From that moment on, things seemed to speed up and Padmè struggled to keep up with them.
One moment she was on a shuttle directed to the spaceport, listening to Qui-Gon's final instructions to Anakin, the other she was deep in space, sitting in front of a modest dinner and listening to the Padawan's personal interpretation of the Jedi Code about love.
One moment she was paying a visit to her family in Theed, denying adamantly Anakin was her boyfriend as her sister had suggested, the next she was on a terrace overlooking a lake, her head still reeling from the deep kiss Anakin had just given her.
A kiss that, no matter his definition of love and compassion, Anakin should have never given her. A kiss that filled her with longing, but also with dread, for they could never be together.
Anakin apologized for the kiss, as if it had been only his fault, but after a few days spent without mentioning the episode, he returned to it, his eyes pleading and desperate.
"May I tell you something?" he asked one evening, stepping inside the fire-lit room.
"I don't know," she answered, tensing slightly.
"I can only think of you." Blunt, direct and to the point.
"Anakin, don't..." she tried to stop him, but her words were silenced by his passionate speech.
"From the moment I met you, all those years ago, a day hasn't gone by when I haven't thought of you. And now that I'm close to you again, I am in agony. The closer I get to you, the worse it gets. The thought of not being with you makes my stomach turn over – my mouth goes dry. I feel dizzy. I can't breathe. I'm haunted by the kiss you should never have given me. My heart is beating, hoping that kiss will not become a scar. You are in my very soul, tormenting me. What can I do? I will do anything you ask..."
Padmé stood there, silent, for what her brain knew she should say was not what her heart wanted to hear.
"If you are suffering as much as I am, tell me," Anakin pressed her, coming closer.
Padmé turned around, tormenting her hands. "I can't. We can't. It's just not possible."
"Anything's possible. Padme, please listen..."
"You listen. We live in a real world. Come back to it. You're studying to become a Jedi Knight.
I am a Senator. If you follow your thoughts through to conclusion, they will take us to a place we cannot go…regardless of the way we feel about each other."
"Then you do feel something!" Anakin's face light up. "There's an extraordinary connection between us. You can't deny that."
Yes, there was, but she had thought the same with Obi-Wan, and look how it had ended!
"Ani, it doesn't make any difference. Jedi aren't allowed to marry. You swore an oath, remember? You'd be expelled from the Order. I will not let you give up your responsibilities and your future, for me." Padmé tried to make him see reason, all the while knowing it would be to no avail.
"I was destined to be a Jedi. I don't think I could be anything else. But you are asking me to be rational. That is something I know I cannot be. I wish I could push my feelings away-- but I
can't."
Padmé shook her head and stepped away, before turning around to face him again. "I am not going to give into this. I am not going to throw my life away. I have more important things to do than fall in love." But even if she tried to speak, she knew she did not truly mean it. Her long forgotten dream of love, passion and happiness had returned to plague her again since Anakin had re-entered her life.
"It wouldn't have to be that way...we could keep it a secret."
"Then we'd be living a lie. I couldn't do that. Could you, Anakin? Could you live like that?"
"No, you're right. It would destroy us."
It seemed like a bitter irony of destiny. It was like Padmé had been back to ten years before, when she had had a similar conversation, only that now she was the one concerned about the rules and about what could happen to Anakin should they do what he wanted and he were discovered.
-----
Shortly after that discussion, Padmé and Anakin left Naboo for Tatooine, for he had been plagued by nightmares about his mother, and he desperately needed to ascertain she was all right.
She was not.
Shmi Skywalker had been kidnapped by a Tusken Raiders' tribe, and Anakin could do nothing but bring home her corpse.
She had been beaten and tortured to death and the horror of it made it easier for Padmé to understand and even forgive Anakin when he confessed to her that he had killed every single member of the tribe, women and children included.
Moved by Anakin's heartbreak, Padmé did what she could to soothe and comfort him, and forgot what Obi-Wan had told her years before about how dangerous uncontrolled anger and hate were for a Sith or a Jedi.
She did not realize the extent to which Anakin had broken his vows and betrayed his teachings. She just saw a desperate young man, who was probably too passionate and intense for his own good. A young man with a big, generous heart, a heart he wanted to give her.
Padmé sensed his need, his desire, his longing and let them carry her away. It felt good to be needed, to feel loved with such passion. To feel wanted and pursued by someone so open and ready to risk so much for her.
It was a heady feeling, and it was something Padmé was not ready to cope with. With all her experience in the political arena, she was still a novice in the matters of the heart, and it was there, on Tatooine, that Padmé fell in love with Anakin Skywalker, although she did not confess her feelings at once.
-----
She had wanted to wait for the perfect moment, but it never arrived.
Having left Tatooine for Geonosis in the hope to save Qui-Gon, who was held prisoner by Count Dooku, Padmé and Anakin were captured and sentenced to death.
Thus it was in a dark tunnel, leading to the arena where they would be executed in front of a blood-thirsty crowd that Padmé finally voiced her love.
"Don't be afraid," Anakin whispered as they were roughly hauled on an open cart pulled by a strange beast.
"I am not afraid to die. I've been dying a little bit each day since you came back into my life," she murmured softly, looking deeply into his eyes.
"What are you talking about?"
"I love you," Padmé said simply.
"You love me! I thought we decided not to fall in love. That we would be forced to live a lie. That it would destroy our lives..."
"I think our lives are about to be destroyed anyway. My love for you is a puzzle, Ani, for which I have no answers. I can't control it... and now I don't care. I truly, deeply love you, and before we die I want you to know."
Padmé leant toward Anakin, fighting against her restraints to be able to kiss him a last time.
"I have no desire to be cured of this love either. Long or short, I vow to spend the rest of my life with you," Anakin swore when their lips parted, before kissing her again as the cart started to move.
§
Padmé and Anakin did not die that day. A rescue party composed by Sith under Obi-Wan's command arrived just in time to save them and Qui-Gon. They were soon joined by Master Yoda and the Clone army Anakin's master had discovered on Kamino.
Many Sith died that day, in a battle that did not stop the war against the CIS, but made it begin, and Anakin lost his right arm and another part of his innocence to Count Dooku's red blade.
It was Obi-Wan's intervention that saved his and Qui-Gon's lives, even if he was not able to stop the Separatists' leader, but when Padmé met the Sith on the cruiser taking them home, thanking him was the last thing in her mind.
They met near the sickbay, as she was looking through a window at the bacta tank where Anakin was floating to heal from the electric bolts Dooku had invested him with.
Padmé saw Obi-Wan approach, limping slightly and nursing a bandaged arm against his chest.
Her heart filled with concern, but before she could even think about something to say, he attacked her with a hurricane of accusations.
"So now you have set your eyes on him, Senator! You didn't manage to destroy my life and career and so you are now trying to do the same to him," he hissed, his eyes steely grey.
Padmé fought the desire to let her jaw drop in stupor and decided to respond to the disdain in his voice with her anger.
"How do you dare to make such accusations, Master Kenobi! Anakin is just a friend." Liar! screamed a voice inside her, but she ignored it.
"I hope for him it is really so. And, if it is really so, you would do him a great favour by staying away. The boy is smitten with you, and if I have noticed it, it would not pass long before the Jedi do the same. Stay away from him—if you are really his friend, of course." Obi-Wan ended with a smirk.
"And that what does it mean?" she asked, referring to his tone and his last words.
"That I know you are a good liar, Senator, and that I would not be surprised if, instead of putting an end to the boy's infatuation you decided to go along with it."
"He's not a boy! He's a man!" Padmé exploded. "And why do you call it infatuation? It's love! He's willing to break the rules for me, you know? He's willing to risk his life to be with me—something you have not been!"
Obi-Wan shook his head, his anger replaced by pity. "You are pathetic. You should hear yourself as you speak. Grow up, Padmé! The Jedi Council will discover you and expel him from the order—and then, what will you do?"
Padmé's hand connected sharply with his bearded cheek, but he did not even flitch. "How do you dare to call me pathetic!" she hissed.
Obi-Wan just shook his head. "Hitting me will not change the truth. Leave young Skywalker alone, or you will end up ruining his life—your lives." His voice was now softer, with no disdain, as if he was really concerned, but that part of Padmé that was still hurt by the abrupt way he had left her on Naboo refused to acknowledge it.
Instead, she lashed against him. "You know what I think, Obi-Wan? I think you are jealous. You are jealous of Anakin because he has now what you were not man enough to take when it was offered to you."
They were words said with the intent to hurt him, to cause as much emotional damage to a man that had not done nothing more but warn her. Padmé was not proud about them, but it was too late to take them back.
Obi-Wan paled, and she saw his jaw work as his eyes flashed with anger. She thought for a moment he was going to strike her, but he did not.
When he spoke there was no anger in his tone, only regret. "If I remember correctly, I offered you my undying love and you did not take it. If staying true to my principles makes me less than a man in your eyes, then so be it. May the Force be with you, Senator."
Obi-Wan turned around and walked away, his head up, his back ramrod straight, but his limp was more noticeable.
Padmé watched him leave her in silence, stubbornly suffocating the need to run to him and ask him to forgive her.
§
Obi-Wan walked away slowly, his wounded leg hurting more than before. Or was it not his leg, but his heart that hurt so much?
'You are jealous,' Padmé's words echoed in him mind. Was he really?
The most honourable part of himself would have liked to emphatically deny it, but he was honest enough to admit that yes, he was jealous. Or better, envious, for Skywalker was going to have the woman he had longed for ten years.
Padmé had been very clear about it. Skywalker was going to break the rules for her, as he had been unable to do, and she was going to belong with him. Obi-Wan had seen it in her passion-filled eyes, heard it in her determined voice and sensed it in the Force. Nothing he could say or do would stop her.
Obi-Wan paused and leant his forehead against the ship window, looking at the stars flashing by.
He should have not talked to her so aggressively. He should have not let her think his words had been dictated by jealousy, even if it was not totally incorrect.
He should have approached her more calmly, but the need to prevent her from committing a mistake had been too strong—as the fear he had felt when he had seen her chained in the arena on Geonosis.
He had acted with an impulsivity unbefitting a Sith master, and the only result he had obtained was to push her more firmly into Skywalker's arms.
Obi-Wan did not completely trust the young man. He had sensed from the start that he was dangerous and his opinion had not changed.
He had alerted Qui-Gon about the risks of training a boy so old and shaped by a different life style, but his words had not been listened to.
Along the years, Obi-Wan had met and worked near Qui-Gon and Skywalker several times, for they made an excellent Sith-Jedi team. They had gone on missions together, but while he posed an unconditional faith in Qui-Gon as a partner and comrade in arms, he was not as sure about his teaching methods.
He thought Qui-Gon was too lenient with his Padawan. Too ready to praise him and remind the boy how special he was.
Obi-Wan had watched, frowned in disapproval, but kept silent for Qui-Gon had made clear he did not like to received unwanted advice, especially from a man who had never taken a padawan learner.
Obi-Wan had observed Skywalker become more powerful but also more arrogant—an arrogance not even a Sith master would approve, for it was not balanced by an equally strong commitment to the way of life the boy had vowed to follow.
Skywalker was animated by the need to do well, and that was positive, but he had little control, and Qui-Gon seemed blind to his fault.
And now…now Skywalker was clearly in love with Padmé and he would not be stopped by the rules of his order. He would not renounce his attachment.
Obi-Wan sighed. What was he going to do? Alert Qui-Gon? Report Skywalker to the Jedi Council? Have him expelled from the Jedi Order?
No, he thought, it would be a bad mistake.
Not only Padmé would come to hate him, something he could not bear, but Skywalker, enraged and embittered with both the Sith and Jedi would become an easy prey for the Dark Lords.
No, Skywalker had to remain a Jedi. That way he would be kept under control or at least checked over by the council, while Obi-Wan would also keep an eye on him…and Padmé.
He would be discreet, invisible, silent—but he would be there, watching over her.
Darkness was spreading in the galaxy and Obi-Wan would not allow it to swallow that bright light that was Padmé.
Never.
