Concentrate.

She bit down on her tongue, her eyes squeezed tight. One hand extended with locked-in elbow towards the pile of rubble. Think of the rocks floating, like little balloons. Padmé tried to clamp onto such a ridiculous notion, but it snapped away. In doing so, the Force fled from her and the rock collapsed centimeters back to where it began.

Damn it!

"What are you doing?" Anakin asked. He paused in trying to wind up his fresh bandage, his legs still slow to react but he seemed to have full motor control of his arms.

"Nothing," Padmé hissed, then winced. That was the same as telling someone, 'please, keep bothering me because I am clearly doing something interesting.' Sure enough, Anakin abandoned the first-aid kit he left on top of Artoo's head and walked up behind her.

She could feel his chin drifting close to her shoulder, Anakin forced to stoop in the low overhang. His eyes cut a line from the cave-in back to Padmé, who wished he'd take a step or two back. It was unnerving to smell his body and find that it wasn't unpleasant.

"Were you trying to move those?" he asked as if it was a jolly farce.

"No!" she spat instantly, then groaned. In a softer voice, she admitted to the one person guaranteed to laugh at her, "Yes."

"Oh, well you're doing it all wrong," Anakin shrugged and turned back to the droid.

Padmé spun on her heels, her glare trying to find purchase upon the infuriating man. He wasn't laughing at her, nor was he stampeding over to massage his own ego. No, he just kept on acting as if nothing was different.

"What do you mean I'm doing it wrong?"

"Don't take it the wrong way, lots of Jedi attack the problem the same. All brute strength, trying to bludgeon the Force into obeying you."

She whipped her head in confusion, "That's how it works. Your will must be stronger than the Force, must be able to overpower the natural order to your whims."

The boy winding up a line of rope to place back in the pack chuckled, "Says who?"

"Everyone," Padmé spat out, her arms crossed. She could cite a good hundred books from the days of the old knights alone.

But that fool didn't much care for historical research. His sparkling eyes drifted over to her, and with a smile, he said, "I guess I'm not everyone."

"No, no you're not. Fine, how would you move the rocks?" She was happy to let him strain himself to prove his point. Or at least show off that innate talent that everyone whispered about.

"Well, I'd shift the balance of gravity itself first. Then alter the pull to outside. But…in truth, I'd rather take the back exit here. Less likely to bump into a potential Ilha waiting for a late breakfast." He jabbed his finger back through what she'd thought was solid rock.

Snatching up their crude torch, Padmé dashed past Anakin and a grumbling R2 to waft the light over a passage. "Where does this go?" She turned from her spot to find Anakin's eyes worked their way right next to hers. A gulp rose in Padmé's throat, but she didn't let it show on her face. Nor did she leap away. She had just as much right to be in this space as he did to…to put his face practically onto hers.

"How," she began, trying to ignore the awkward situation, "There is a likelier chance we would become trapped and have to turn back anyway."

"Nah," he shook his head so assuredly a sliver of Padmé's gut began to understand why all those padwan's flocked to him. "It leads to an underground river, which breaks up a few miles further on into a waterfall."

"Waterfall?" She could hear neither that nor rushing water to give any hint of a river. "How can you possibly know any of that?"

Surprise and confusion — two of Anakin's top marks — overwhelmed his face. He closed off the first aid kit, slipped it into his pocket this time, and said, "The Force, of course. I felt it slicing through the mountain's rocky browns when fighting off the quill monster."

"You…" Her jaw dropped, Padmé twisting her head from this hapless boy to the hidden escape. She drew her palm to the top gap, the folds of the rock nearly hiding it away perfectly. She too had dipped into the force, trying to meditate while Anakin slept to regain his strength. There was nothing, no mountain, no river that called to her. Only herself and the vast darkness beyond.

"Well," Anakin knocked twice upon Artoo's head and he tipped his chin to Padmé, "I guess I'll go first."

He began to wedge himself through the gap even as Padmé sighed, "You are the most likely to get stuck."

The droid at their feet beeped and clicked, Padmé glancing down to it. "Don't worry R2, we'd never leave you behind." Even with the rock of the mountain between them, she could hear Anakin cough. "I'd never leave you behind."

It was a bit of a tight squeeze maneuvering the metal droid through the hole, Padmé having to pick R2 up at one point. But with no one getting trapped, and no sudden creature attacks, all three made it out into a vast cavern. Sure enough, a trickle of water grew into a stream. If they kept following it, she knew they'd find a full river.

Because Anakin knew. What was he?

She'd scoffed at the chosen one talk, many on the Council chalking his acceptance into the Order due to a dying Master's last wish. Let Obi-Wan try to train him. If it failed, what were they out? There would always be more padawans, more Jedi.

But others believed fervidly that this was the one who'd save them, who'd finally bring balance to this galaxy. Which was why Anakin never had to answer to the same rigorous standards as the rest of them. The believers needed him to be perfect, so they decided he was. No one cared if he announced every lightsaber strike leaving himself open for attack and retribution. No one dare correct him on his approach to dealing with every damn problem put before a Jedi. The Golden Child must be just that.

She thought him a farce, a fool that stumbled into his luck and was riding it as long as possible.

He risked his own life for hers. Which was foolish, but…

"Ah," Anakin's voice cut through her thoughts, "we seen to have reached a split." He wafted the torch through the cavern, revealing that the water did indeed rip into two streams. "Which should we follow?"

"You're asking me?"

"Wasn't it Yoda who said, 'Leader you shall be, Padmé, hmm'?"

She shouldn't laugh at his mimicking Master Yoda's speech, but the guffaw escaped her lips anyway. "Trust in the force, you must," spat out of her, the giggles fleeing as she came to a stop beside Anakin.

"Well, well, look at that. Padmé Amidala joking around. Oh no," he suddenly froze, his hands both falling to the side and pointing their only light to the ground. "Did I really die? Is this the Jedi afterlife?"

Shaking her head, she rolled her eyes, "You think I'd be in your afterlife?"

"That, uh…that's a fair point, and it doesn't answer the question of which way to go."

Raising her head, she glanced from one side to the other. They looked as identical as two underground streams could. When in doubt, pick right. It may not even matter. Make a decision so he sees you as a leader. He's already mocking you and…

"Which do you," Padmé flinched, her eyes drifting to him, "which do you think will open up?"

Anakin's eyes closed, his lips pursing in silence. Funny, when he wasn't rolling his eyes at her, or making cheap remarks he almost looked handsome.

What? Why would she…?

"Right," he announced, a smile rising with his answer. For a beat, he seemed to read her face knowingly. Could he hear her thoughts through the Force too? Her heart beat faster, terrified of what Anakin could do with such knowledge, when he said, "Did you think left?"

"No, I assumed right as well. Come along. We have a lot of ground to cover."

"As you say, boss," Anakin hefted up the torch, lining the path of light ahead of her feet. As he fell in behind her, he picked up a small tune on his lips which whistled off of every stalactite in the cave.

Everything came so easy to him, the chosen one, to the point he didn't have to study neither his opponents nor his fellow Jedi. Did he even train or did Obi-Wan pass him a lightsaber and sit back to see what happened? It was infuriating to say the least, but… Padmé stirred her foot through the grit. She knew in her mind that there had to be life under there — microbes, insects, perhaps something even larger. But she couldn't sense it the way Anakin could. The way so many other Jedi could.

"Why don't you study the vids?" sputtered out of her lips before she got a better grip to her wild thoughts.

The torchlight wafted so close towards her she lost track of him. Good thing it was technological or she'd have lost her eyebrows. "Not this again," Anakin rolled his eyes, driving back any foolish thoughts she had of finding him attractive. No, he was as obstinate as a snaggleburr on your sock.

"You don't study the fighting vids, people rarely find you in the ring, you don't even read the philosophies set down before and yet…" she gulped, "it all answers to you. You rise to the challenge without breaking a sweat."

He scoffed to himself, "I wouldn't say without a sweat. The robes can get rather…uh, never mind. What? Are you complaining at my lagging skill? The one who beat me in a duel?"

"That was on a level playing field, known combatants, taught not..." She shouldn't be telling him this. Anakin was her rival, of sorts, as far as Jedi had them. At the very least he was particularly annoying.

Naboo. Her shoulder bounced against the rocky crevices, Padmé's feet slowing to a halt. "I cannot feel it," she sighed.

"That hit?" Anakin winced as if that was her concern. "Are you numb too from the anti-toxin?"

"No," she tried to slip open her mind but it was like breaking down an iron door. "The Force. Not the way you can. For you it's…a shout, while I'm left with whispers."

"What are you talking about?" He was incapable of listening, already laughing and glancing around the narrow cavern as if someone was pulling his leg. "You're a Jedi."

"Because I was once a princess of Naboo." Tipping her head up, she dared to stare into his confused eyes. Her tongue laid bare a fact worn around her neck like a diseased sea bird. "I am force sensitive, a fact that came to light when I was only three. And it presented the Jedi an opportunity."

She remembered well the council standing in her father's throne room. Three Jedi dispatched to weigh her skills, her potential. One refused in an instant, insisting that she may be force-touched but she was no Jedi. The second looked about to say the same, when Master Windu spoke.

Digging a hand into her shoulder, Padmé confessed to her only audience, "They wanted Naboo on their side. On the Republic's side without question. And what better way than to train a princess in their Order? Now, with Naboo potentially leaving the Republic, where would that leave me? Would they even bother to keep some lesser, barely Jedi around or…?"

An acidic snort rolled through her nose, her sins scouring her thoughts. "For all the grief I give you, you belong in the Order far more than I ever will."

"Padmé," he whispered her name.

Why did she tell him that? Now he knew every way to strike at her. Her greatest weakness was that no matter how much she studied, honed her body, her mind, she could never touch the Force as he did. As any Jedi did.

Anakin gulped a moment, the light falling down to form a halo between their two feet. In the dark, only the drip of water slithering down stalactites to fill the void, he said, "I don't study the vids, learn the history, even page through the mission briefings because…"

At the break, she raised her eyes. It was hard to see through the dim glow, but she could almost feel his blue irises and they were burning. Not in anger, not in the heat of battle, but shame. Anakin winced once more, his head tipping back so he couldn't look at her.

With a slow breath, he finished, "I cannot read them."

"What?" That couldn't be right. He was fooling with her. Not read? He was a Jedi!

"It's all in…this high-brow tongue that, when I try to wrap my mind around a word of it, the whole mess floods from my grasp." Anakin waved his arm around, scattering the torchlight across the cavern where it ended up shimmering against the running river. As it came to a slow, he sighed, "It's not as if I can't read anything. Signs are fine, small digital readouts, but…"

With his tongue swiping over his teeth, his eyes puckered tight, Anakin confessed, "People don't teach slaves how to read."

"Why didn't you tell anyone?"

"They already didn't want me. Too old, too…angry," he flexed his fingers as if he was still fighting an ancient battle. Though, so are you Amidala. One the Jedi picked for you. "And you all were off in your group. You knew each other. Last thing you wanted was someone like me around, scrabbling to catch up."

"We," she tried to remember back nearly ten years, but all Padmé could dredge up was that new, mysterious blonde boy being carted off by his Master. He was never there for the moments of levity, the stark introspections under the stars, the pointless pillow fights.

Or was he and she just didn't notice?

"If," he resumed talking, clearly trying to trample down her response to his confession, "Maybe they didn't know for sure when you were a kid, but if they didn't believe in you now, would you be the lead on this mission?"

She pursed her lips, the thought rattling through her head. Or did Master Yoda think she was the only person to keep Anakin in line and aimed at the target? It seemed more likely, though she wondered why he'd consider as such. Everyone in the Order knew the pair couldn't stand each other.

Her eyes drifted up to find Anakin, the most annoying person in the temple, clinging to her arm as he attempted to comfort her. Raising her fingers, she gripped onto him. Rather than yank his fingers off, her lips opened as she attempted to do the same.

"Anakin, if you'd like, I can teach you how to read. Parsing the Jedi missives can be arduous even for the most stalwart of…" A red blush burned up her cheeks as she realized she was speaking in the same high-language. As if she wanted to taunt him, keep him at arm's length.

Shaking her head, she smiled, "It's a pain, but there are tricks to make it easier."

At that Anakin chuckled, "Good to know. Here I assumed all you rich-born Jedi came in already knowing the fanciest words. I'll…I'll think about it. We have to get out of this cave first."

"Indeed, the mission first, then…" What are you thinking? Do you have any idea how long it will take to teach someone like him to read? Dooming yourself to spending even more time with Apprentice Skywalker, great thinking there Padmé. "Shall we?"

"After you," he extended the torch out, his body sliding away from hers. She'd barely noticed how close he got for no apparent reason. Padmé stuck her foot free, about to take a step forward, when she felt an abyss open below.

The warning nearly came too late, her misplaced step about to send her careening down a gap in the cave. Shaking her head, she grabbed onto the Force boy and said, "How about you go first, instead?"

Anakin barely even blinked as he navigated the crumbling falls, Padmé forced to watch and mimic his every move. As she eased around a rocky shelf, she caught R2 beeping to itself in annoyance. "What?" she called to the droid. "We're moving now."

After a time under the cave, the stream opened into a river, revealing real sunlight streaming through an opening. The pair didn't run towards it, there were yet numerous pits waiting to claim their ankles, but they happily moved quick to gaze outward. Sparkling green water erupted below them into a rainbow of only oranges and pinks.

Anakin pointed down at it, asking, "Where's the other colors?"

"It's the planet's atmosphere. It only picks up on the infrared shade of colors, hence why the sky is more often pink and red than not," she explained off hand but felt the boy staring at her. "What?"

"Did you read all up about Celadon while we were on the way here, as you were piloting?"

"Of course not," she shrugged her robe tighter across her body. After shifting it away to repair the quill damage to her skin, she somehow forgot to add it back. In the darkness, she didn't notice. Nor did Anakin say anything about it.

Getting a foot on a rock just above the jutting waterfall, Padmé smiled, "I studied the entire system of planets." Before he could get in a smart remark, she fished out the small device in her pocket and aimed it towards the sky.

"It's nice to be out of the cave, and no rampaging needle monster in sight, but…" Anakin hopped down two stones slick with river water, not once pausing with concern for falling. "Where do we find Hoss in this jungle? Continent? Planet?" The enormity of their search becoming a needle in a galactic haystack tried to rear its head, but Padmé waved it off.

When her palm beeped, she pointed towards the tree-line in the distance. It had to be the obvious gap revealing a facility of some kind. "He is in that direction."

"How can you tell? Even I can't sense him."

She held up the only device she yanked from the ship, "Simple, I commandeered the tracker before leaving."

Anakin laughed at that, "Here I thought you only bothered with a comm device."

"Why? That wouldn't help up complete our mission. We must find Hoss and discover who his connections to the Separatist hierarchy are."

"Yes," Anakin's jubilant turn froze as he gazed out over the mass of forest. His eyes narrowed, almost as if he could see Hoss clear over the miles upon miles of trees. "I'm going to end this."

"We will end this," Padmé interceded. "As the Council so instructed."

"Fine," he rolled his eyes, already scrabbling to his back to begin the soaking wet climb down the waterfall. "I'll let you help."

"Let me…" Padmé snarled. She too flipped to grip onto the rocks, when she glanced up at Artoo left clinging to the precipice alone. "Do you need me to…?" She asked just as the droid fired up its rocket and began a quick but controlled descent down to the bottom. On the way past, it beeped at Anakin. The boy tried to swipe at the droid taunting him but missed, nearly sending him tumbling to his death.

But Anakin was quick, easily latching his fingers onto the tiny holds. Or was that the Force at work again keeping him alive at all costs?

"You're one to talk, bolt bucket," Anakin shouted at R2, causing Padmé to sigh.

"It's going to be a long walk."