A/N: Yet another new story. This one wont be all that long. It came to me in a dream and will be my first pure romance fic...
I know that some of you have already guessed the revelation in this chapter but please, if you haven't and you hoped it wasn't true, don't be upset with me.
Charlie.
Padmè had just finished selecting a holobook from the library and was about to go back to her room to change into something to lounge around in on the veranda when she noticed men carrying crates out of Aidia's room. Curious, she went to inspect it and saw a pile of toys on the middle of the floor in Aidia's room, none of them looking brand new, while servants put clothes away and other necessities. A gleeful giggling emerged from within the toy pile before Aidia popped out of it, playing with the toys. Padmè set the holobook down on a table and knelt down before the child. "What is all of this?" she asked.
"Lord Vader has retrieved the child's belongings from the capital, Milady," a servant informed her as she put clothes away.
"I see," Padmè replied, seeing the logic in it. She turned back to the child to see her hugging a model fighter to her. "That's an odd toy for a little girl," she said.
"It's a birthday present," Aidia told her, her love for the toy clear in her voice.
"From who?" Padmè asked.
"A. S.," Aidia answered. "My mommy told me that he was a friend who protects us. He used to send us money and always sent me lots of presents!"
"A. S.?" Padmè questioned. The letters said so little and could mean anything and yet so much.
Aidia nodded. "The cards always said: A. S.," she said.
"I have an idea," Padmè told her. "What do you say about going swimming?" she asked.
Aidia brightened at the prospect. "Can I bring toys?" she asked excitedly.
"You can bring anything you would like," Padmè told her. She stood up and addressed one of the servants. "Can one of you make sure that she's in a swimsuit?" she asked.
"Yes, Milady," one of the servants answered, walking over to the child after selecting a swimsuit from the collection.
Padmè looked back to Aidia. "I'm going to get changed, alright," she said, collecting the holobook and leaving the room.
*~*~*
Vader had just exited his office to grab something from the kitchen when he saw Aidia in the hall, dancing and making toy fighters fly in the air. He was about to turn away when one of the toy fighters collided with a clay vase that had painted symbols from his mother's home world on it and the vase fell over, crashing to the floor, smashing to pieces. Aidia froze, almost in fear as she saw him, seeing the angry expression on his face, she bent, dropped the toys, and went to pick the pieces up to piece the vase back together.
Vader briskly walked over and yanked the pieces from her hands. "Don't you know better than to fling objects in the air?" he demanded, a lot harsher than he had meant it.
"I'm sorry," Aidia said meekly.
"See what happens when you do so? You break things!" Vader told her, picking the broken pieces off of the floor.
"I'm sorry," Aidia repeated, about to cry.
"Do you know how irreplaceable this was??" Vader demanded, handling the broken pieces.
"I didn't mean to break it," Aidia told him, tears in her eyes.
"You shouldn't have been playing with things in mid air!" Vader reprimanded her.
"That's enough!" Padmè snapped, walking briskly up to him. "She's only a child, not one of the men who serves under you, you should be more gentle and forgivable," she snapped. She bent and scooped Aidia up in her arms before grabbing the toys. "Come on, sweetie, lets go swimming, okay," she said to the child, taking her away from Vader who was left to pick up the broken pieces of the vase.
Vader picked up the rest of the pieces of the vase and walked back into his office, hesitating before putting them in the waste basket.
"Here, Ani, take this. I know that you know what the symbols mean," Shmi said, handing him a clay vase.
"Safe, I know," Anakin replied, taking the vase.
"You will return, won't you, Ani?" Shmi asked.
Anakin offered her a smile. "Of course I will," he answered before Shmi pulled him into an embrace.
"Stay safe, Ani," Shmi whispered.
Vader decided against throwing the pieces away and instead placed them in a drawer and walked to a window that overlooked the veranda and pool deck in time to see Padmè take off her robe revealing her two piece swimsuit that left little to the imagination in his opinion and it took his breath away. He lingered at his spot, watching her, before tearing himself away, knowing that whatever he caught himself feeling, he knew it couldn't be.
*~*~*
Vader walked out of the refresher after showering to find the door to his room open. With a wave of his hand he closed it, his mind trying to think of why it was open when he had closed it upon entering the room. He walked over to the bed where a fresh set of clothes laid to get dressed when he noticed that his lightsaber was missing from the bedside table where he had left it. His lightsaber wasn't where he had left it and his door was open, there really was only one logical conclusion, someone had taken it. As he hurriedly got dressed, Vader ran down the list of possible suspects. Who would take it and be careless enough to leave his door open? His men knew better, his servants knew better. He knew that Senator Amidala wouldn't have done so without closing the door, but she also had too much class to try something as underhandedly such as this. He wasn't all that sure about the handmaiden though. Once he was finished getting dressed, he briskly walked out of the room and walked through the hall, ready to question the handmaiden when a sight from an open door stopped him. There in the midst of a bunch of toys, that were strewn about the floor, sat Aidia, cross legged, and examining his lightsaber like it was some glorious find.
Briskly he walked into the room and snatched his lightsaber out of her hands before she ignited it and the blade did some serious damage. "What are you doing with this??" he demanded.
Aidia stood up and made a grab for the lightsaber. "Mine!" she cried.
"No! It belongs to me!" Vader told her.
"I wan' it, Mine!" Aidia cried, stomping her foot, starting to go into a temper tantrum.
"Stop it!" Vader commanded.
"No! Gimme back! Mine!" Aidia cried stubbornly, wildly grabbing for the lightsaber.
Vader quickly put the lightsaber out of her reach and grasped her arm, pulling her to a chair to set her down while she started in on a crying fit. Unfortunately for him, Padmè walked in just as he put the child in a chair while she screamed her head off.
"What are you doing??" Padmè demanded, putting herself between him and the child, who had instantly stopped screaming but looked at Padmè with a tear stained face.
Vader didn't answer her for he didn't believe that he needed to explain himself to her. "You deal with this," he told her, walking out of the room with a firm grip on his lightsaber. He hadn't counted on her following him.
"I have never seen anyone mistreat a defenseless child as I have seen you treat Aidia!" Padmè told him hotly.
Vader stopped suddenly and turned to face her. "Mistreat?? What do you call mistreating a child, Senator? Taking this away?" He demanded, holding his lightsaber up.
Padmè wasn't about to tell him that he was right on that part but he already knew that. "You are completely unfit to be in charge of her! You're not only cold, indifferent, and insensitive, but your short temper is less to be desired for when handling children!" she told him.
"Are you done?" Vader asked, crossing his arms.
"No I am not done!" Padmè answered. "That little girl just lost her mother and she has no one but for some unforeseeable reason her mother left you in charge. If you cannot bring yourself to change your demeanor for one moment, then maybe you should put her in someone else's charge," she told him.
"Need I remind you that this is my property and that you are a guest. I can easily force you to leave and to fend for yourself against the Emperor's assassins. If you wish to remain safely here then I suggest that you do not question this matter again," Vader told her, turning back around and leaving her in the hall fuming in frustration.
*~*~*
Dinner that evening was a strained event for Aidia was sulking and neither Padmè or Vader were speaking to each other. Not that it was all the unusual for Vader not to be cordial or enter into a polite conversation, but Padmè had always, up until this evening, made several attempts to draw him out and into a conversation. Dormè looked at her mistress in askance, unaware of what had transpired earlier.
"Milady, is something wrong?" Dormè asked.
"Why do you ask?" Padmè replied, taking a sip of the emerald wine from her goblet.
"I can just see that something is wrong," Dormè told her, always one to be intuitive.
At this, Vader had finished his meal and signaled to Adriana to take his plate away before standing up to leave.
Dormè saw her mistress try not to watch him leave and she knew that something had happened between the two of them. "Milady, did something happen...?" she asked.
"Nothing happened, Dormè," Padmè told her, interrupting her.
Padmè turned to Aidia then. "You should stop sulking and eat before it gets cold," she told the child.
Aidia frowned, but did as she was told, her three-year-old mind trying to think up a way to get what she wanted.
*~*~*
Padmè turned the lights off in the refresher and exited it to return to bed, only to be startled by the fact that Vader was sitting in a chair watching her, a glass of whiskey in his hand, as though he had been waiting for her. "Just because this is your property and I am merely a guest does not give you the right to invade my privacy," she told him briskly.
He merely took a sip from his glass before making a response. "You really think that I shouldn't have taken charge of Aidia?" he asked calmly.
"I have already said my peace on the matter," Padmè told him dismissively.
"Well I haven't. You forced me to listen to your little tirade, now it is your turn to listen," he told her. "You wonder why any mother would put her child in the care of someone like me, like I am unfit for such a job but truth be told, Senator, you truly have absolutely no idea what Ingrid's reasons were," he told her.
"I do have to wonder why she would trust you with her child, whom you have had no interaction with before," she told him.
"Ingrid and I have had a history, she knew what I am capable of," Vader told her.
"What kind of history?" Padmè asked.
Vader took another sip from his glass. "Not the kind that would please someone like you," he told her.
"Try me?" Padmè told him, crossing her arms.
"Ingrid was married to a man who abandoned the Jedi Order before he could be knighted. Because he wasn't a Jedi during the purge, he escaped. Because he did have training he needed to be eliminated but doing so legally was impossible so I decided to get him into a duel of what you call honor by bedding his wife," he told her, having no shame in what he did.
"You killed him? And she let you take her child?" Padmè demanded appalled.
"My plan didn't work," Vader corrected her. "I ended up caring for her and, knowing that wouldn't please the Emperor, I stepped away, but her husband found out. The coward didn't do anything about it until several months later when he up and vanished," he told her.
"And did you tell her that you were sorry?" Padmè demanded.
"No, because I wasn't, and neither was she," Vader told her.
"I still don't think that you should have charge of the child, no matter if her mother trusted you, because you can't bring yourself to show her any compassion," Padmè told him.
"It is my right to have her because she's mine," Vader told her.
Padmè was in shock, having not expected this. A retort died in her throat at that very moment.
Vader stood. "Next time you go into a tirade, be sure to have all the facts first," he told her, taking his leave.
Padmè watched him leave, hardly believing that the sweet little girl she had been taking care of came from him, but she didn't deny it, Aidia was too much like the little boy she used to know all those years ago.
*~*~*
Padmè sat at breakfast the next morning, quietly contemplating the previous nights revelation. The fact that Vader was in fact Aidia's father was just too alien. She spent many minutes looking between the two, noting the physical similarities. Aidia's hair was the same exact shade that Anakin's was when she first met him and she had the same eyes. There were also several facial similarities. And it wasn't just physical similarities, there were characteristic similarities. Aidia reminded her so much of how Anakin used to be, and just as gifted.
The fact that Vader was capable of fathering children hadn't once occurred to her, and the idea that he was capable of being a father occurred to her even less. It wasn't that he wasn't attractive, quite the opposite. Padmè eyed Vader inconspicuously as though she was appraising him. He was attractive, far more than she had ever taken notice of before. His hair, while darker than she remembered, nearly reached his shoulders and had slight waves to it. His eyes were the same, but held so much to them, but remained hidden most of the time. Right about now, he wore just a thin tunic and she could see muscle definition through it and he had an aura of physical power about him. Other thoughts, more racier thoughts, entered her mind against her wishes and she forced herself to look away, forcing the thoughts from her head.
"Are you alright, Milady?" Dormè quietly asked from beside her.
Padmè snapped out of her thoughts to look at her. "I'm fine," she answered.
"You seem distracted," Dormè told her.
"I'm just thinking about how my absence is being explained," Padmè lied.
"What must the Queen think?" Dormè agreed.
"Your representative has explained to the senate that a family emergency has come up," Vader told them, speaking up.
"At least Jar Jar had to foresight to do so," Dormè breathed.
"I instructed him to do so," Vader told them. "I didn't think that he had the brains to do so by himself."
Padmè frowned. "Jar Jar is quite capable of..." she began.
"He is clumsy, gullible, and foolish," Vader countered, interrupting her, finishing his meal before standing up to leave the dining room.
Padmè watched him go, her eyes watching him intently of their own violation. She turned back to Dormè who had been speaking.
"I think that you should try to contact Jar Jar somehow to let him know that you are safe," Dormé told her.
"That is if it is safe to contact anyone," Padmè replied.
*~*~*
Vader sat in his office in order to avoid everyone in the villa . He was waiting for his lawyer to contact him. Vader was sure that if there was a law protecting the senator, his lawyer would find it. Vader had painstakingly searched for the most shrewd and sharp lawyer on Coruscant years ago, paying the man a substantial amount of money and anything that the man asked for other than money to ensure that he was loyal to him first and foremost.
Vader spotted something on the floor under his desk and bent to pick it up, finding it to be a drawing of some sort, a child's drawing. He barely looked at it before stuffing it in a drawer just in time for a communication to come in. Vader's lawyer, a polished looking green male twi'lek named Drelanl'eysron, appeared on the screen. "Did you find anything?" Vader demanded.
"Forgive me My Lord, but I haven't found any loop holes that would grant the senator permanent immunity. As an Imperial senator there are no such laws protecting her. Unfortunately, laws giving a person immunity only applies to the royal family," the lawyer informed him.
"The Emperor has no family," Vader pointed out crossly.
"My Lord, this law protects you since you are the emperor's sole heir," the lawyer countered.
"What good does that do to Senator Amidala?" Vader demanded.
"Forgive me, My Lord, for suggesting this, but should you marry...immunity would befall your wife as well," the lawyer suggested rather meekly.
Vader was silent for a moment as he digested this. He knew that if he followed through with the suggestion, that it would put her at even more risk, but it also would protect her legally. Yet, Palpatine never really stopped or hesitated when laws blocked him from what he wanted. The annihilation of the Jedi, the war, and the occupation of Naboo by the Trade Federation, was proof enough. "If that is all that you can think of, then there really is nothing. But speak of this to no one or it will not only be Senator Amidala's life that should be worried about," he finally said before closing off the transmission. He leaned back in his seat, thinking it over.
However he didn't get to think for long when another signal was coming through and the face of one of his agents showed himself. "What is it?" Vader demanded.
"Nice to see you too," Jix said.
"Just get to the point, I'm not in the mood for pleasantries," Vader told him.
"Compared to what?" Jix asked.
"What have you learned?" Vader demanded.
"Some reports have reached the emperor of you leading a woman and child through the twenty-second district. The woman is unidentified as of yet as well as the child. The emperor has given orders to find the child, bring her to him and to kill the woman," Jix informed him.
Vader couldn't stop the cold feeling from overcoming him and was silent. He knows about Aidia. Vader wasn't a fool, he knew what the emperor wanted and it not only made him feel cold but it sickened him. "Has he given orders to have me followed yet?" he asked after a long pause.
"Not according to our intelligence. But it might be a good idea to shake some tail just in case," Jix answered.
"Continue finding information and keep me posted," Vader commanded.
"Will do," Jix told him before closing off the transmission.
Vader sat back in his chair in thought, he knew that at the first opening, he would make his move and when he did... His thoughts turned to the other's in the villa and what he was going to do about them. Silently, he opened one of the drawers in the desk and pulled out the drawing, seeing what it was, a stick figure family, a man, a woman, a child and a figure up in the sky. Under the figures was the words, 'Daddy', 'Aidia', and 'Padmè'. The figure in the sky was labeled 'Mommy'. It was very clear to him that even at such a young age, Aidia was very intuitive and he knew what he would be doing just by looking at the drawing.
*~*~*
Padmè sat out on the veranda, sipping tea. Dormè had taken Aidia out on a nature trail for an hour, Leaving Padmè alone with Vader and a few guards. Her mind was still wrapping around the idea of Vader having a child. He never displayed any of the characteristics of being a father, that is if he even knew how. She remembered that he didn't have one of his own to get an example of how to be one. But other than telling her that he was Aidia's father, he never made the fact known. Padmè wasn't deluding herself, she knew the reason why. The emperor would surely have the innocent child killed. That fact alone made Padmè entertain the idea that Vader cared deeply about what happened to Aidia, which explained why he didn't openly claim her. But the child was carefully kept hidden now, why not privately claim her?
She started out of her thoughts when a plate of cookies was set on the table in front of her. She looked up to see Vader take a seat opposite of her. She didn't say anything, she waited for him to make the first move.
"I may have the solution to make you legally untouchable," he told her.
"And what would that be?" Padmè asked.
"That you become my wife. I am the next in line to the Imperial throne, any ploy against either my life or my wife would be high treason, punishable by death and you would be well protected," Vader told her.
"Is that my only option?" Padmè asked.
"You could wait to be safe until the Emperor is dead, but the time between is uncertain," Vader answered.
"And what would make you certain that I would willing choose to marry you, for whatever pretense?" Padmè asked.
"I am sure that you have figured out by now that I cannot openly claim Aidia as mine yet, but when I do, she would need a mother. You are already good with her and she obviously likes you..." He stopped, looking her in the eye.
"So you do care about something other than destruction," Padmè commented, taking a cookie.
"You really think that I am devoid of feelings?" he demanded.
"You never show any, it is a logical assumption," she told him.
"I stayed away from my own child until now to protect her from the Empire, but that didn't work. The Emperor knows that I have a child hidden from him now and is already plotting against me to take her so that he can use her against me. Do you think that doesn't bother me?" Vader demanded.
Padmè looked at him, horrified at the mere thought. "Why do you serve him?" she demanded.
"It isn't my choice to do so. When the Jedi sent me back to Tatooine, he had men attack the ship I was on to bring me to him, he payed them a hefty price for doing the job, effectively making me his slave," Vader told her. "Being a slave to a Sith Lord makes being a slave to the hutts something to strive for," he told her darkly.
Padmè looked at him, finally understanding why he was the way he is and what had happened to the little boy she once knew. "Anakin..."
"Your pity is not welcome," Vader told her. "Do we have a deal?" he asked.
"Deal?" Padmè questioned.
"We both win something if we were to be wed. You would get legal immunity from any harm, my daughter would get a mother," he told her.
"Only if you start acting like her father, even if it is only while we're here," Padmè told him.
"Fine," Vader agreed. "I will have a holy man summoned here to officiate the ceremony tomorrow," he told her, standing up.
Padmè had stopped paying attention to him when she saw Dormè and Aidia standing by and knew that they hard heard them making the deal.
Vader saw them too and gestured for Aidia to come with him, which she did instantly, as he left the terrace.
Once they were gone, Dormè was at her mistress's side immediately. "Milady, you cannot be serious!" she exclaimed.
"You will not talk me out of this, Dormè. It is the only way. Besides, Aidia needs me," Padmè told her.
"But, Milady, why not just ask for the child's custody to be transfered to you? Why do you have to marry that man to do so?" Dormè asked.
"Because he's Aidia's father, Dormè, I wouldn't be able to do so without marrying him first," Padmè told her.
Dormè gaped. "Are you sure?" she asked.
"I can see it," Padmè told her. "He's not lying."
"That poor child," Dormè said.
"I know that you don't see it, but I can see that he loves her, he just doesn't know how to show it," Padmè told her.
"Milady, you're not thinking that...that you can change him, are you?" Dormè asked aghast.
"I'm not sure," Padmè admitted.