The morning always came too quickly. She watched him sleep in the last moments of darkness they had left to themselves. Sun rising meant the end of them, them as husband and wife, for yet another day.

She hadn't noticed until now how his face had been changing. When they had married, he'd been young, face of an angel. Now he was a statue of Adonis carved from marble, his face stronger, more precise, yet with something beautiful softening the hard lines of stone. He was older, not just in years but in experiences. The things he had seen she could never begin to comprehend. He wouldn't speak of them to her.

The rays of light began to intrude through the cracks in the blinds. How she wanted to rise from this bed, to fly up into the sky and to pull the sun down again, keep it night forever. Keep them here together.

But there was nobody who could do that. Not even her husband, her brilliant, brilliant, husband, with his many gifts and talents. Nobody could stop time from marching on. Nobody could hold onto a moment forever, no matter how much they wanted to.

She'd been quiet, but he still began to stir. Before his eyes were even fully open, he reached for her, searched for her warm skin against his. She submitted willingly, sinking into him again, this being another moment she wanted to stretch to eternity.

After, they lay side by side. The sun had chased away all the lingering shadows.

"I have to go soon." The words pained him; she could see how much by the look on his face. Angel, Adonis, Anakin. The one she loved, truly, deeply.

"I'll miss you." She pressed her forehead to his. "I wish we could just stay here."

"Soon, Padmé," he assured her. "Soon this will all be over, and I won't have to leave anymore."

Noble words, but a promise he could never hope to keep. They both knew it. Somehow, they both knew their time together would always be so brief, that all of these moments together should be stored up to live off of because their lives were about to burn out brightly.

Their clothes were on the floor beside the bed. She reached down to find her nightgown, a pool of soft silk thrown so carelessly away by her husband in his desire. Taking it in hand, she made sure he saw it before, to his visible surprise, she began to rip apart its edges.

"What are you doing?" But his question was quickly answered when she offered him a scrap of light-blue material.

"Keep me with you," she said.

He looked at the material, then at her, with the same reverence. A smile touched his face, then he touched the material to his lips. "Always," he assured her.

Then, the Force brought his own tunic up onto the bed, and his hands, flesh and metal, made short work of it. He presented her with his own favor, his own memento. She took it with a smile and a kiss and a promise that she would keep it safe.

"It's a good thing I keep a spare change of clothes here," he laughed, the moment suddenly buoyant instead of tragic, and she joined him, and they both laughed together and tried to pretend everything was alright.

But it was time to go.

X

The shadows of night came slowly into the bedroom where she lay alone, unsleeping, the problems of the galaxy racing through her mind. This was not a moment to hold onto. This had been another day she wanted nothing more than to forget.

Underneath her pillow she kept a secret, and she searched for it now, the rough material a contrast to the fine fabrics that surrounded her.

She held onto the scrap tightly in her hand. If she had wanted to, she could have taken one of his spare tunics from the cupboard, the ones that still had his smell of salt and spice. But there was something more about this scrap of fabric than any of those tunics could have given her. It had meaning because he'd given it to her himself. This scrap of fabric was worth more because they'd said it was. Because it was a way to make that moment last, traces of their time together still existing though they had been parted for months.

She sighed and closed her eyes, the fabric still in her hand. Sleep would come eventually.

Across the stars, seemingly a lifetime away, he held a piece of blue silk in his hand.