Title: Torn Rating: G
Notes: Episode III; angsty Obi-Wan/Padmé, just for Kris Wright because she wanted some :) (I can't believe I just wrote het XD)

You love him, don't you.

She says this with her lips, with her hands clasped in her lap. With her eyes, oh her eyes, she says this, and every part of her is so appealing to everything in him.

It pulls at his heart and sucks the breath from his lungs.

He doesn't want this, this strange attraction, this inexplicable infatuation. He's lost control of his emotions; first Anakin, and now Padmé? A Jedi must let go of attachments.

But a Jedi must show compassion. It's just too easy to go show a little too much, to feel a little too close, at least for Obi-Wan it is. He can't understand how Qui-Gon managed.

And with every awful thing she's going through, Obi-Wan can't deny her compassion.

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Obi-Wan feels her eyes on him and he doesn't want it. Doesn't want it because he can't want it, can't want it because it would be a betrayal of his entire way of life - of that which he serves, a cause much greater than himself. And he cannot do that.

Obi-Wan doesn't want.

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He goes to visit Padmé while Anakin visits Palpatine. Instead of ringing the bell, he lets himself in, though he knows he shouldn't. She'll be there, like she always is. The Senate has been meeting less and less, as Chancellor Palpatine has less need for their vote in his executive decisions.

"It's the death of democracy," she says to him, as they sit there on the couches. Anakin won't listen to such talk, Obi-Wan knows; it's the least he can do to indulge her. And though the Jedi serve the Republic, Obi-Wan's has his own reservations when it comes to politicians. He nearly tells Padmé this, but it wouldn't be wise.

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Then again, what part of what he is doing is wise, anymore?

Obi-Wan is waiting for a breaking point.

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Padmé is torn.

It's not enough to say that she feels torn, because feelings aren't enough. She is torn, with every fiber of her being stretched to near breaking, and she's sure of this. Far more sure of this than of anything, these days.

Nothing offers the stability she needs. Married to a Jedi, fighting for a falling Republic, and now falling in love with another man. Another Jedi.

Padmé doesn't understand feelings. Not anymore. Maybe the politics have done this to her, but she couldn't ever leave them if it meant saving herself, couldn't abandon her people.

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"You're in love," Dormé says.

They are getting ready for bed now, after Anakin and Obi-Wan have left. Padmé is ashamed at this thought: even a traitor in her own rational mind, placing Anakin first but dwelling on Obi-Wan

"Of course I'm in love."

"That's not what I mean."

Padmé stiffens slightly. "Then you must be mistaken." She sees Dormé's shrug in the mirror, hears the soft, slightly teasing "Yes, Milady."

They both know it's no matter for teasing.

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Padmé dreams of giving birth to a galaxy. She looks and it burns her eyes. The colors are the same cold blue as their lightsabers, both of them, and then everything is red until she opens her eyes to find the sun in her face, morning.

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Obi-Wan visits later that same day. His company is more welcome than she would have him know; she does not want to seem as lonely as she is, if she can even help appearing so to his Jedi senses.

They speak of politics, which Padmé is passionate about, but today it is all recycled panic. Nothing new has happened yet, but she feels her skin crawl whenever she thinks of Chancellor Palpatine and his growing powers. It's the death of democracy. The feeling is getting old, and more and more a part of her hopes that when her children are born she can just go back to Naboo and have her family in peace, resign from her post as Senator forever. But again, she cannot abandon her people.

And she would never see Obi-Wan again. He is the only one she can talk to, the only one she feels anything at all for, and even that is a mystery. Anakin is growing so distant, and so blind to what is happening in the world around him.

She only hopes he will remain blind to this - Obi-Wan's hand on hers, her fingers at the curve of his neck, the sad plea in her eyes and the shadowed depths of comfort in Obi-Wan's.