Obi-Wan's face was buried in her hair; it smelt like fruit and flowers, just like he had imagined.
"I'm sorry," he said softly, voice muffled in the thick brown waves that spilled across the pillow.
Padme only smiled slightly and turned towards him, her expression unreadable in the near-dark.
She was not sorry. Anakin had left, his Master had come seeking him and found her instead. The lake retreat of her family had seen her secret wedding; now this bed witnessed her adultery merely weeks after that first night of frenzied, passionate love.
Obi-Wan left at dawn, calmly robing himself while she watched, still entangled in the bed sheets. At the door he paused.
"He will know. Jedi are taught to recognise deceit."
"Let him," was her reply. There was something fatalistic in her tone.
"He will kill you. Or me. Probably both of us."
Padme rose, dragging the white sheet with her. She walked towards him slowly, one hand on her belly. Last night, Obi-Wan had confirmed what she already suspected. Two heartbeats.
"He will not harm me while I carry his children."
Her lover frowned, concerned.
"How can you be so sure?"
Padme shrugged.
"I know. As surely as I knew what would happen between us. I feel the inevitability."
It was true. She felt it, right down to her bones. Everything that had gone before, everything that was to come - events would unfold and play out as they would and there was not a single thing she, the Jedi or those they fought could do about it. She was coming to believe in Qui-Gon's simple conviction that they were all at the mercy of the will of the Force.
Obi-Wan was still frowning, but she could tell he wanted to believe her. The wheels of his mind turned over the possibilities and ramifications and reached the same conclusion as she had. The past could not be undone. Anakin's feet were already on a dark path. This ultimate betrayal may push him over the edge to embrace the way of the Sith, but if it had not been this it would be something else. Obi-Wan was beginning to believe Qui-Gon also - the boy had a great destiny.
He left then and Padme did not return to the bed; it smelt like him and their lovemaking. She dressed and walked onto the terrace. She did not really see the vista of the lake and mountains in the morning light; spared no thought to the fact she stood on the very place where a not long ago she had pledged herself to Anakin Skywalker for eternity.
She was thinking about the galaxy, and her duty to Naboo, and politics. And Senator Palpatine. It was he whom her husband had gone to see. Anakin had made her promise to stay behind, saying he had to front the Jedi Council alone, one last time.
She knew he would leave the Order. So did Obi-Wan, who had come to their honeymoon sanctuary to confirm his own suspicions about their marriage.
They had talked, the two of them, into the night. The diplomat and the Jedi Master had drunk wine on the terrace into the small hours, heedless of the night breeze and the lamps burning down.
They talked about Tatooine and the Sand People, and the way that something had broken inside Anakin that day. She had seen it, Obi-Wan had sensed it. There was a darkness awake in him now, the power that Yoda feared and the Temple had tried to control with its endless lessons in responsibility and The Greater Good. His mother, the only thing he had loved in his life until he was nine, was lost. And for all his seemingly limitless talent, the Force had not been able to help him to prevent her dying.
And now his wife, whom he loved with a passion that overwhelmed her, was lost from him too. His ears were open to the whisperings that all Jedi heard and always before had cast aside, the constant seductive temptation of fear, anger, hate. The easy path. The Dark way.
The Clone Wars had begun and Padme could only feel intense sorrow for the children she now bore. They would know death and loss and pain before they reached adulthood more intimately than most people would in their lifetime. A Dark time was coming, but she did not know if she would live to see its end.
If something had changed in Anakin that evening on Tatooine, something had changed in Padme as well. She had felt it inside her, something weakening, breaking, giving in.
Later, on a different dusty planet, the walls of her resolve had broken and she had nearly drowned. Anakin's love, that forceful, unstoppable emotion, was undeniable. It had been amplified by his power and not tempered by control of the Force like the Temple had hoped, prayed, depended upon. It won.
That moment in the dark, before the harsh light of the sandy arena on Geonosis, she finally gave up the fight. Her defences were washed away by an onslaught; he had looked at her, spoken to her, laid his heart at her feet.
And stars forgive her, she had accepted the offering, as bruised and anguished as it was, and clutched it to herself as a condemned woman grasps at life. He was real and tangible; he loved her. They were going to die; suddenly her world had shrunk to that moment in the dark, him so close beside her, lips on hers, so forceful and wanting-
And afterwards, life and victory. At a terrible price, yes, but victory nonetheless. She married him, though his golden metal arm frightened her at first. Their lovemaking had been frantic and intense, and she had drawn him close to her so she would not have to look at his eyes.
And now she felt as if she was awakening slowly from a dream; she was a swimmer slowly stroking her way towards the shore. The ocean of Anakin's love was large and dark and terrifying, but she knew now only she could rescue herself. Had rescued herself, reaching out to Obi-Wan with an instinct borne of her fear and the knowledge that this one night of passion with him was her last gift to herself before the galaxy was torn asunder.
Padme stood looking out at the lake until the sun rose high in the blue Naboo sky. She had one hand on her belly and her hair streamed out from her shoulders in the breeze. Two heartbeats. They were all that mattered to her now.
END