Chapter 12. Homecomings

Wherever Senator Padmé Amidala of Naboo went people surrounded her. She never had less than two Handmaidens with her at all times. When traveling she was accompanied by a Security detail. She had a permanent staff in her Senate offices on Coruscant, another administrative staff in her Constituency Office on Naboo, and a personal staff attached to her official residence in the Palace in Theed. Padmé was accustomed to it. This was the way her life had been since her election as Queen more than a decade ago.

Homecoming was always a chaotic affair. This time it was even more so, if that was possible. Sabé had presented her with a schedule of meetings and an official itinerary before Padmé had even disembarked from the Yacht. A briefing for the Queen was at the top of the list.

By the time she arrived at her so-called private residence with her entourage the luggage from the Yacht had been delivered and even the spacious apartment felt crowded. People scurried around the rooms unpacking. People asked her questions. People clustered around her demanding that she make decisions, both large and small. People told her what to do and how to do it.

Padmé wasn't taking it well. The journey from Coruscant had been an ordeal and an epiphany all at once. She was sleep deprived, couldn't remember when she had last eaten, and most of all she missed Anakin so much that she wanted to cry. After having him either by her side or within immediate reach throughout the entire journey, he had disappeared once the Yacht landed and she hadn't seen him since.

He has only been gone for few hours, she reminded herself.

It felt like a lifetime.

What if he has gone back to Coruscant without saying goodbye?

She was clearly becoming irrational. He wouldn't do that.

What if I never see him again?

"My Lady, are you all right?"

Sabé's worried voice broke into her obsessive thoughts.

"My Lady, you're as white as a sheet. Come over here and sit down."

Padmé sank blindly into the nearest chair. Dormé appeared as if by magic on her other side. The two Handmaidens exchanged anxious glances over her head. They noticed her rubbing her hand over her chest, as though something hurt. She didn't seem to be aware that she was doing it.

"I'm tired," Padmé said, in a small voice. "I'm terribly tired."

The Handmaidens exchanged a few whispers and took immediate action. Sabé got the unpackers working double time and managed to get most of the job done and the room cleared in record time. Dormé in the meanwhile brought her mistress some juice and something light to eat. Padmé picked at the offerings.

The administrative staff and the Queen's personal messenger were harder to deal with. They both required the Senator's full attention and commitment of time for a number of pressing issues. The Queen's messenger in particular had orders to personally escort the Senator before the Queen as soon possible.

* * * * *

Spend the day with me.

Oh, Padmé thought, not minding about the glass at all. Is it possible?

Anakin?

Send them all away. Spend the day with me. This one came with a sense impression that very quickly brought the color back into the Senator's face.

Where are you?

I love you. You love me. Spend the day with me.

This boldness was a new side of Anakin. Padmé could only suppose that she had finally made her feelings abundantly clear.

I want to. Oh, I want to. But I don't know how.

Imagine that you knew for certain that we only had this one day. What would you do?

* * * * *

Sabé was observing her Mistress very, very closely and took note of the change in her expression and her sudden color.

She was just negotiating with the Queen's messenger when she heard a crash. Padmé had apparently dropped her crystal juice glass on the marble floor. The splinters went everywhere.

Sabé noticed that Padmé hardly acknowledged the staff that appeared to clear away the crystal shards. Normally she was deeply courteous to servants. Now she seemed far way somewhere.

Interesting. A few minutes before she had looked and acted ill and now the color was back in her face and her eyes were sparkling. Sabé excused herself and began discretely to search the room, looking behind curtains and inside of closets when no one was observing her. She even checked out the palatial fresher. Nothing.

"My Lady?" Dormé asked with alarm when it took three tries to get Padmé's attention.

Having searched the entire apartment and not found what she was looking for, Sabé slipped through the tall glass-paneled doors that linked the living room with the expansive terrace. The late morning sun was hot and bright and for a moment she couldn't see anything. Then as her eyes adjusted she spotted Anakin sunning himself on the broad stone balustrade in a far corner of the terrace, propped up against the vine-covered wall of the Palace. Sabé walked to the edge of the terrace and looked down a long way. She didn't even want to think about how he had gotten there.

Anakin was sitting comfortably with one long leg folded under him and the other dangling down on the outside of the warm stone railing. He was picking seedpods off the thick eliril vine that covered the wall and throwing them idly but accurately at nearby treetops.

Sabé walked over to him.

"I knew you had to be around here somewhere," she said. "She's dropping things and going pink."

Anakin smiled and lobbed another seedpod at the tallest of the ancient trees that stood in the grove below. The crown was so lofty it reached higher than the terrace on which he sat.

"I'd like to know just what your intentions are toward her," Sabé said directly.

Anakin stopped what he was doing and looked Sabé full in the face.

"To love her and cherish her until the day I die and to make her happy," he replied, just as directly.

Sabé swallowed, taken aback. "I thought you were just a fling."

"Why?" Anakin asked. "Does she have those regularly?"

"N…no," Sabé stammered. "Never, actually."

Anakin lobbed another seedpod. It hit a high branch with a satisfying smack.

"Then why would you think she is having one now?"

"Well for one thing," Sabé retorted, recovering, "you're not exactly available, are you? I mean, you're still a Jedi, right?"

Anakin didn't answer, but the next seedpod hit its target with enough force to burst.

"Do you think you can help her get rid of all those people?"

Sabé became indignant. "I cover for her," she said, "when it won't do any harm. Not for you. Not any more."

Two more seedpods hit their targets in rapid succession. "Whether you cover for her or for me, it's the same thing," Anakin said. "We're going to be together."

Sabé glowered at him. "I disapprove of this. It can only end in misery."

The vine was rapidly becoming denuded of seedpods within arm's reach. Anakin settled back on his perch with his hands folded over his stomach and closed his eyes, effectively shutting Sabé out. He could not have expressed his unwillingness to discuss the subject more clearly.

It wasn't long before there was a stifled scream from the apartment and Dormé's voice cried out, "My Lady!" Other voices rose in a hubbub. Sabé sprinted inside to find that her mistress had evidently fainted.

That sneaking son of the seventh pit, Sabé thought. Wait till I get my hands on him.

* * * * *

Anakin had to wait nearly another half hour before the commotion died down and the Palace doctor had seen Padmé and prescribed bed rest for at least a day. He spent the time taming a small brown bird and feeding it eliril seeds from the pods that flew into his hands as needed. When the bird flew away, satisfied, he leaned back and closed his eyes again and didn't re-open them until he felt Padmé's hand slide over his chest.

"That was fun," she said. "With a little help it was even convincing."

"You didn't fall hard, did you?" he asked, pulling her onto his lap.

"No. It was fine. It scared the life out of Dormé, though." Despite the precipice below her Padmé felt completely safe as long as Anakin was there. He smelled of sunshine and fresh air and his skin was desert-hot to the touch. She arranged herself along the length of him with her head tucked under his chin and her face to the sun. His arms came around her and held her securely. She wrapped her leg around his where it rested along the balustrade.

Gentled by the sun and the air and the rhythmic rising and falling of Anakin's chest as he breathed and the hand that caressed her hair and her cheek Padmé finally let all the worry and fear of the last few days slip away. Anakin could feel her sink into him as she relaxed.

"I was afraid you had left without saying goodbye," she finally said, sleepily.

"I'm not going anywhere."

"But you have completed your mission. I'm safely home." She shifted her position a bit and burrowed into his shoulder.

"I'm not going anywhere," he said again.

He felt her tense.

"Don't worry," he said, stroking her back to make her relax again. "There is no point in wasting today by worrying about tomorrow. Don't think about anything else."

"But I do worry."

The last thing Anakin wanted was to think about going back. He had finally made enough headway in his unceasing battle for Padmé's heart that she was now happily soaking up sun in his arms instead of meeting her obligations. He didn't want her worrying about anything. Not now. Not today. What he really wanted was her undivided attention for a change.

"You obviously need something else to think about."

He sent her a suggestion that instantly raised her pulse rate and made her breath catch.

"Where do you learn these things?" Padmé mumbled from his shoulder. "Is that part of Jedi training?"

Anakin smiled to himself. "In a way. They teach us to pay attention. It works for everything."

"I'll say," Padmé mumbled again.

He was satisfied that his strategy had worked. She wasn't thinking about his leaving any more.

"Why are you so different?" Padmé asked after a while.

"I'm not different."

"You are. You're…not hesitant."

"Oh, that." There was a warm, lazy pause. Padmé waited drowsily for him to answer.

"I know you love me."

"I did before. What changed?"

"Well, now I really know. I…saw it." He gathered her closer and leaned his cheek on her hair.

"How?"

"The last time I kissed you. After… you know."

"I know."

Neither one of them wanted to think about the ugly incident on the bridge of the Yacht.

"For a moment we…merged. I saw everything. I know you. I know how you feel about me. There is nothing to doubt."

There was a peaceful silence, and then Padmé said, "If you know all this about me, what do I know about you?"

Anakin closed his eyes as if trying to remember every detail of something. "That I'm the missing piece of you. The thing you have been longing for but didn't even have a name for. The one absolute…he paused, searching…unequivocal love of your life."

* * * * *

Padmé shifted slightly in an attempt to make sure that every part of her was touching, or being touched by Anakin. It was bliss, lying here in the sun and being held, body and soul.

He really had seen into her heart.

"How do you know that you are the one?" she teased, wanting to continue this sunny, blissful conversation just to enjoy the sound of his voice.

"Because that's how you feel, and I can sense your feelings."

Maybe that is all any of us really wants, Padmé thought. To be seen. To be truly known.

"And you?" she asked after a while, basking in the pleasure of every stolen moment, "If I had your ability to perceive feelings, what would I find in you?"

"You would understand that you are the center of my universe," he said reverently. "Everything begins with you and ends with you."

Padmé may not have possessed Jedi perceptions, but the surge of his heartbeat under her cheek and the tremor in his fingers as he stroked her hair spoke to her as vividly of his feelings as music and textures speak to the blind.

Enough conversation, she decided. She slid off his lap and began pulling him towards the terrace doors.

"That merging thing has possibilities," she said, as he swung his leg over the balustrade and let himself be pulled.

"You haven't seen anything yet," he replied, as they disappeared into the cool, now mercifully quiet apartment, bringing the sun's warmth with them.

* * * * *

There are moments, Obi-Wan thought, when everything is in perfect balance. The past is past…the future has not yet arrived, and we can just stay in between them – quiet, waiting, whole. No demands. No decisions. Just being.

You're not meditating, another part of his mind told him. You are talking to yourself.

The best of these moments, he went on, ignoring his inner voice, come when you are on your way somewhere. Transition. Suspension. Nothing to do but wait.

You're procrastinating, that's what you're doing.

Alone. No one can hold you to account. No decisions need to be made.

Coward.

No one knows where you are. You're a tiny mote of dust in vast space, drifting among the stars.

You're in your ship. You are on course. Idiot.

Peace. Freedom. Harmony.

You just don't want to arrive there. You would stay out here indefinitely to avoid it.

The Universe is a meaningful whole, bound together by the Force.

You were asked to leave it alone, but you went anyway.

Each tiny piece of the whole has its purpose and its destiny.

You didn't tell anyone you were coming.

This is one of those perfect moments.

It's cold. It's dark. And you are alone. Again.

The COM link is beeping.

The COM link is beeping.

Obi-Wan opened his eyes and glanced at the console. Approaching Naboo. Already. He sighed and activated the link to announce his presence and get landing instructions since he was arriving without warning. For ten years he had successfully avoided coming back to this small jewel box of a planet.

He was a Jedi Knight, he reminded himself. He had a job to do. He shouldn't feel like crying.

* * * * *

Padmé's "illness" lasted the rest of that day and all of the next day and night. She remained secluded, accepting food and drink but refusing visitors of any kind except the doctor who authorized a second day of rest. To Dormé's grief and Sabé's outrage she even refused to see her Handmaidens.

"The journey and the encounter with the D'laians was quite an ordeal," Sabé said to the worried Queen through gritted teeth. "I'm certain she will be fine once she gets some rest. The Doctor said she is suffering from nervous exhaustion."

During those two days the young Jedi who had been assigned to protect the Senator on the journey that was now commonly referred to as "The D'laian Incident" was sighted here and there around Theed just often enough so that no particular connection was made between his whereabouts and the Senator's. Once he bought fruit and bread in the market. Palace staff watched him teach a little girl to climb a tree. He visited Typho in his office once, briefly, to catch up on the latest news. Most of the time no one saw him or gave him any thought. The Palace was full of people coming and going.

No one, that is, except for a lone Jedi Knight who had arrived on Naboo unannounced on the second day of the Senator's "illness". He was skilled at remaining hidden. His observation of the Senator and the young Jedi remained entirely his own business.

On the morning of the third day the Senator, looking healthy and radiant once again, briefed the Queen on her journey and kept all of her daytime appointments.

It marked the end of her seclusion because during the short time of her confinement things had begun to change drastically on Naboo. Armored soldiers and equipment were arriving in a seemingly endless stream. The ensuing political, economic and social tensions escalated rapidly, and all the Senator's daytime hours were spent dealing with the crisis brought on by the arrival of the so-called defensive force. While she was working the young Jedi made himself scarce.

However, pleading continued fatigue, the Senator let it be known that she would not accept any dinner invitations or schedule evening meetings for the foreseeable future.

Setting those limits was the easiest thing in the world.