Padmé watched - shell shocked - as Obi-Wan walked into her apartment. It wasn't until she heard the door to the 'fresher slide closed that she realized she'd been holding her breath; she let it all out, gasping in again while coming to terms with what had just happened.

He knew .

Obi-Wan Kenobi, the man that Anakin had been so terrified of discovering their secret for so long, had known all along. Padmé felt slightly light-headed, and she looked back to her sleeping husband. Her logical, rational half argued that Obi-Wan likely only suspected - but her emotional half was giddy. It took far too long for her to recognize that the giddiness was from relief.

Who cared how much Obi-Wan knew? He knew something, suspected something - it didn't matter! He'd brought Anakin here when her pig-headed husband had asked, and that told her everything she needed to know about the Jedi. She'd known Obi-Wan for years; he was sometimes uptight, and she knew he liked to follow the rules. The fact that he was here now …

And he'd even said-

Padmé felt her face heat up at the remembrance. Did he really think so little of her to the point where he'd accuse her of indiscretion? She pointedly ignored the fact that if he suspected (which he clearly did) something about their relationship, it was likely due to indiscretion. Then she looked at her husband, letting her eyes trace the tired lines of his face …

Well.

No one was looking.

She allowed her hand to snake its way into Anakin's hair, which was slightly damp at the nape of his neck. She frowned at that. His skin felt clammy, and she recognized many of the same physical signs of shock and panic that often gripped her husband after his nightmares. "Oh, Ani." She spoke softly. "Why is it always you?"

His breathing hitched for a moment in his sleep, his eyelids flickering as though he'd heard her, and her frown deepened when a tear escaped his eye, sliding onto his cheek and catching the light of the sunset. Obi-Wan had been borderline panicking (almost unheard-of for the unflappable Jedi) and now she knew why. Whatever had caused this - whatever Anakin was suffering from - was abnormal.

She had no desire to wake him up, content to leave her hand tangled in his hair as she gently kissed the tear off of his cheek. Anakin, Obi-Wan, Ahsoka … they all needed rest. She didn't have to look at them for very long before it became clear. Anakin and Ahsoka both looked the worst, having clearly lost much sleep and weight after Obi-Wan's fake funeral. Obi-Wan didn't look much better, though the fact that his hair had grown back certainly helped.

Padmé wondered if her husband's collapse had something to do with that awful charade. She'd had a few nightmares about it herself, and had even made Anakin promise never to do anything like it. He'd promised, of course. Almost venomously, he'd spat that he would never do that to her. His anger was sometimes terrifying, and yet in that moment she'd taken a lot of comfort from it.

"You're not allowed to die for real either, Ani." She lectured gently, shifting so that she was leaning against the speeder more comfortably. "Not you, and not Obi-Wan, and not Ahsoka." She leaned down, then, letting her head lean against his. "We need each other too much."

"N-not you, either." His voice was so soft - rough with emotion - she almost didn't catch it.

"How long have you been awake?" She kept her own voice low, feeling guilty for waking him, and yet basking in his love.

His arms came up around her, and she allowed herself to be pulled into the speeder, settling on his lap with her legs dangling out. Their heads always stayed close together, but now he was facing her. Tears were streaming down his face, and she felt her own eyes fill in response. "I've been awake long enough to know that I love you more than anything else in the entire galaxy." His words barely made it out of his mouth, it sounded like they were getting stuck in his throat.

"Ani, what's wrong? Obi-Wan said you saw a vision; what happened in it?" She asked it gently, and was alarmed when he began to shake, tears pouring out while his breathing quickened. She didn't wait for a response, swiftly pulling him in, making her hug firm and rocking him gently. "Hey, you're here. You're with me. Obi-Wan is here, Ahsoka is here, it's all going to be-"

He pulled back from her grip, his eyes wide with- horror? "Ahsoka is here?"

"She came here worried about you." Padmé chided with a nod, rubbing his arms and shoulders as he continued to shake. In an effort to try and calm him, she added. "Did you tell Obi-Wan about us, Anakin?"

The question did its work in distracting him, and he gave a frown in her direction, his breathing still uneven and his eyes still shining with tears. "No. But he knows something." He didn't seem particularly worried about it, which surprised her, but she supposed that his vision was still the first thing on his mind.

"You know, Threepio shut down earlier today, and I had planned on asking you to take a look at him."

Judging from the expression on his face, he knew exactly what she was trying to do. But instead of getting annoyed with her for trying to distract him, he murmured, "I love you so much ."

Then he kissed her.

It was long and deep - not surprising, knowing her husband - but there was a desperate edge to it that she'd never felt from him before. His arms wrapped around her, tightening almost to the point of discomfort, and the desperation grew. Padmé was more than willing to kiss her husband on the best of days, and after the scare she'd had when Ahsoka had come and revealed that Anakin wasn't well she was just as willing to kiss him today. It was a kiss of comfort for both of them, she imagined.

Anakin had once told her that her kisses were more powerful than the Force, and that if he could kiss her more often he'd surely be invincible. Padmé - despite knowing that it was folly (not to mention ridiculously sappy) - had absolutely loved that analogy and acknowledgment, and would give him 'kisses for strength' whenever she could.

Yet as this kiss continued to deepen, and his arms began to constrict even more, she felt her fear from earlier returning. She knew she needed to stop; she was being selfish, using him for comfort when she knew that he needed real help. Mere comfort and a kiss wasn't going to be enough for him-

Anakin was the one who broke it off, to her surprise - as suddenly as he had instigated it. His face was red and he was breathing hard, his eyes shining with determination as they met hers. "Padmé." His voice was croaky with emotion, yet heavy with purpose, and she wondered if he actually had somehow taken energy from their kiss. "You were always the smartest person I ever knew-"

She could tell that he was leading somewhere with that, but couldn't help smiling as she panted back, "Why the past tense, Ani? I'm still the smartest person you know."

His laugh - the one that she expected from her very typical joke - never manifested itself, and his lips suddenly pressed into a hard line. "Padmé. I need your help." The seriousness of his tone brought her down from the kiss, and she sobered up almost immediately. His tears had stopped, and his reddened eyes had taken on the appearance of steel.

"You know I'd do anything for you." She spoke softly, allowing her genuine love to flood her normally more professional and brusque tone.

"Then go into hiding."

"What ?!" She pulled back from him, a spark of anger bouncing off of her subconscious as she tried to compute what he'd said.

"Go into hiding." He repeated it, his voice low and serious. "You are in danger, and I will not hurt …" He paused, seeming to reconsider his words. "I will not see you get hurt. You must go into hiding; I will-"

Padmé had heard enough. "Anakin Skywalker, don't you dare try to push me behind a barricade and handle whatever you're dealing with alone." She shoved at him huffily, attempting to pull her legs into the speeder so she could sit next to him rather than on him, but was thwarted when he grabbed her around each arm firmly to keep her from squirming. "I am your wife and I don't care how dangerous your vision said it would be, I-!"

"Padmé ." Anakin was angry. She could see it in his eyes. Yet his voice didn't go up at all, and for some reason it stopped her more quickly than any shout ever could have. "You will go into hiding or I will hide you myself, but I will not risk you again for as long as I live."

There was a long moment of silence where Padmé wasn't quite sure what she should say to that. She was breathing hard again, but now it was for an entirely different reason; it took her a couple of calming breaths before she was able to speak as levelly as he had. "And how long will you survive if I leave you alone?"

There was a flicker in his expression - where his eyes appeared to age many years - before he responded with all the emotion of a droid. "Too long."

Everything about that answer scared her, from his stiff posture, to his light trembling, to his empty and colorless gaze. His tears had subsided since their kiss, but they seemed to have been replaced by a man made of suffering and pain - no other emotions existed. This was the man that had Obi-Wan on the verge of a panic-attack, and must have been the man that Ahsoka had felt, for her to ever refer to Anakin as 'broken.'

Padmé wished that she had never seen him.

"Ani ..." She began to speak hesitantly, not wanting him to get angry again, but unable to bear facing this empty version of him for even a moment longer. "Ani, what did you see in your vision? We can fight it together; you don't have to do it alone. You never have to fight alone."

His eyes were still old. Empty and cold, they stared back at her for a long moment before he responded. His voice was clipped and his intonation strange. "I saw your death." She had expected something like that, but it was still like a slap to the face to hear him say it so calmly. "I watched the republic die. From children-" Here, his voice shook, "to planets. Nothing was spared. I will not see it happen again."

Padmé was surprised to see that his shaking had calmed down, and if she hadn't known any better - if she couldn't feel him, his hands on her arms - she could have believed he was a statue. She, on the other hand, shivered as the temperature suddenly seemed to drop. "A-Ani." She fought against the feeling of dread that seemed to surround her, penetrating the atmosphere with that horrible sense of suffering . "None of that happened. It was just a vision, and there has to be a way to stop it-!"

"I will prevent it all." His voice was so cold, she could hardly believe that she was talking to the same man that she'd started the conversation with. "But first you will be safe. It cannot be on Naboo; that planet is the first one they will go to when they search. You will need to disappear-"

"Anakin, hiding me is not a solution-!"

Suddenly his head whipped around, and then he was gently picking her up and putting her down outside of the speeder again. "Kenobi is coming." He murmured, and she automatically straightened up, smoothing out her dress and making sure she bore no signs of … physical intimacy (whether Obi-Wan knew or not, she was not going to give him more ammunition).

Anakin pulled himself out of the speeder behind her to stand at her side, leaning back on the vehicle heavily. His chin was tilted up, and his face remained cold and blank. Padmé took a judicious step away from him, clasping her hands in front of herself as the 'fresher door sounded.

Obi-Wan emerged, sparing a glance deeper into the apartment before striding towards them. His mouth opened just as Padmé opened hers, and she knew it was likely for exactly the same reason; neither of them wanted to suffer silence while Anakin was dealing with his vision. Silence would leave too much room for thought.

Yet, to her eternal surprise (and Obi-Wan's, she would wager), Anakin was the one who spoke first. "What did the Jedi Council have to say?"

The question clearly caught Obi-Wan off-guard, and Padmé tried to recall if she'd said anything about the older Jedi contacting the council to Anakin. … She didn't think she had.

"They want to speak with you about the disturbance in the Force." Obi-Wan's eyes seemed to be trying to say more than his mouth was willing, and (as usual) Anakin seemed to understand it. His lips thinned again, and Padmé saw his eyes flash in annoyance.

"How utterly predictable, though it sounds deceptively straightforward."

Here Obi-Wan paused, then spoke carefully. "After that they want you to visit the mind-healers. Ahsoka, too."

Anakin's eyes narrowed, and his right arm (the one he was practically holding himself up with) shook. "I find it highly unlikely that they didn't order you to go as well, Kenobi. I see your obfuscation of the truth is as consistent as it ever was."

Something about the way he'd said that sent another chill through Padmé, and the crease between Obi-Wan's eyebrows deepened. "You did say that you would come to the healers, Anakin."

"I did." The voice didn't sound like Anakin, all taut vowels and clipped consonants. "And I will keep my promise. But I will not tolerate interrogation from the Council."

"It will not be an interrogation. Anakin- "

"The Jedi can use as many euphemisms as they like; it won't absolve them of their-" Anakin suddenly cut himself off, sinking down to the ground to lean against the speeder. His breath was coming faster, and his eyes were shining. "I- I can't talk to them ... Padmé …" He looked up at her beseechingly, and she bit her lip. A sidelong glance and she could see Obi-Wan watching her husband, appearing to be seconds away from kneeling down to hold him.

She was in the same predicament, herself, but was torn between their lie and their love. In the end, the decision was made for her, as she watched her husband crumble to pieces. Tears were leaking out of his closed eyes, and the speeder groaned where his right hand still gripped it.

She knelt down and embraced him, letting him wrap his arms back around her as he silently cried. "We need you, Ani. Just like you need us ." She murmured into his ear. " Please don't push us away."

"I can't- … I- … I shouldn't talk to the council …"

Obi-Wan, at some point, had crouched down beside them (not seeming to mind their intimacy at all), and his expression was more earnest than Padmé had ever seen before. "Why-ever not?"

"Because he'll know ." Came the very soft reply.

"He?" Padmé pulled back from their embrace, and Obi-Wan leaned in.

"Who do you mean, Anakin?"

Anakin's entire body seemed to stiffen at the question, and the speeder's metal groaned under the force of his right hand. He opened his mouth to speak, but all three of them ended up jumping when Ahsoka's voice sounded loudly from the door to the apartment.

"Why didn't anyone wake me up?!"

I know that this has taken me QUITE a while. I'm so sorry. It's hard for me to write for a fandom that I'm currently not into, and I accidentally watched a Merlin episode in, like, the end of October, and it killed my motivation.

Then I got a Nintendo Switch, and so I'll admit that I've been gaming quite a bit.

On the writing side of things, I really wanted to do the reunion between Padmé and Anakin justice. They deserve as much. I agonized over whether or not it was too cheesy, and decided that for them, cheese is par for the course. I also tried to respect the Vader side of him; I'm still not sure if I'm quite pleased with how it came out, but I do hope that you all enjoy it.

Thank you all for your patience - I don't drop fics, so even when I'm slow, just know that it will eventually come.