Chapter 7

An uneasy silence had fallen between Padmé and Anakin after their Jedi Masters has left them alone. Both stared at each other, not wanting to be the first to look away. However, as she felt her eyes slowly drift towards the muscles of Anakin's bared chest, Padmé gave up with the staring contest and closed her eyes, while Anakin followed suit moments later. Padmé tried to immerse herself in the Force to block out her sudden fascination with Anakin's anatomy.

Unfortunately, Padmé found it difficult to concentrate on the Force and kept finding herself opening her eyes to steal a glance at Anakin's bared chest. She did not know why she was so taken with the display of flesh. She had seen many of her male peers with their shirts off and they had never held her attention like this before. She wondered if it was merely the novelty of the fact that she had never seen Anakin like that before.

Padmé's daydreaming was broken when she noticed Anakin shift slightly and she immediately closed her eyes so that she would not be caught gaping at him. As Padmé's eyes closed, Anakin's opened to glance at the woman before him. He wanted to glare at her and have his eyes burn a hole through her over what she had done to his shoulder, but he found he could not do that. Rather than stare angrily at his fellow Jedi Padawan, Anakin's eyes softened as he gazed at Padmé's face. Her eyes were closed and her features calm as she immersed herself in the Force.

There was a slight blush to Padmé's cheeks that seemed to highlight her creamy skin, and Anakin absentmindedly wondered if her skin was as soft as it looked. Anakin's eyes also traveled to Padmé's lips. Despite being pursed together as she concentrated on her meditations, Anakin could not help but notice that they were full, ripe, and ready for…

Padmé gave a deep sigh as she tried to relax herself which caused Anakin to shake out of his reverie. He cursed himself for having such thoughts because after all they had been through, all Padmé's lips were ready for was a stern talking to. After being annoyed by this woman since he arrived at the Temple, and then today's fight, he should not be overcome by some need to…. Now that Anakin thought about it, he did not know what he wanted to do to Padmé, but regardless he knew he had to quit looking at her. He hated meditation, but the sight of Padmé was distracting him from the anger he should be feeling towards her. Perhaps it was the pain killers that the healers had given him that was causing his strange behavior, but he would use meditation to end his train of thought. A smirk crossed Anakin's features as he closed his eyes and pictured Obi-Wan's shock that his padawan had voluntarily settled into meditation.


Just as Anakin's eyes closed once more, Padmé's eyes opened to sneak another peek at her fellow Jedi padawan. No matter what she tried she could not successfully meditate. For the last few minutes, she had merely had her eyes closed, fighting some strange desire to open them and glance at Anakin once more. Over the course of the hour, Anakin and Padmé alternated stealing glances at one another, one closing their eyes as the other opened them.

At the start of the new hour, a chrono along the far wall chimed, causing both Padmé and Anakin to open their eyes simultaneously so that they were finally meeting each others' gaze.

"Do you need to have your bandages changed?" Padmé asked quietly, casting her eyes to the floor as she felt her stomach flutter.

"Yes." Anakin responded curtly.

"Do… do you need my help?" Padmé stuttered out as her stomach fluttered once more.

"No!" Anakin barked out with a hint of a snarl. "I think you've done quite enough." Anakin seemed to regain some of his earlier resentment of Padmé as he was reminded that he needed to tend to his injuries. "I will take care of it myself." To prove his point, Anakin shrugged out of his Jedi cloak, hissing in pain as he worked it off of his wounded shoulder.

Padmé might have stared before, but now her eyes grew wide as she stared at Anakin's bared torso in its entirety. Her imagination had been working out what he looked like under the cloak, but the actual sight was still amazing. A faint smile formed on her lips and her eyes widened as she took in every sculpted bump of hard muscle and tanned flesh.

"I'm sure you are enjoying this." Anakin commented with a hiss as he caught Padmé smiling as he pulled at his cloak to find the tube of bacta and bandages the healers had given him. He hated that Padmé was getting this chance to gloat over his injuries and he wanted them covered before she had more time to gawk at them.

"I said I was sorry." Padmé murmured softly, her eyes fixing on the flexion of Anakin's muscles as he moved about.

"Save it, we both know that you are not!" Anakin retorted back.

Padmé's gaze jerked up to Anakin's face that was stonily staring back at her, and she glared at him for questioning her compassion. She decided that compassion must have been what had caused her eyes to drift over Anakin's body. It was in her nature to abhor violence and feel compelled to be sympathetic to those who were wounded. However, if Anakin was going to continue to be rude to her she refused to give him anymore attention. "If you aren't going to accept my apology, then so be it, but go whine and moan somewhere else. You are disturbing me."

As Padmé turned her back to Anakin, so that she was no longer staring at the solid wall of flesh that had been the sole object of her attention, Anakin fired back at her. "I do not whine!" However, after Anakin's declaration, he let out a groan of pain as he flexed an arm behind him and tried to pull off his bandage. The problem with Padmé hitting his shoulder was that it was a difficult place to reach without shifting muscles that stretched at the wound.

Padmé felt a combination of guilt and irritation wash over her as Anakin hissed in agony. She felt guilt that she had caused that injury and had coldly turned away from him, and subsequently irritation that it was his own pride and arrogance that had driven her to turn from him in the first place. After another minute of hearing Anakin grumble and complain, Padmé spun in her seat and stood from her chair. She rolled her eyes as she saw Anakin grimacing in pain as he struggled to pull the bandage from his shoulder.

Padmé stood up so that she was looking down at him, extending her hand out palm up. "Give me the bacta and bandages."

"No!" Anakin snarled as he cast an angry glance up at her. "I don't need your help!"

Padmé's eyes narrowed and her tone was stern as she answered back. "I am not going to listen to you grumble and complain. Besides if you let me help you, then you won't have to move that shoulder around as much and the bandaging will get done faster."

There was a moment of silence where Anakin simply glared defiantly up at Padmé, but after struggling unsuccessfully with changing the bandage he knew he was going to have to relent on this issue no matter how much it hurt his pride. However, to make sure she knew he was not happy about this, he sighed in resignation as he said, "Fine!" and roughly shoved the tube of bacta and the bandages into Padmé's outstretched hand.

Without saying a word, Padmé walked around Anakin, where she promptly grabbed the bandage he had only torn a corner on and removed it from his back. She used the Force to float the used bandage to a nearby bin to discard it.

"Hey!" Anakin exclaimed in indignation, as the adhesive of the bandage pulled uncomfortably at his skin. His broad shoulders tensed in pain, and Padmé could faintly see other muscles down his back spasm in protest. Padmé could not help but notice that like his front half, Anakin's back was solid sculpted muscle that narrowed and tapered in perfect lines down his body.

"I…I'm sorry." Padmé was taken aback as she saw the ugly looking burn mark she had left on Anakin's skin. She could tell that the bacta was already healing it, but it still looked terribly painful. Additionally, a small voice in her head told her it had been a terrible waste to mar such perfect skin, but Padmé ignored that comment as she tried to collect herself for what she had to do next.

"That hurt!" Anakin added.

Trying to distract her from the strange swooping sensation in her stomach, Padmé answered him, "Look I'm sorry, but if I had pulled it slower it would have just prolonged the stretching. It's gone now, so quit complaining."

Unable to supply an answer to this, Anakin gave a deep sigh that had a hint of a growl to it. Meanwhile, behind him with shaking fingers, Padmé applied a thin line of bacta to Anakin's skin. Once this was complete, she moved her right hand towards his injured shoulder, but hesitated for a moment, unsure if she should touch him with the strange sensations that rippled through her body. Padmé was starting to wonder if she needed to see a healer in case some strange illness was causing her to react to have these unfamiliar reactions.

Gritting her teeth so she could get through this, Padmé ignored her moment of hesitation and very gently placed her hand over the line of bacta so she could massage it into Anakin's wound. Both Anakin and Padmé shivered when her hand made contact with his back. Ignoring her own reaction, Padmé said, "Sorry, I guess my hands are cold."

"N….No, it's fine." Anakin's response was a bit hoarse as he tried to hide how good it felt to have Padmé's hand on him. Her touch was soft and gentle as she rubbed the bacta into his skin and any pain he had been feeling immediately left at her touch. His whole posture relaxed as Padmé's hand glided across his shoulder.

For her part, Padmé was silent as she worked at his shoulder and her stomach had finally settled, but it was replaced by the increase in her heart rate, which was beating frantically as she finally got to touch the bronzed flesh that had been teasing her since Anakin's arrival to her quarters. Once again she was feeling bad for marring his skin and she hoped her ministrations would heal it completely.

Padmé was so caught up in what she was doing she failed to realize that she had been kneading the tension out of Anakin's shoulders for the better part of fifteen minutes. Reapplying the bandage should have been a one to two minute ordeal. However, Anakin did not seem to notice the time either as he had relaxed into her hands. It was only when the both heard the front door lock click open that they realized how much time had elapsed. Before their visitor could open the door, Padmé quickly applied a fresh bandage to Anakin's back and then turned towards the door. Anakin spun around as well, to see who was intruding.

Masters Ti and Kenobi were standing at the door, looking in on them. Both Jedi Masters smiled at the two padawans, while Master Kenobi said, "I'm glad to see that you two have worked through your differences. There has been a slight change in scheduling. The Council wants to see you both in the next thirty minutes. Anakin, I suggest you come with me, so that you can get ready."