SEVEN:

The innards of the pirate ship were not as unpleasant as she had imagined, but almost. She used as much of her training as she could to appear as if it didn't bother her, as if she expected it, as if this was all normal. Insect Man led her and her security detail (i.e.: Jedi), through a few corridors, past several clusters of too-eyeing unpleasant-folk, into a room with a view… of space.

Within this room was a large desk, and, strangely enough, a potted plant. Padmé found herself drawn to pondering its existence on this pirate ship.

"Well," said the large, brusque man behind the desk, whom she had previously failed to notice other than peripherally, "You're not who I expected."

"Neither are you," she said out of reflex, and he seemed disarmed by her statement.

"Why should you say that?" he asked.

She took a moment to consider the situation.

"No reason," she said.

His eyes narrowed.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"I am the negotiator," she replied.

He stared at her.

"You may call me Madame Negotiator," she continued.

He leaned back in his chair, considering her for a long moment.

"You're young," he said.

"Am I?" she inquired coolly.

Again, he paused. One, of course, never really knows the age of a person, not in space.

He seemed as if he were going back and forth between two lines of thought, trying to decide between them. Finally, he settled and moved forward.

"Hutt sent you, didn't he?" he asked.

"No," she said, which seemed to surprise him. "I don't work for Hutts."

His eyes widened, and then he looked nervous.

"If you don't work for the Hutts," he said, as if he suspected the answer but wasn't sure he wanted to know it, "who do you work for?"

She gave him a small smile.

"I require board and transport," she stated.

"Transport to where?" he asked.

She inspected him briefly.

"You don't know?" she inquired, as if there was something he should know, already.

"I'm afraid I don't," he replied.

"Then the Hutt will suffice," she said, as if subtly inconvenienced.

"That is the best I can do," he said, hands spread.

"Then it will have to do," she replied, with a tight smile. "I will need comms access and I ask that I not be disturbed."

"Of course, madame," he said, and he nodded to one of his men by the door. "Give her the guest quarters."

-0—0—0—0—0—0—0—0—

After a thorough bug check (they found three, which Anakin immediately began to dissemble), Padmé breathed a sigh of relief.

"Oh, my stars, can I please never do that again for as long as I live?" she said, flopping on the bed face-first.

"We were both ready to fight our way out of there, if need be," said Anakin, sitting at a small table and pulling a wire out of an eavesdropping device with tweezers.

"Well," said Obi-Wan, giving Anakin a glance for his overt readiness for violence, "We were prepared for whatever might happen, but we were also impressed by your ability to negotiate, Madame Negotiator."

Padmé propped her chin on her fist and gave Obi-Wan a grin.

"If they only knew what an absolute fraud I am," she said.

"Well, they don't," said Obi-Wan, coming to sit on the other side of the bed, "and that's what matters."

"Okay. So here's the thing," said Padmé, spreading her hands, "There's somebody pulling the Hutt strings. Did you see it? It was on his face. He's afraid of whoever it is."

"I don't think he knows who it is," said Obi-Wan.

"But he knows enough about whoever it is to be afraid of them," said Padmé.

"Right," said Obi-Wan, considering. "So whoever it is has done a very good job of hiding their identity, but also inducing fear."

"Let me see that ring again," said Padmé, clambering up into a seated position next to Obi-Wan.

Obi-Wan rustled through his shroud into his robes and produced the ring. She plucked it from his hand and began to inspect it again, looking for any identifying marks as to its origin or true owner. There was nothing unusual that she could see about the ring, other than the scuffs showing either years of normal wear or a short period of rough wear.

"You seem as if you'll stare a hole right through it, at this rate," she heard Obi-Wan murmur at her side. She glanced at him and chuckled, then leaned against his arm, holding up the ring for them both to see.

"Have you noticed anything unusual about this ring?" she asked.

"Not yet, aside from the cracked kyber crystal," he said.

"Have you considered, um, trying to sense anything, I mean, with the force?" she asked.

Obi-Wan was quiet for a moment.

"Not yet," he said.

She glanced askance at him.

"Will you?" she asked.

His eyes softened on her, and he glanced at the ring. Taking it from her fingers, she noticed and tried not to notice the warmth of his fingertips.

"I supposed I could try," he said quietly.

She watched him as he ran his thumb over the top of the ring, and then settled into a sort of meditative gaze. It was the first time she'd ever been so close to a Jedi while using the force… she could feel his arm against hers as they sat on the bed, but beyond that, she could feel something else that came from him. It was like what Anakin said, like a lake, which expanded out beyond his borders and filled the room. It was serene but sharply present. It was as if it had always been there, but she didn't notice it until now, and now that it was here it was impossible to ignore. She had the sudden urge to touch the surface of the lake, to create rings within rings within rings, to watch them roiling outward, faster, farther, toward an infinite expanse… all from one single touch. The potential power seemed immense.

Anakin raised his head from where he was dissembling bugs and looked at her with something between confusion and curiosity. She pretended not to notice.

Obi-Wan stayed still and the lake expanded even further, building in its depth and, it seemed to Padmé, intensity. She gazed at the ring in his hands, half seeing, but half feeling and wondering what he might sense within its plain makings.

An item is imprinted, however subtly, by the energies which impact it. A kyber crystal would gain imprint more than most, or so Padmé assumed. This, at least, is what she hoped for as she felt his intensity in the force broaden slowly, and as the force in Obi-Wan grew more brilliant, she began to forget about the ring. It wasn't forgetting, exactly. It was losing where she was or why she was there, or anywhere. All she felt was Him and the broad, placid expanse which was, somehow, part of him, yet connecting to everything else. She wanted to be lost in it, to dive into its deep, cool depths; submerged yet breathing and full of life. The radiance of his arm against hers seemed to pulse like a heartbeat, and she reached out to let a drop of water fall from her fingertip to his surface. It fell, it struck, and it didn't happen how she imagined it would; at the moment of contact, the lake shuddered and imploded, pulling in on itself and sucking suddenly into a vacuum, withdrawing from the room and her and everything with such speed she felt shocked by its dissipation. She realized afterward that she'd gasped.

"Why did you stop?" she said before she could think about what she was saying, and how strange it would seem, and how desperate her voice sounded.

Obi-Wan had the ring clenched tightly in his fist. She couldn't even see it anymore, and she wondered how long he'd been holding it like that. Anakin was looking at her with a pale expression.

It was then she noticed Obi-Wan's breath was uneven, perhaps belabored.

"What did you just do?!" Anakin demanded of her, as if she would have any idea what she just did, if she did anything. She felt as if she'd just emerged from a dream.

She glanced at Obi-Wan, and he hesitantly met her eyes.

"Padmé," he began, his voice a bit ragged, "It appears… as if you may have some… force sensitivity."

"No, I don't," she said immediately. It was an instant response. Perhaps she said it too quickly. Perhaps crazily, one might have described it to have been said.

Anakin was standing and staring at Padmé, his chair having been knocked backward on its side at some point which she didn't remember.

"No… I don't," she told Anakin, as if to assure him, as if somehow it would make him less agitated at the moment. She looked back at Obi-Wan, who was watching her with a certain resignation, as if to say kindly, Yes, you do.

She felt overwhelmed by the thought and withdrew in her spot and turned away from them both. Stars above! She bemoaned that this is what one gets when one chooses to keep the company of Jedi.

"No, I don't," she objected against the whole universe, blinking back tears for some reason she couldn't understand.

There was a wordless exchange of ideas to which she was only peripherally aware between Obi-Wan and Anakin which led to Anakin standing down and righting his chair and resuming his labors over his newfound droid parts, though a restless, impatient sigh escaped him.

She knew Obi-Wan was deliberating how to approach her, and she simply let him experience that discomfort, for her discomfort exceeded his. She thought it probably did, anyway.

"Padmé," said Obi-Wan and his voice filled with color as he said her name. She hated that, kind of. It was a bit torturous, and that didn't seem fair, and a tear gained enough momentum to fall down her cheek. "Padmé," he said again, as if grinding a knife into the wound.

She gathered her energy and turned to face him.

"What?" she demanded, betrayed by another tear.

He saw her and turned a shade of alarmed, chased quickly by empathy. Of course, he was filled with empathy. It was simply the worst. He reached out as if to touch her face, perhaps to wipe off a tear, but he hesitated, and then stopped suddenly and blinked at his hand.

Padmé looked down to see her tear had fallen into the palm of his hand. She felt a moment's confusion until their eyes met and she saw it. Rings after rings after rings, expanding outward upon the placid surface of the lake, bending backwards, forwards, against themselves, but always moving in a sine wave outward. The lake was no longer placid, serene… it displayed energy.

She took his hand and smoothed the tear away with her thumb, as if that would make it go away, as if that would change anything.

He gazed at her with an intensity she rarely saw in Obi-Wan.

"You are," he said, meaning she was force sensitive, that she could sense some of the things he could, that she wouldn't think he was silly or that his practice was just an archaic religion or that it meant nothing and that politics was the only place where real things happened, because this was real, this was what was truly real, this was everything and now she would know, too. She didn't know how she got all that out of those two words, but she did, or at least she thought she did, and it was remarkably scary, yet comforting at the same time.

She couldn't reply as he held her hand in his own, gripped it, even. She tried to deflect.

"What does it matter, really?" she said, glancing askance.

She knew he knew she was deflecting. Was this how it was going to be, now? She'd never be able to hide anything she was thinking or feeling from him? She wasn't sure she liked that.

"How many times have you used your own intuition to navigate politics? How many times have you used it to get things to go the way you need them to? How many times have you used it to know what your partners in politics are thinking?" he asked her, all in succession. He seemed rather excited about this.

"I don't know," she said, "I just… I was trained from birth to do those things, anyway."

He studied her a moment and, perhaps noticing her discomfort, released her hand and straightened up.

"Well," he said, smiling. "Perhaps it is all just coincidence."

Padmé didn't know what to say to his sudden change of tack.

"Let me know if, someday, you have any questions," he said, rising from the bed and unwinding the shroud from where it had lain on his shoulders.

"I do have a question," she said, pulling her knees to her chest.

"Oh?" asked Obi-Wan.

"Did you find anything on that ring?" she asked, pointing to the ring, which had been forgotten and dropped on the bedcovers.

Obi-Wan looked at the ring.

"Oh," he said, and she thought he might have turned a bit pink around the collar as he reached for it. "I… I'm afraid I did a poor job with it. I got… distracted. I should try again."

"Want to do it now?" asked Padmé.

"Ah, maybe not quite yet," he replied quickly, dodging.

Padmé felt a certain longing for the way it felt being close to Obi-Wan while he used the force; it was a certain longing that she didn't feel was particularly productive, but she felt it regardless, and was dismayed by how intense it was. When his glance met hers, she knew he felt it, too, and suddenly she had a hundred questions, but wasn't sure if any of them were appropriate to ask. She decided to ask none of them.

Standing, Padmé said: "Well, I'm certain both of you are quite tired. So am I. Shall we call it a night?"

"Enh," said Anakin, "I'm going to mess with these parts for a little while."

He'd pulled out his little droid he'd made from the last ship and appeared to be doing some sort of upgrade using the new parts he'd acquired.

"Besides," he said, "listening to the two of you bumble around with the obvious will probably give me nightmares."

"I beg your pardon!" said Padmé.

"Oh, come on," said Anakin, tossing down a miniature screwdriver and gesturing at Padmé. "You're force sensitive, get over it. It's not a big deal."

"I think it's a big deal," mentioned Obi-Wan.

"Yes, you do," said Anakin, nodding a bit too agreeably. "Yes… you… do."

Anakin narrowed his eyes at Obi-Wan, to which Obi-Wan began to look uncomfortable and cleared his throat.

"Well, then," said Obi-Wan. "Sleep it is."

He wandered away into the servant's quarters.

Anakin rolled his eyes and went back to fixing his droid, seemingly unconcerned that he was in her bedroom.

"So…," asked Padmé, "are you just going to sit here working on that while I sleep?"

"Yes," said Anakin.

"What if I object?" asked Padmé.

Anakin put down his tool and gave her a level look.

"If you object, then I'll object to you seducing my Jedi Master right in front of my face," he said.

"I did no such thing!" objected Padmé.

"I saw it," he said.

"No, you didn't," she objected again.

"I felt it," he said, the checkmate.

"If you felt anything, you must have known I didn't intend for any of this to happen," she said.

"But you couldn't help yourself, could you?" he asked, halfway to condescending. "Do you wonder why I didn't say anything?"

"Well, no, I was kind of in the middle of-," she started.

"Because I was stunned by so much disbelief I couldn't even do anything," he said, talking over her. "I couldn't believe what I was seeing – or feeling. Congratulations, Padmé. That's hard to do, because I've seen a lot of things, but this… I've never seen anything like this."

Padmé didn't know what to say.

"Padmé," said Anakin, suddenly sincere, "I'm sorry I kissed you last night. That was really dumb. I just wanted to feel something, I guess, and with all the… energy… coming off you and Obi-Wan it's er, catching. And disturbing. Plus, I've always liked you."

"What?" asked Padmé, thrown completely off-guard by Anakin's sudden change of tack and mood and confessions.

"Oh, shut up," he said. "You're beautiful, and whatever. Besides, I also sort of hate you."

"I noticed," she replied.

"Don't pretend you don't hate me, too," he said, fiddling with a spare part.

"I don't," she said, and he looked up wryly. "Okay, maybe sometimes. I mean, you're basically crazy."

"So are you, Padmé," he said, leaning an elbow on the table. "You're just better at hiding it, that's all."

"Fair point," she ceded, glancing around, considering sleep.

"Stay out of Obi-Wan's head, though," he said, soldering a part together. "You're turning him inside out. Slowly. It's kind of morbidly fascinating, to be honest. Not that I like it. It's pretty terrible. It's like you're a deadly monster that doesn't actually know it's destroying someone."

"What am I supposed to do now?" she asked.

"I don't know," said Anakin, and then he paused and appeared troubled for a moment. He looked up at her. "Want me to show you how it works? Some… pointers, I guess?"

"The force?" she asked.

He nodded.

She glanced at the door to where Obi-Wan was sleeping.

"Are you sure that'd be wise?" she asked. "It seemed kind of disastrous with him."

"He has too much skin in the game," said Anakin, as if it was no big deal. "You need to learn how to use it as a tool, and how to keep from getting lost in it. Which is what you did. Totally lost. You were like a baby. Seriously, how were you so unprepared? I was embarrassed for you."

Padmé didn't know whether to ask more questions or smack Anakin out of irritation.

"Really," she said. "Mr. Volcano-Always-Ready-To-Blow is going to teach me about control?"

"Whatever," he said, "You don't know what it's like to be me."

He had a point. She didn't.

"Fine," she ceded, and Anakin put down his tools at once to face her. He pointed at the bed.

"Sit there," he said, and once she did, he went on: "Okay, remember last night when I made you tell me that thing?"

"Yes," she said, feeling something akin to rage at the indignity of not only it happening, but him admitting it with absolutely zero remorse. "About that-,"

"We can talk about that part of it later," he said, holding up a hand to stop her from changing the subject. "I'm sorry, whatever, blah blah, anyway-,"

"I expect a proper apology later," she interjected.

"So, despite the fact that I was pretty upset," he said, completely ignoring her, "I was focused, and I got what I wanted. That's what you need."

"Focus?" she asked.

"Exactly," he said.

"I felt pretty focused," she said.

"What were you focused on?" he asked.

"Obi-Wan's force," she said.

"Right, which made you completely unaware of anything else that was happening," he said.

"What was happening?" she asked.

Anakin drew a breath and let it out as he considered how to explain it.

"Basically, it felt like a war between your will and his," he said. "You really distracted him from what he was trying to do, which was the whole ring thing. How was he supposed to focus on the ring when you were messing with him?"

"It was just so amazing!" she said.

"Yeah," said Anakin, "it is pretty amazing. But you've got to be considerate of other people's space."

"Like when you forced me to tell you that stuff last night?" she asked.

"Not my best moment," he ceded.

"You did the same thing to me, didn't you?" she asked. "But purposefully. You knew what you were doing and you did it anyway! I did it all on accident."

Anakin shifted in his chair.

"I guess, but I was… not happy and I just had to know," he said. "I just had to know. I couldn't stand it."

Padmé observed Anakin for a moment.

"I think you're dangerous," she said, and he glanced away.

"Whatever," he said. "This isn't about me. It's about you, and you're dangerous, too."

"Then tell me how to avoid doing that to Obi-Wan," she said. "I don't want to trouble him."

"Too late for that," said Anakin.

"Just show me!" she demanded.

"Fine," he said, rising and moving to sit beside her.

He was much taller than Obi-Wan, and his shoulder sat higher than hers as they sat side-by-side, but she could feel the warmth from him in the same way. He didn't feel as comfortable as Obi-Wan, though. When she sat next to Obi-Wan she felt comfort and a certain tranquility. From Anakin there was an edge, a jumpiness, and unsteadiness.

"Give me something to focus on," he said, as if she was going to produce a ring or something from thin air. She rummaged through her pockets and found a hairpin with a tiny pearl on the end and handed it over.

"There, do that," she said.

"So, I'm going to do basically the same thing Obi-Wan did," he said.

"Okay," she said.

"I want you to observe," he said. "Just observe. Try not to mess with anything. It's not polite to mess with someone's energy, you know."

"Yes, yes, I get it," she said, irritable.

Anakin closed his eyes and immediately the force shot out from him and filled the entire room's space and beyond, almost explosively, causing Padmé to catch her breath. It wasn't at all like Obi-Wan. It wasn't a lake, it wasn't fluid, or serene. It was ice; a thick, sharp, hard, unyielding plane of solid ice. Yet, beneath it was chaos, lava, roiling, threatening to erupt, rife with violent power, but kept tightly held at bay by the thick, rigid ice on the surface. How could have she messed with his force, had she even wanted to? It was terrifying.

She watched as Anakin gave the pin his full scrutiny; the pin didn't have a chance. It was to be known whether it wanted to be known or not. Like the release of a breath, he let the force go and the ice faded in an instant.

"So, you got this on Naboo, huh?" he said, handing it over.

"Oh, good gods!" she exclaimed over his excessive force powers, ignoring the hairpin.

He gave her something of a sideways grin, fully knowing that he was just that powerful.

"Good job not messing with my focus," he said.

"As if I could have!" she exclaimed.

"I guess I'm a little less fluid than my master," he admitted.

"Do they all know this about you?" she asked him. "All of the Jedi?"

"The council does, at least," he said, looking down at the pin still in his hands. "I guess they're kind of, uh… scared of me."

At that moment she saw much of what Anakin struggled with, why the sullen faces, why the constant edge of unease. She saw where his restlessness came from. She knew the nagging fear that he might be a monster and unable to change it.

"Wow, Ani," she said.

"Don't call me that," he said. "It sounds stupid."

He handed over the pin and she took it.

"So now you know," he said, standing up and stretching. "Don't mess with somebody's energy. It's rude. I'm going to bed."

"See you tomorrow," she said.

"Yeah," he agreed, and he left.

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