Living in New York, Padme had heard of The Empire hotel before, seen the outside of it many times but she'd never been inside before. It'd always been covered in glittering lights, plush carpets and some of the city's most beautiful architecture. Only the wealthiest and most elite guests ever stepped foot on the vivid red carpet rolled out from the lobby and silly as it was, she'd always wanted to be one of those people. It was a daydream she aspired to achieve, a fantasy to get lost in while zoning out in class.

The Empire hotel wasn't how Padme imagined it would be.

The once bright red sign which shone atop the famous rooftop reading "Hotel Empire" had died and faded out to a nasty blackened colour, lifeless as the rest of the city and the little fantasy died in her chest at the sight of something so iconic to her beloved city in ruins. As she was led inside the once glamourous building, Padme was greeted by worn down carpets, weapons everywhere, torn paintings and dead plants. Whatever magic this place had once held was gone.

It was certainly larger than the Coruscant and warmer on the inside too, something she was immensely grateful for. Winters in New York were always tough but in this new world the cold was another killer stalking humanity. Anakin tugged her into the centre of the room, where a once-grand desk stood proud and abandoned around an area with ripped booth couches and matching stools. The floor was a gorgeous contrasting black and gold square design, possibly marble, but she couldn't tell beneath the grime.

"Welcome home!" Anakin declared with a smile as the Imperials spread out, heading for doorways or sofas, dropping their weapons as they pleased. Obi-wan would have had a stroke if he saw the mess. The thought was painful and unwelcome as she forced herself to meet his blue gaze. This isn't my home, she thought bitterly, it's my cage. She bit her tongue and said nothing. No point in making him angry and putting her friend's lives in danger, was there?

To the left, a man walked over to an opened fuse box and flicked a thick black switch upwards and suddenly light burst to life across the room. It was dim, nothing compared to the lights she'd once known but it had been so long since Padme had seen an active light that a wondrous gasp slipped past her lips. "You… You still have electricity?"

"Not enough for the whole building… We found an old generator and got it hooked up. Just a few rooms, mostly the common use ones." He shrugged as though it was nothing. "Gives us a little light and heat when it's cold… I told you, Padme, we like to live not scrape by." The appearance of the light was captivating. She couldn't tear her eyes away from it even as her head began to hurt from the exposure. Somehow, the slight brightness romanticised the ruins of the hotel, casting an ethereal glow across everything so that she almost couldn't see the dirt anymore. Sad as it was, Padme found it beautiful.

Still looking around, she was surprised by how many people lingered around without coats or weapons, people who had clearly stayed behind this morning. She'd always known the Imperial's had better numbers than the Rebels did but there was so many! Still not enough fill up the enormous cluster of bedrooms the building had to offer… The Rebels and Imperials could easily live together and still have rooms to spare. If only it were that simple…

The people who'd stayed behind looked at Padme curiously as she walked with their leader. It was difficult not to squirm beneath their gaze as they exchanged surprised glances and quiet whispers. Had they known that Anakin left to get her? Did he tell people about her or was she simply a new recruit?

Following Anakin through the room, she glanced over her shoulder in time to see Aphra lead the monster carefully through a large revolving door even as it growled and pulled back. The door went beyond her view but Padme shuddered anyway. Whatever was inside there couldn't be anything good. She imagined a cold, dank cell littered with bones and human remains, the kind she'd seen the monsters leave in their wake after a hunt. How else could it be? The thing had to eat after all. She tried not to think about it any further.

She was lead through a spacious arched doorway where a golden luggage trolley was pushed up against a wall, in its space made for people's cases and trunks sat a chest full of bullets. The Imperials were armed to the teeth. Padme had never seen so many bullets in the Coruscant in all her time there… Weapons weren't exactly sparse but they certainly weren't lining every surface the way they did here. How did they have so many? When the monsters first began appearing, people raced to gain a licence for guns – some simply surpassed the licence and sought out the weapon illegally for protection. There was more demand for firearms than New York could fulfil… And then it was too late. How had Anakin and his group gathered so many?

Two sets of elevator doors sat side by side and shut tightly, unsurprising since most of the city no longer had access to electricity. Even those lucky enough to stumble across generators like the Imperials could never channel enough power to work something like that. Light and heat were far better uses for such power anyway. Anakin led her passed them and toward a wide, vivid green-carpeted staircase which curved around as it climbed higher.

"I wish I could say it's an easy walk…" He winced and scratched at the back of his neck, "but it's – I mean – well, it sucks. But you'll get used to it."

"A walk to where?" She asked quietly following the Imperial up the steps.

They moved around the first curve and further upwards, curving again. Glancing back at her, Anakin smiled. "Sleeping quarters. There're some people living around the first four floors but mostly everyone wanted to go higher."

"Higher? To get away from the monsters?"

"Partly. But mostly it's because the higher the floor, the better the room." Anakin winked and stretched his legs to skip two steps, climbing higher faster than she could keep up with. At the passing of the third floor, her legs began to burn and her chest tightened. Padme breathed carefully to avoid panting too loudly and let him know she was struggling. Her room in the Coruscant had been on the second floor, she wasn't used to steep stairways! Besides, the exertion barely seemed to affect him at all, there was no way she was going to give him that win.

"So…" Padme forced a breath through her burning lungs, "so, if everyone wants to live in the higher rooms, who decides on where everyone sleeps?" Was she sweating? God, she'd thought she was relatively fit! In the old world, she would have had to pause for a break by now so that was something at least, right? How much higher was he going to make her go? If he was giving her a bedroom, she would happily take one on the next floor if it meant no more stairs.

"I do." He shrugged as though it was obvious, "if you're good for the group and me, then you get one of the good rooms… If you slack off, you get downgraded and someone else gets it."

"That sounds like a lot of upheavals."

Back in the Coruscant, your room was simply your room. No moving or changes unless absolutely necessary. Obi-wan had a piece of paper somewhere with a list of occupied rooms and the names of who slept where… He liked the order it brought to the group.

"Do what you're asked to do and do it well, that way you don't have to worry about upheaval." Anakin said. "It's an incentive; people want the best quarters and the bragging rights that come with it. Good way to keep the group happy."

Padme's knees felt weak from climbing, she wasn't sure how much more of this she could take without pausing for a minute or two. "How… How does moving people around… Keep them happy?"

They reached the fifth floor sign and Anakin paused, leaning against the wall with a smirk. "Take a breath, Naberrie. You look like you're about to pass out."

He wasn't wrong, she was sure, it certainly felt that way but that didn't stop the flush of mortification that swept through her. Had she really been that obvious? Damn. Folding her arms across her chest, Padme rolled her eyes and took a deep breath through her nose, hoping he didn't notice. "I'm fine."

Anakin barked a laugh and shook his head. "Don't be stubborn. Sit down if you need to." He gestured to the stairs and Padme felt tempted, wanting nothing more than to rest her tired legs but something about admitting that fact to him felt like defeat so she held her tongue.

"I don't need a seat and anyway, you didn't answer my question."

"What question?" He asked and then began to yawn, stretching his arms up above his head as his body stretched with the movement, causing the dark green shirt he wore to ride up slightly, just enough to expose a slither of tanned, muscled stomach before Padme snatched her eyes away and looked at the carpet instead. How did he get so muscular? The boy she remembered had been lanky and slim… Stop! She shouldn't like that.

"How does constantly moving people around rooms make them happy? People want normalcy, routine… A space of their own, not to live on some merry go round."

"The Empire," Anakin gestured around him, "is our space. It belongs to everyone who calls themselves an Imperial. I know old man Kenobi is rigid as a rock but things are more relaxed here, Padme. The way I do things, everyone gets their turn in the best suites. No one misses out on the best parts of the place."

Was it… Was it wrong that that actually made some sense? Rotating rooms didn't sound very fun but in these days people had fewer possessions to move around with them, switching places wouldn't take very much planning or effort and if it was made to seem like a reward? Padme could see how people might get caught up in that.

"Where do you sleep then?" She asked, "Do you change rooms?"

He grinned wolfishly, pushing himself away from the wall and unfolded his arms to point upwards. "Presidential suite. And I'd change rooms if someone took over as leader… But no one here would dare challenge me for it." That was hardly surprising. She'd read somewhere once that the Presidential suite cost around $10,000 a night and was almost impossible to book unless you happened to be the actual President or a celebrity. Padme couldn't imagine what a room that expensive might have looked like in the old world and dreaded to imagine how it might be now. Luxury didn't exist anymore so what purpose did a private space that big serve? "Come on," Anakin said then, "it's up on the 10th floor and I want to get there before the sun goes down."

The small jab at her fitness went by unnoticed as dread tugged at her stomach at the prospect of five more floors.

Anakin's suit was bigger than Padme's old apartment. There were multiple rooms within the space, a small conference room, an area seemingly built to represent a living room with cream and gold colourings that still shone like new, a dining room, two bathrooms and one bedroom. Unlike downstairs, the entire area had been preserved, almost as if time had stopped here and the mess of the outside hadn't made inside yet. It was unabashedly beautiful; she didn't know where to look. Each room had its own colour schemes and large gleaming chandeliers which reflected small rainbows across the patterned walls.

The most wonderful part was the view. The once iconic skyline of New York stretched on for miles and miles as far as Padme could see from the floor to ceiling windows. It was exquisite; the kind of image people had paid to be put onto canvases or painted into art. It also hurt, badly, to see something of the city she'd loved so much before. For so long she'd dreamed of coming here and seeing a view like this… If she focused enough, it would be easy to pretend that was how things were. She could just look to the left, stare at the Empire State Building and everything was normal again.

"How do you ever leave this room?" Padme breathed. She could stand here for a thousand years and never get tired of it. It made her smile and ache both at once. A piece of the home she'd known still existed high up here above the clouds… It was good to know that but it hurt too. All this time she'd been too focused on what was in front of her on the ground, too busy thinking about the next monster, the next bullet's aim to realise the beauty that still existed above her. Did anyone see it down there?

"I didn't at first." Anakin's voice came from behind her. "Before I built up a group to live here with me, I just stared and stared out there and it made me angry."

"Angry?" Padme turned away from the view to frown at him. "Why?"

He glowered at the table he lingered near. "Because… Because there were people who lived here in the old days, people who had everything while the rest of us down there on the ground had to work our asses off for every cent we got. And when the world went to hell? They all fucked off on their planes and helicopters and left us to die. I hated them for it… Until I realised something."

"What's that?"

"Their world is dead. The monsters killed it… Now, people like me, like us, we get to take charge. That's where all this comes from, Padme, the Imperials, we want to live well in the new world, not mourn the old one which didn't care if we lived or died."

It was a strange thing to see the passion that lit up Anakin's face as he talked. He'd always been so calm and in control in their previous run-ins, Padme hadn't thought he'd be capable of, well, feelings. In hindsight, it was silly of her to think like that. Of course, someone so charismatic and magnetic could muster up strong emotions about subjects he cared about, he had to. How else could he have inspired so many people to join the Imperials? To live or die at his side?

The thought was sobering and it brought Padme back to reality.

She shrugged off his coat and held it out, more than warmed by the stairs and the room temperature. "Here," she said, not responding to his speech. "You can have this back."

Anakin rounded the table and moved toward her where she stood by the window. Carefully, he took it from her and threw it over the back of one the red chairs lining the glass table. "Were you uncomfortable about everyone looking at you earlier?" He asked quietly.

"Of course I was." Padme rolled her eyes. "I don't like being stared at by strangers."

He laughed breathily. "Don't worry about them… They're just not used to having women around. Most of us forget Aphra is one, honestly, but you don't have anything to worry about."

"Why are the Imperials mostly men anyway?" She couldn't resist asking. Was Aphra really the only woman other than Padme they'd allowed into their ranks? If that were true, then Padme couldn't think of a more ridiculous and wasteful policy. Women were some of the best fighters in the Rebels! She hadn't taken Anakin for a sexist amongst everything else.

Another grin stretched its way across Anakin's face, smugger this time, as if he knew something she didn't. "There used to be women with us but they never last long. They always end up killed faster." When he noticed Padme narrow her eyes with irritation, he laughed again and shook his head. "Don't start the equality rant, Naberrie. I'm not saying women can't keep up, hell; Aphra could kick most of the guys' asses here. It's just that monsters prefer women, they seek them out more."

"They do?" She frowned. That was something she hadn't noticed before… Since joining the Rebels, whenever there'd been monsters around they'd been in a mixed-gender group. It'd been a rush of fear and concentration and adrenaline… The smaller details might have gone over her head.

"Mmhm." He hummed with a nod. "They like blood… And women bleed more than men."

Padme's eyes widened and she felt her mouth slacken with the surprise. How had she gotten along this far without noticing something like that? In hindsight, whenever her time of the month came along before joining the Rebels, she had found herself cornered and chased far more often. That was amazing information, the kind that could save lives if he passed it on!

"I didn't know that…" She whispered.

"Not many people do." Anakin conceded. "But then again, not everyone is as smart as I am."

Honestly, Padme wasn't sure if he meant it or if it was supposed to be a joke but the smugness of his voice made her roll her eyes regardless. Despite her derision, however, a light danced in his heated blue gaze.

"Are you afraid of me, Padme?" He asked, voice lowering a little.

What she wanted to tell him was no, that he didn't have that power over her and never would… But that wasn't strictly true. There was something… Something had shifted; she wasn't as frightened of him as she'd been before in the store but that fear hadn't faded entirely. Anakin was still unpredictable and dangerous. It would be stupid to let her guard down.

"A little." She admitted honestly.

The answer seemed to please him. "Good." He told her with a satisfied smirk, "You should be."

Padme lifted her eyes to his, ready to narrow them or feel her fear spike by his response but neither of those things happened. She was surprised by what she saw in those blue eyes, a playfulness that matched his mouth, it made him seem younger than he looked and acted and more like the youthful boy she'd gone to school with.

Suddenly, she wasn't scared at all.

"C'mon," Anakin turned on his heel suddenly and walked to the left, "come with me."

Padme followed him to another arched doorway which led to the suite's private bedroom. It boasted the same wall to ceiling windows with another gorgeous view of New York, a ridiculously large wooden four-poster bed and sheer white netting which draped above and around the structure, a golden clawed bathtub lounged near the right wall of the room and two twin red armchairs sat on opposite sides of a small black circular coffee table. There were spaces throughout the room where other furniture or decorative pieces might have been but had been removed whether due to functionality or Anakin's personal taste.

"This is it…" He gestured vaguely to the room at large, "What do you think?"

The area was more lived-in than the rest of the suite, less pristine but still clean enough. It was a beautiful room people would have killed to spend the night in the old world… Or at least, spent a fortune to do so. "It's bigger than I thought it would be." She said.

"Yeah well, make yourself at home." Anakin said, "If you're tired, sleep… My bed is yours."

The way he spoke was heavily suggestive and it made Padme's eyes widen and her face flush bright red. For all she'd seen, all she'd done, the thought of anything sexual with him? Terrifying. The thought that that is what Anakin really wanted her for… She didn't dare think about it. At the look on her face however, Anakin laughed as though he'd done it on purpose.

"You really expect me to sleep in here?" Padme asked, gathering her courage.

"Why not?" He shrugged.

"It's hardly appropriate… Isn't there another room I could have?"

"We're full."

At that, she scoffed. This was one of the biggest hotels in New York! Unless he was secretly harbouring the majority of survivors here there was simply no way the hotel was at full capacity. "You're full?" Padme repeated the words dripping with disbelieving sarcasm.

"We're full," Anakin said again, mirth lighting up his eyes as he held up his hands to shrug again.

She couldn't believe this. "What about the first five floors we passed on the way up here? Hmm? You said that there was hardly anyone there because everyone wanted to live higher."

"Oh yeah," he smiled innocently, "we use those for storage."

"Storage? Seriously?"

"Mmhm. Lots of stuff laying around… Anyway, get some rest. I'll be back later." She stood frozen as Anakin moved towards her then and lifted his hand to rest on the back of her head, fingers stroking through her hair for one brief moment before his neck bent to press a quick, brutal but strangely affectionate kiss to her forehead. Without another word, he left the bedroom and headed for the main door back to the stairway.

Padme watched him go, waited until she heard the click of the door closing behind him before she un-tensed her muscles. Glancing back at the bed behind her, she felt a quiver in her stomach…

What the hell was she supposed to do next?