Disclaimer: Still not mine...

Here is the third chapter. I forgot to tell you that the fic is actually started just after Obi Wan and Anakin came home from rescuing Chancellor Palpatine from Grievous... And instead of waiting for Anakin to arrive in the hangar -just like in the movie- Padme is waiting somewhere else...

Before I began, I wanna thank 'TailsEponineRox,' for being my only reviewer... Oh, poor me :D If you have some time to spare, please review... I would really appreciate it :D Thank You!

3

His eyes still carried the same look through the journey back to Naboo where Anakin was to protect Queen Padme while Obi Wan departed to do the investigations. The same look agitated her feelings and she wished to yield from them and their owner. Consequently, Padme shunned herself from Anakin's presence and avoided being in conversations with him as long as she could.

One night, however, during dinnertime, Anakin decided it was time to thaw the ice-block situation they were in.

He started, "I have a lot of thoughts in my mind."

When she didn't respond, he continued, "Mostly about my mother."

Padme still held her silence, but Anakin could see, from the utensils in her hands that looked like mere metal pieces clenched in her fingers instead of a tool for eating, that she was in fact heeding to his every word.

"I'm telling you this, because I know you're the only one who can understand."

He has stopped eating, too.

"Obi Wan won't listen to me, because he never understands me. He doesn't know that for these past 10 years all I think about, are you, and my mother.

"I miss my mother like you miss your father."

The spoon and the fork clinked and hurt his both ears when they suddenly fell to the silver plate. The woman who one moment ago was sitting sullenly in front of him had dropped them fiercely while she got up from the chair and, as fast as her gown permitted her, ran to hide herself in her chamber.

She couldn't bear his eyes. But now, she couldn't bear both his eyes and his words. She ran away to quit them; his eyes and his words. She kept running even when she has reached her destination. She breathed with difficulty that she had to hold on to the tall mirror beside her bed. She didn't know why his words made her breathless, but as she directed her eyes slowly up to her own face in the mirror, she understood that his words had caused her her tear, and the tear was the one making her out of breath. Her single tear had made a track that was falling from her eye down to her cheek, and with that, it had washed down a small part of her make-up. She could see the colour of her own skin. A little evilish desire to erase the remaining parts emerged inside her. But just when her fingers were coming closer to her face, she put them down for a reason she couldn't explain.

"Just take it off!"

A voice coming from behind startled her, and she turned around to meet the man with the voice himself: Anakin, who had quietly slipped into her chamber and witnessed what she was doing.

"Anakin, what are you…"

"Just take it off!" His voice echoed throughout the hollow chamber and it scared her so much, she couldn't even tremble.

"Just take your make-up off." He repeated after a moment of silence, but now, more slowly and gentle.

He spoke of nothing afterwards. Yet now, not only his eyes and words, but also his being depressed her. She fell all of a sudden on her knees whilst covering her face with her hands. More liquid of tears had rustled down from her eyes.

"I can't!" she said between her sobs.

"Why?" he sounded the question that his eyes had long ago bore, "you always did it when you were a princess."

"I can't because I'm a queen, because everyone expects me to be a queen!"

"So don't be a queen!"

It wasn't something she assumed Anakin, or anyone, would say to her. It had never occurred to her that she could refuse the Queenship in the first place, but then… "But then, what about my people? They would suffer."

"So be a queen!"

She didn't know how to reply, so she silently wept instead. She must have been on her knees for some time now, but Anakin was still waiting for her and standing closely to the door.

When she had overcome her sobs, she realized that what he said at the dinner table was true; she was the only one who could understand him, and thus, he was also the only one who understood her.

"Nobody knows how I hurt. No one understands. My father had only passed away for less than a day, but they were already cheering my name and Palpatine…"

"Palpatine is right to have faith in you."

"I can't even stand 2 days, how should I deal with 2 years?"

Anakin turned quiet on the question. At first, Padme thought he had run out of answers to be named. But, apparently, he was a man too fall in love to fail her.

"You can do everything with my love," was his slow reply.

Her tears stopped as sudden as their coming. At last, she unveiled her face and her hands dropped to her sides. Anakin saw this and resolved in making a movement to exit the chamber, but another question hindered him to do so.

"Anakin, do you think I'm beautiful?"

His answer had been once slow, but this time it wasn't. His answer, before he left the chamber, was a firm one, "No. I thought you were an angel, the most beautiful creature in all galaxies. But that when I first saw you. Now, you're not beautiful at all."

And then she knew.

The next morning, the Padawan was looking everywhere for the Queen who wasn't anywhere to be found. He had started to panic when he decided to search in the front yard. There, Sabe was standing with her back facing him. He called her name, but she wouldn't turn around. Assuming that she couldn't hear his voice, he stepped closer. He began to wonder as he did so; a handmaiden wouldn't dress as nicely as this. But it was too simple for a queen's dress.

"Sabe?" He was now so close to her, she couldn't even pretend to not hearing him.

The woman finally turned her head around. "What?" asked Padme, for it was Padme. "Have you forgotten me already, Padawan?"

The marriage was held after the chaos ended – or seemed to be ended. Queen Padme came out of her palace feeling –and looking- just like her people who were applauding at her arrival at the balcony of the palace: Free, save, but most of all, happy.

With love, she knew she could do everything.

Some of her people were surprised to see her with no make-up and heavy accessories the kings and queens of Naboo always wore. But soon they realized that they were looking at the former princess they used to love who had become a queen they still loved. They saluted her, and she saluted them back. Then, it was time for her to go to her wedding.

"Yes, I do."

And now, she was no longer a queen. She was only… Padme. It has been 3 years since then, but still, as she said to herself, "It feels like yesterday."

---

Coming home, safe and sound, from the mission on rescuing the Chancellor, Jedi Obi Wan wasn't expecting anything, good or bad, to happen that day. And he surely, wasn't expecting anyone either. So, he was quite perplexed when a droid told him that a lady had been waiting, endlessly, for him at his chamber.

He quickly marched to his chamber, still expecting no one special to appear inside. But, as he was approaching the room, he didn't need to look in to know that there was someone special there. Special, because whoever that was, that woman was gifted with The Force. This puzzled him more. It could be someone dangerous waiting for him there.

He took out his lightsaber at once, and without warning he rushed in as the door opened automatically, to reveal Padme Amidala, her face as pale as the dead, jumped out of her chair with a frightened shriek.