the river. Padmé kept one eye on the opening, her blaster in hand, and one eye on her path. Satisfied Anakin wasn't following her, she slipped further into the canyon.

He'd unnerved her this morning and she felt the need for some peace and quiet - some alone time. Some time to reevaluate her position and get some perspective. And, unfortunately, she knew she was going to need it.

---------

She was going to kill him, Padmé decided as she tossed another leaf from the small tree she'd found into the swirling waters of the river. Just for being arrogant and egotistical and making assumptions about the past she was supposed to have lived. Talk about jumping to conclusions. She frowned.

Had she really done anything to dissuade his thinking, she wondered, watching as the leaves disappeared around the bend in the river. Her lips twisted. No. She hadn't. She'd encouraged him to think the worst of her, to think that she was a wonton, easy woman without morals compulsions. She rubbed her forehead, trying to ease the strain behind her eyes.

Her head hurt, and not just from the strain of her newly healed body taking a longer hike than she should. Damn his handsome hide anyway. "I must be mad." Padmé murmured darkly, shredding the leaves on one full branch and violently casting them over the water. She watched them swirl and race, some being pulled under by the current, others caught in the languid run of the waters close to the river's edge. Much like her swirling emotions.

Damn his handsome hide! She wanted to scream with frustration but didn't dare; she hadn't been able to get far enough away from the campsite without her newly healed injuries protesting in pain. As it is, she thought darkly. I'd rather scream at him than about him. Much more satisfying.

At least until he got that wounded look on his face.

She grimaced, yanking a twig off the small plant and tossing it disgustedly into the water. "You're going soft, girl," she told herself bitterly. "All because of a pair of blue eyes that match the color of the skies on the planet you can never go back to." She sighed, a sense of longing welling up within her as she leaned back against the canyon wall, her eyes on the river but not really seeing it.

She saw instead the mountain ranges of Naboo, wreathed with white clouds and surrounded with clear sapphire skies. She saw the lake country's waters, shimmering and clear, the sandy bottoms visible even at their greatest depths - deceptively so. She saw the lush, verdant forests, the swamp lands. All memories, fleeting though they were, that had never dimmed nor dulled with time.

All memories from a teenage girl that had long ago ceased to exist.

Padmé crouched beside the river bank, slipping her hand into the cool water and letting it trail over her fingers and hand. That teenager would have jumped at the chance she was being offered. She would have likely fallen for Anakin within the first five minutes and then proceeded to doggedly chase him, hounding him, until she received the answer she was looking for. She shook her head. Not so much unlike the woman she'd become - except for the motive.

That teenager would have been looking for the happily-ever-after and the woman she'd become had long ago stopped believing such things were possible.

She pushed to her feet and let the memories slip away, hardening her heart against the emotions which always followed and locking them deep into the recesses of her mind. She had a job to do. A job she didn't particularly like anymore, but she would do it. She would do it because she would be paid for it and maybe, just maybe, one day she'd make enough to clear her name and go home.

The water whispered along the banks behind her as she turned on her heel and headed back to camp. She had to speak with Skywalker if for no other reason than to make him understand.

----------

Padmé frowned as she stepped into the camp, noting that it seemed abnormally silent. "Skywalker?"

There was no immediate answer and her hand dropped to the butt of her blaster as a distinctly uneasy feeling swept over her. She slipped the blaster out of its holster, adjusting her hand about its grip and fingering the trigger. "Skywalker!"

No sound answered her call, but the uneasy feeling increased, crawling through her belly and coiling into a cold knot of fear. She ignored it, slowly following the wall around the campsite, her blaster held at the ready. The silence was broken only by the gurgle of the river as it slowed to form the pool at the far side of the camp.

There was no sign of a struggle. The camp looked exactly as she'd left it, but Padmé could feel the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end. Where was Skywalker?

The dishes from their morning breakfast had been cleaned and stacked neatly by the remnants of their fire. The blankets were hung on a make-shift line, strung to the left of the small tent, and away from the river. The tents flaps were pulled back, but she couldn't see inside from her angle. She shifted, placing her feet carefully, and making her way towards the hanging blankets and open tent. She looked all around her. The sides of the cliff were bare, winding steadily upwards towards the skies, dust dancing well above her head as the winds of the world caused them to dance.

Padmé turned her focus back to the campsite, her frown deepening as she couldn't detect anything amiss. Something just didn't feel right and she didn't have a clue what it was. Just a feeling that she was walking into a trap; that she was being watched. She stopped, her eyes narrowing as she caught a whisper of something that sounded like fabric on stone. A soft sound that was almost completely masked by the ever present breeze and the merry bubbling to the nearby river.

She spun as a pinch at her neck brought her blaster down and outstretched towards the wall.

Nothing.

She slapped her hand to her neck and brushed, coming away with a small dart and her fingers coated with a drop of her blood. She dropped the dart, whirling around a second time and narrowing her gaze.

Still nothing.

"Whoever's out there, show yourself!"

A giggle, barely audible over the noise of the stream, had her whipping around again. This time a movement out of the comer of her eye caught her attention and a small creature, a Gwurran she'd never seen before that blended in almost perfectly with the rock wall, gave her a toothy smile. He waved one hand, exhibiting a blow dart tube.

Padmé's blaster spat fire and the Gwurran darted away, making scolding noises of distress as it chattered and jabbered at her in broken anosian. She brought her blaster around, tracking it and fired twice more, hitting it squarely in the leg on the third round and sending it tumbling from the wall to the ground, landing on the roof of their make-shift tent. The fabric held for a half second before folding gracefully inward, the shriek of the small Gwurran lost among the folds.

Padmé ignored the tingling in her fingers and toes as she advanced towards the pile, fairly certain this creature had been alone. But why would it attack her? She stumbled, one of her legs suddenly going numb and she almost pitched forward into the canvas of the tent.

The Gwurran was struggling, its words muffled and more garbled by the fabric. It finally found its way out just as Padmé's knees gave out. She reached for it, grabbing it about the throat and dragging it towards her. "Why'd you attack me?" She demanded, glaring at the creature. "What did you do to me?"

The Gwurran made a sound of distress, tugging frantically at her hands where they were choking it viciously. Padmé felt her hands going numb and squeezed harder. They spasmed, opening enough to let the Gwurran jump free to scold her some more about being uncooperative. She tried to reach for it, but her body was swiftly and suddenly completely beyond her control.

A presence behind her made itself known, casting a shadow over her prone and helpless form. The whisper of a robe was her only clue to the individual's identity.

"If you two are quite finished making a spectacle of yourselves, perhaps we can get moving?"

Padmé tried to bring her head around, to glare at the familiar haughty voice, but the lethargy had spread through her body, making speech and movement impossible. Whatever toxin that had been used had rendered her as helpless as a baby.

Barriss crouched by Padmé's head and checked her vitals before a satisfied smile crossed her tattooed lips. "We're going to have a little chat, Captain. Only we're going to do it on ground of my choosing." She rose to her feet, an edge to her smile. "You don't have a choice."

Padmé struggled to get her body to move, succeeding only in making her limbs twitch but little else. Her power of speech had fled, leaving her tongue like a dead weight in her mouth. She made a noise of displeasure, glaring darts at Barriss and promising retribution for the indignity with every look.

Barriss stepped back to her side and lifted one hand, raising her off the ground with her telekinetic powers. She smiled thinly. "You realize, Captain, that I can't possibly let you see where we're taking you."

Padmé's eyes narrowed. They were about the only part of her she still seemed to have control over. Oh, Barriss was going to pay for this, alright. Slowly and painfully, and in ways only a well traveled smuggler could think of.

Barriss placed her fingers on either side of Padmé's head, finding pressure points and Padmé struggled to get her head to twitch, to move; anything to shake off that grip. A Force Suggestion was added, one she was expecting and one she fought.

All to no avail.

Where the Force Suggestion was rebuffed, Padmé felt Barriss applying body point knowledge to send her into unconsciousness. She fought it, harder than she'd ever fought anything, and she was satisfied to see the strain on Barriss' face as she was forced to concentrate even harder to achieve her goals.

But Padmé, caught and bound by toxins she couldn't fight, finally, reluctantly succumbed to unconsciousness and the uncertainty that followed.