There was no sign of Rush. Not that night or for two nights after.
Roganda was bedside herself, believing her newly discovered step-son had been torn apart by beasts on the cold, dusty streets of the city. She raged at Anakin, thumping her fists into the Imperial leader's chest until the wretched, broken sobs which racked her body exhausted the hysterical woman and reduced her to a blubbering, frightened wreck. "If he's dead…" she'd gasped, chest heaving with every stuttered breath, "do you have any idea what Sheev will do to us?!"
Padme didn't have a child of her own to love, but she imagined that she would tear this world apart to keep them safe if she did.
The thought made her uneasy.
Their very first thought had been to check in with Obi-wan at the Coruscant but the Rebel leader hadn't seen Rush either. Anakin sent Kit to spend a few days amongst the Rebels – just to be sure that Palpatine's son didn't show up. Though no one dared to say it, Padme suspected there wasn't anyone in the Empire who believed a beast in the traditional sense had sunk its claws into Rush.
A heavy, foreboding smog fell upon the survivors with a growing, dreaded understanding that Palpatine had his son back.
People began to vanish, fleeing the safety of the hotel in the black cover of night to make their own way out of the city, frantically pocketing ammunition and food as they bolted. Pieces of limbs or bodies shot down at the city outskirts were always found the next day.
Forty-eight hours and twenty deaths later and Anakin had Maul stand guard by the locked hotel doors at night. No one, save for the nightly search party was allowed to leave.
"Why can't we just go?" People pleaded, "we've saved everyone we can – let's get out of here while we still can!"
Imperials became reluctant to leave the hotel, in fear of Palpatine's wrath. Search parties dwindled until the Rebels carried the brunt of the effort and Padme felt the once tightly reigned control she and Anakin had over the Empire begin slipping swiftly between their fingers.
She found him, on the third night after Rush vanished, all alone in the hotel kitchen staring into the light steam dancing in rising, fluffy curves from a small mug of coffee. Instant coffee, something Padme would have never touched in the old world, but it was all they had now and even that was extremely sparse. She approached Anakin where he sat on a long bar stool, leaning heavily upon the industrial silver island and slid onto the chair opposite him. He seemed almost entranced by the cooling steam, his thoughts absent and unknown to the world around him, something usual for the Imperial leader but it had been a long time since she had seen him lost in such melancholy introspection.
"Can't sleep?" Padme watched him blink slowly as he began to sit up straighter, the weight of the city heavy on his tired shoulders.
"I haven't slept well in a while," he gave a tired shrug and brought the coffee to his lips, grimacing at the bitter taste. "I figured I may as well embrace it and stay up."
"Me too," she nodded, "I talked to Bail and Mon yesterday while we were finding people. They've seen planes flying over the city the past few days, all headed in the same direction. I've been seeing a lot more beasts around than usual too."
"Yeah," he murmured into the white ceramic rim of his cup, "I saw them too."
Dressed in a plain white t-shirt and casual jeans, Anakin almost looked like any other young man on the streets used to but the hardening of his face, the scar over his eye and drained exhaustion in his eyes served as a reminder of what he carried with him. There was nothing normal about this man, Padme thought sadly. "No one in the Coruscant has seen Rush, Kit told me. I think he made it out of the city."
Admitting it out did not bring the catharsis she hoped that it might. Whispering the words into the air between Imperial leaders only made the danger of this truth far more frightening. If Rush had betrayed them all and gone to the father he hated then Roganda was right, they were all in very real trouble.
Anakin pushed the coffee across the table toward Padme and she wrapped her cold fingers around the warm mug and brought it to her lips with a grateful smile. She'd always had more than a slight affinity for caffeine – her mother used to chide her for her addiction back then, swearing that she would have injected the brew straight into her veins if it were possible. "Thank you," she said quietly.
"It's the last one," the corner of his lip turned up just a little, "enjoy it while you can, Naberrie."
"Anakin…" she closed her eyes and shook her head, the still blunt ends of her shortened hair tickling the nape of her neck slightly with the movement as she ignored his small joke, "I feel like this is all my fault. I shouldn't have snapped at him, I knew he was feeling hurt and – "
"Don't do that," his gaze was searing even in the darkness, "his actions aren't on you. Rush made his own decisions."
"But he wouldn't have decided to go back to his father if I hadn't gone to him that night," saying the words pained her almost as much as the ghost touch of Rush's hands on her body. The memory was fogged and hazy but she remembered enough to cringe. "I made a mistake its put everyone in danger!"
"You said you were drunk," Anakin's eyes narrowed slightly, "that's not on you." She saw the tightening of his jaw, the clench of his teeth as he spoke and wondered what he was thinking. It couldn't be easy to discuss this with her or to even know that she'd been with another man while they were apart, even if he understood how much she regretted it.
"But I went to him – "
"And?"
"And what?" She frowned and took another sip of the coffee, letting the sugarless taste fill her mouth to cover the extent of her confusion. Padme remembered making the decision to sleep with Rush that night, lost within the seemingly endless darkness at the height of her depression. It had been her lowest moment, the mistake that had shown how damaging her behaviour was becoming. That was on her, she made her own choices.
"He took advantage of you," he muttered bitterly, "you said you were drunk and out of your mind – he should have known better. I bet he did know better but he wanted it anyway."
Took advantage of her? She knew what happened between them should never have come about but Padme wanted it, hadn't she? When she went to Rush's room that night, she knew what was going to happen… It had been something to numb the pain she felt about Anakin and then it had been about pretending to be with Anakin again, it hadn't ever been about Rush, he just didn't know that. "I don't know about that, I just… It wasn't…" No words came to her aid so she drank instead.
"Look, I'm not going to tell you how to feel about something," Anakin grimaced, "well at least, I'm not going to do it any more… I'm just sharing my opinion." He reached out for the coffee and Padme handed it to him silently. If she was honest with herself, she just didn't want to think about that night ever again. It was better that it faded out of her memory with time and space so that it barely tugged on the edges of recognition. If she could purge it out of her, she would.
The two Imperial leaders fell into content quiet with one another for a while as they shared the cooling coffee, comfortably lost in their own thoughts together. Eventually, when the mug was empty, Padme shook her head tiredly. "I don't know what I'm going to tell Obi-wan," she said, "he thinks Rush is out there alone. Mon told me he won't listen to anyone who says he went back to Palpatine."
"Yeah, those two always seemed close," he winced, "it's not easy accepting someone you trust turning on you…" His voice grew distant then, his bright blue eyes withdrawn and downcast. "Believe me."
The ghost of Aphra filled the room. Her blood, her dying face and the heavy thud of her lifeless body falling flashed before Padme's unprepared mind. The guilt made her stomach churn horribly.
"Do you miss her?" Padme had wanted to be Aphra's friend once, though that felt like a very long time ago… she wished that she could go back in time and truly understand what the other woman had been telling her. The root of her dislike had never been about a romantic entanglement with Anakin like she had thought, but about power and friendship and control in a world where people usually had none. Where the raven-haired archaeologist was concerned, Padme would carry regrets for the rest of her life.
Slowly, Anakin lifted his eyes to meet hers and she saw the pain that tortured him for the first time. Aphra had been his friend, his second in command – he'd trusted her with his life and Padme hated that she'd come between them. He didn't trust or love many people in this world and the anguish of knowing that she had taken one of the few away forever made her heart bleed.
"Yes... but I'm so angry with her," he admitted quietly, "for being so damned stupid. She was smarter than that, I know she was… She let him get in her head and twist her mind until I was her enemy. I know you only saw one side of Aphra, and it wasn't always good but she cared about everyone in here. She wasn't all bad."
"I don't think anyone is," Padme reached across the table to lay a hand on his arm softly. Hearing his pain brought tears of remorse to her eyes, "I'm so sorry, Anakin. I wish that day hadn't happened… I wish I hadn't done it…"
"I know," he nodded, "but it's not your fault, Padme, it's not. I wound her up – I was so mad… I let it get the better of me. I wanted to make her feel stupid for dealing with Palpatine, I should have stopped before she snapped. You pulled the trigger but I killed her," she watched his face begin to crumple and it broke her heart, "because if you hadn't done it, someone else would have. Or I would have. I made sure she had no chance because I was angry she made decisions without me."
"Oh Ani," Padme sniffled, "I'm so sorry…"
If they bore the lives they'd taken like a scar forever etched into her body as a reminder of the sin, then Aphra's death was a matching wound carved into both their hearts. Forever guilty. Forever crippled with regret.
After a few moments, she pulled her hand back and stole a long, deep breath into her quivering lungs. "Anakin," her already heavy heart sank further at the words waiting on her lips. "I never thought I would be the one to say this…"
"What is it?" He rubbed his face tiredly, the grief and regret still raw inside his gaze.
The thought of saying what she was about to broke the young woman's heart. Shattered it. Her very being rebelled against the idea but fate had changed and Rush's betrayal had stolen what little time they had left. "We have to go," she whispered, "before they kill us. They will kill us if we stay any longer."
Anakin's eyes fell shut wearily as he sighed, "We haven't gotten through half of the search area we were supposed to, Padme."
"I know," her voice cracked, "but if Rush is with his father then what's stopping him bombing the city tomorrow? Or sending his soldiers in here to kill us all? He knows we know what he's doing and that makes us dangerous. If these planes flying over the city mean anything, then they're preparing to move." These words went against the very core of Padme's being, who she was in her heart and mind but the heartbreaking realisation dawning upon her strengthened her as much as it broke her. "I don't think we can save everyone."
"Are you sure about this?" His eyes bore into hers, "Really sure? Because there's no going back once it's done. We can't come back after we get out."
Rush's final, furious threat came into her mind once more. They could stay and risk running out of time to save people on the outskirts of the city or they could save the lives of the people they had found already. The choice was sickening and impossible and she hated that the answer felt clear. "I think we should take tomorrow, the full day and night and find everyone we can and then I think we need to get out."
After a few moments, Anakin gave one shallow nod. "Then I'll follow your lead on this. We'll give it twenty-four hours and then we get the hell out of this city."
The heavy body of Maul fell with a grunt and a dull thud as the small tranquillizer dart impaled in his tattooed neck did its work quickly. Not a sound was made in the vast, looming hotel as Rush and four men draped in the black stealth uniforms of his father's military thundered inside the Empire. "Roganda is on floor 9, room 225." He tipped his head toward the stairway up ahead. The men followed his command and marched off to fetch his father's wife silently.
While tempting to simply storm through the building and have these men plant a bullet between Skywalker's eyes and have it done with, Rush had to abide by his father's decisions for now. He had agreed to the proposal smuggled into the hotel yesterday, meeting his father's soldiers where he promised they'd be in his letter. Now, all he had to do was wait and he would have everything he wanted.
By the end of tomorrow, Skywalker would be dead and he and Padme would be far away in the paradise of his father's new world where the Imperial leader's influence would no longer turn her head.
Tomorrow, the Empire fell.