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Chapter 25

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Vader's Flag Ship Exactor - Month Twenty Four, Day One PEF

Evening

Padmé had paced the suite a dozen times around the perimeter, attempted to eat her fruit once more and even tried to leave the space to track down Vader to get him to speak with her - only to be halted by the politely silent Stormtroopers.

They didn't touch her, but neither did they let her go.

In frustration, she stormed back to her seat on the couch and plopped down, dragging her knees to her chest once more only to bounce back to her feet and resume pacing. Vader's parting words echoed over and over in her head, and it took some time before Padmé was forced to admit that she couldn't reasonably predict what he might do, no matter that he was aware of the impact missing her children was having on her.

Her feet chaffed in her boots, drawing her attention away - she hadn't yet removed them in all the time she'd been Vader's captive - and it was only when she stopped to take them off, kneeling to do so, that she realized how... ripe she was beginning to smell. Tossing the boots by the door - for the odor was foul indeed - Padmé peevishly hoped the Stormtroopers would be able to smell the stench and retreat.

It was wishful thinking - their masks held air purification devices after all, but it did much to sooth her temper. It was only after she realized her feet and stockings were rank that she bent to sniff her shirt and pulled back in sudden disgust. How Vader kept insisting she sleep with him, she didn't know. He was probably inclined to use some kind of trick to get her into the shower before sliding her between his sheets.

With everything that had happened, she hadn't exactly been concerned about her hygiene... except now that she was painfully aware of it - and her feet raw and smelling from their confinement - the desire to be clean, or at least partially clean, was almost overpowering. A glance at the door told her that her boots were starting to wilt next to it and she smiled grimly. Vader didn't wear a mask like his troops so maybe it would be enough to keep him away.

The urge to stay as she was and drive Vader away with disgust warred with the need to be clean, to smell like something that hadn't come from a sewer. Eventually her vanity won out and Padmé headed for the 'fresher. Stepping inside, she checked the lock and quickly programmed it. The click of it engaging was all the prompting she needed as Padmé stepped towards the shower.

It had two settings - sonic and water - and she flipped it to the latter. A sonic shower didn't have the kind of power she was looking for, nor the luxury she was suddenly needing to sooth herself. The water blasted on and Padmé carefully adjusted the temperature, finding a folded towel set sitting on the upright cabinet in the corner of the room. Inside the cabinet were two robes - one obviously Vader's - the other was suspiciously her size. She left it where it was. After having checked the suite for everything of use since her capture - all but Vader's chambers - she knew it was the only other item of clothing that might remotely fit her. Moving the towel to the sink, she moved Vader's towel from the nearby hangers to the cabinet and then stepped - completely clothed - into the shower.

She didn't have another set of clothing, wouldn't have until she was able to escape, and she was disinclined to wash them separately. Using copious amounts of soap, Padmé worked up a lather on each of the garments currently exposed to the spray. Only when the front was clean did she remove them.

Her jacket had been discarded almost immediately upon entering Vader's suite - it was too hot within to need it - and so her shirt came off first, vigorously scrubbed and then wrung out before being flung over the rail holding the door to the shower closed. Her pants, socks and under things soon followed, leaving her naked under the spray.

Adjusting the temperature, Padmé worked her hair free of the knot in which it had been kept, gritting her teeth as she was forced to delve into the tangles with just her fingers. A brush was out of the question, as was a comb, so she made do as she had since leaving the Alliance base where she'd awoken. She'd made do with worse and, if need be, she'd simply chop it off above the tangle as she had before.

Patience won out in the end, eventually leaving her hair hanging down about her shoulders and down to the middle of her back. Soaping it three times before she no longer felt gritty, she took the same care with her body, scrubbing until it tingled, imagining that she was erasing Vader's touch, his kiss, from her skin.

Shutting off the water once she found herself to be suitably clean, she stepped free, using the towel to slick the water from her body. The delicious feeling of being clean was only soured by the thought that Vader would believe she'd done it for him. Pushing the thought away, she contemplated the towel in her hand. She could either wrap herself in it or her hair - and the last thing she wanted was to be was naked if Vader chose to confront her in the 'fresher.

Reluctantly, she pulled the robe from the cabinet - and nearly thrust it back as her fingers were enveloped in the soft fabric. She hadn't had to touch it to know the robe was her size - the tag had been clearly visible - but now she was suspicious. Why would Vader have a robe her size in his 'fresher armoire? Still, it was wear it or cool quickly as her wet hair lay across bare shoulders.

And she really didn't want to be caught in just a towel anymore than she wanted to be caught in the buff. Reluctantly she eased into the robe, trying to ignore the soft fabric as it conformed to her shape and cocooned her in softness. Rolling the sleeves up, Padmé moved back to the shower and began squeezing her clothing out, twisting them this way and that to ensure the water drained as quickly as possible and they'd dry before Vader's return.

She was in the middle of squeezing out her socks and under things when a sound outside the small 'fresher drew her attention. The shuffling of feet. A frown crossed her face - she had no inclination to speak with Vader - and not dressed in a robe of all things - at that particular moment. Since her capture, he'd been nothing if not difficult.

Hanging the last of her things to dry, Padmé set her back to the door and waited, listening abstractedly to the noise in the next room. It was the voices that were off, the bits and pieces of conversations that caught her ear which finally focused her attention. Pressing her ear to the door, she strained to hear; it didn't sound like Vader.

"-ure, sir?"

A murmur she couldn't understand. Pressing her ear closer to it, she caught the next response.

"Here? Why not in there?"

Another murmured reply, this one sharper and, finally, she identified the source. Clones. More specifically, Clone Stormtroopers; they all sounded alike. Her lips flattening in a thin line, Padmé turned from the door and shed the soft robe, leaving it in a pile in the corner as she gathered her clothing. Slipping into the still damp articles, she toweled off her hair before leaving it loose about her shoulders - but still in tangles - and stepped from the 'fresher.

What she found wasn't what she was expecting to see. Three troopers were inside the room, placing a box a piece on the ground by the sofa she'd claimed as her bed. Even as she watched, a fourth and fifth trooper entered from the still-guarded door, carrying yet more boxes. One, obviously their commander by the insignia rank badge on his shoulder, was directing the whole thing.

"What's going on here?"

The troopers stopped for a moment, glancing her way, before resuming their work. The pile was already a half dozen boxes high, all of them large, and Padmé couldn't begin to fathom what was in them. The three troopers left, to return with another armload, these boxes slightly smaller than the last as their commander turned to her.

"Packages for you, milady."

Padmé crossed her arms over her chest, pinning him with a frosty glare. "From whom, Trooper?"

The trooper seemed unfazed. "Lord Vader."

"And what," she demanded, storming over to the pile of boxes to slap her hand down on the stack, "may I ask is in them?"

"Clothing, of course."

Rage suffused her system as the last of the packages was brought in and the troopers made to withdraw. "Take them away; I don't want anything he's chosen for me!"

The trooper bowed low but shook his head. "I am under orders to do no such thing, milady, wear them in good health."

As the door slid shut behind the Troopers, the click of the lock didn't register as Padmé rounded on the boxes in cold fury. How dare he?! How dare he be so presumptuous as to dictate what kind of clothing she should wear, or he thought she should wear. Kicking out blindly, she toppled the stack, sending them skidding across the floor. One box broke open, revealing a lacy, confectionary of a dress reminiscent of what she'd worn during her time as the Queen of Naboo.

Her ire redoubled as she looked into a second box, tearing open a third and ripping into a fourth. Huge gowns, every single one. Fabric flew as she tossed gown after gown over her shoulder, the wrappings they'd been in tearing under her onslaught. Each one of those dresses was something she'd left behind in her past, representing a time when she'd been the sworn protector of her people's freedoms and powerless to choose her own wardrobe.

Never - not for Anakin and certainly not for Vader - would she ever be caught in one again.

Seething, Padmé turned back to the pile and glared at it, wishing the giver of those obscenely decadent and over priced pieces of fabric were standing before her so she could strangle him with silks. Her rage solidified in the pit of her stomach, the last straw after Vader had taken advantage of her emotionally overwrought state earlier, and an icy calm settled over her like a mantle.

Pushing to her feet, she marched straight into the kitchenette and to the knife block on the counter. She pulled two blades - one serrated, the other a vibro - from the block. A quick glance and she replaced the vibro knife. It would be much more satisfying to feel the fruit of her labor as that gauzy material was rendered under the knife.

Striding purposefully back into the main room, she returned to the lounge and picked up the first creation - a pink and white frothy thing that looked like a sundae - and set the knife edge to the fabric at the bodice.

Deliberate slashes and a firm tug parted the fabric as the dress was torn neatly in half. Unwilling to risk that Vader would simply have the garment re-sewn despite her show of displeasure, Padmé set about methodically destroying the gown, making the pieces no bigger than the width and length of her arms. When she was finished, she moved without pause to the next, and then the next, working her way through the pile of offensive things that dared to be called clothing. The material was left to fall where it would, forcing her to move to different areas around the suite as she made piles of rendered fabric.

It took almost an hour for Padmé to decimate the pile of gowns, and Vader didn't return once. He would be furious with her, she knew, upon his arrival, but that little detail didn't matter.

She was furious herself and this way Vader wouldn't just hear it, he'd see it.

Jabbing the knife into the top of the table where a pile of the fabric had fallen, she turned away and took up her posture at the viewport, her hands braced on the ledge before it, every line of her body announcing her displeasure.

How dare he presume to tell her how she could dress!

Padmé didn't have to wait overly long for Vader to reappear once she resumed her vigil at the viewport. In fact, not ten minutes passed before Vader's return - and his mood was immediately obvious.

"What the- Padmé!"

The roar was muffled only by the slight dividing wall where it angled towards the kitchenette. Padmé's knuckles turned white where she gripped the ledge, her lips losing all their color as she pressed them down in a firm line. He was back - good.

"Padmé!" Vader fairly snapped her name. "What is the meaning of this?"

Eyes flashing fire, she rounded on him in time to see his eyes narrow as he observed the knife protruding from the small pile of the center of his low table. The symbolism wasn't lost on Vader. They slowly lifted to meet hers, embers of true anger making his eyes glitter - and she didn't care. The presumptuous, egotistical man had it coming and she was just the one to deliver this lesson.

"Ex-"

"How dare you?" She spat the words, cutting him off. "I am not chattel to be garbed as you wish or summoned to your beck and call. I refused to be bought by inane gestures with nothing but selfish gain behind them. I am not a trophy to be displayed, paraded around like some kind of doll and dressed for court simply because you wish it. I refuse to play dutiful, loyal and loving wife to a monster - and one who doesn't have the intelligence to understand that I will never, ever wear anything like that again!"

"Your place is at my side," Vader returned evenly, his rage crackling about him in a nimbus of unseen power. "You're my wife and you will dress the part or-."

"Or what?" Padmé advanced on him, slamming her finger into his chest in her ire as she made her point. The muscles didn't give, resisting the assault. "You'll force me to wear them? Dress me up while sedated? I'm not some designer doll to be dressed up and paraded around. I'd rather walk around nude than be seen in one of those awful creations again!"

"That can be arranged!"

"Then do it - your crew will love the show."

Her challenge made his nostril's flare, and his eyes darken with the image she presented, but jealousy would prevent him from taking her up on such a challenge. Padmé knew it well. Anakin had never wanted to share her unless necessary - Vader displayed that possessiveness but to an increased degree that bordered on obsession. There was no way he'd leave her without clothes when the alternative was a show for his crew that was supposed to only be for his viewing pleasure.

Vader, however, wasn't about to admit that she had him, even in this small of a battle, and glared at her heatedly. "There will be nothing to see," there was no room for argument in his tone. Leaving it at that, he turned on his heel and marched away, anger and fury written in every line of his posture.

Padmé watched him depart with a smug smile on her face, a little disappointed when Vader didn't kick at the piles of fabric he passed, simply walked through them as if they weren't there before exiting the suite once again.

Several minutes passed before Padmé followed in his wake, taking the same route to the door and knocking politely on it. It took three knocks before the trooper on the other side of the door opened it. "Yes, milady?"

Padmé leaned one shoulder against the door jamb, ensuring the trooper could look beyond her into the mess the suite had become and ensuring the dress boxes were plainly visible. She wished, in that moment, she could have seen the expression under the impersonal white helmet. "I need a cleaning droid," she informed him, her tone slightly smug. "There's been a bit of an... incident."

The Trooper was silent for long minute, his fellow guard looking in from the other side of the door as Padmé waited for his response. She accommodated them, obligingly stepping to the side to offer a view of the fabric littered room.

"Will that be a problem, trooper?"

"No ma'am," snapping to attention, Padmé realized he'd all but forgotten her in his observation of the room. A pity; if she'd been able to see his face, it would have been a good opportunity to escape. "We'll have the droid sent down immediately. Was there anything else?"

"Dinner would be nice."

"Right away, milady."

The door closed as Padmé stepped back, bursting into laughter for the first time since she'd been captured - for the first time in a long time. Real, straight from the gut laughter that made her stomach ache and her eyes tear up. The Trooper's reaction could only have been better if he'd had his helmet off. Shaking her head, she headed for the kitchenette.

When the droid arrived she was going to have it leave the knife and its captives embedded in the low table in the lounge but clean up everything else. It would do well to serve as a reminder to Vader that she wasn't simply going to sit back and accept whatever he decreed as law.

Entering the small kitchenette, Padmé reached for the shuura fruit she'd neglected to eat the day before, buffed it against her now clean and dry shirt, and retrieved a small knife from the block. Paring the fruit, she dropped the skins into the trash unit before using the knife to remove slices and eat. With both knife and fruit in hand, Padmé moved back into the lounge area, surveying her handiwork as she absently cut and ate slices of the fruit.

Fabric was everywhere and she acknowledged that perhaps she'd gone a trifle overboard - but her point had been made. Vader wouldn't make the second mistake twice. Her smile faded as she chewed on a slice of the shuura fruit. Vader never made the same mistake twice - but would he heed what she'd said or would he make her beg before offering such a gesture again?

Leaning against the back of the sofa, she eyed the fabrics critically. She shouldn't have sliced them quite so finely; if she'd saved panels, she might have been able to cobble together something different to wear for the next time she washed her clothes.

Shaking away the thought, she looked up as the droid she'd asked for entered the lounge and the sound of dinnerware rattled in the kitchenette; both droid appeared to have come together. Giving her instructions to the cleaning bot to tend to everything except the embedded fabric and knife in the table, Padmé headed back for the kitchenette and the supper she'd ordered.

It would be the first time she'd eaten without Vader's presence to taint her appetite since her capture and she intended to enjoy the experience; she doubted it would happen often.