A/N: This turned out differently to what I had in mind. I had this chapter planned out to the T, but then that angst-loving part of me decided to take control and then this was born. I like it, but I don't know if you will. Honestly, I think it's the only practical 'resolution'... but writing this made me feel incredibly sad.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy it xx

What have you done? That same accusation rang in her ears over and over as Padme sat on her bed, cross-legged, with Clovis' letter in her hand. Tear drops stained the card, from the excessive sobbing she had only just recovered from since Anakin had left. She couldn't believe what had happened. When she'd first thought about raising the subject of Clovis, she had not expected it to end like this; Anakin growing obnoxious and jealous and insecure, then storming out of her house. In truth, Padme didn't know how she expected him to take the news. She could understand his reaction, to a certain point. Her Ani, though full of bravado and arrogance and self-assurance, was also the victim of crippling insecurities, especially when it came to her. It didn't help that he was desperately trying to vie for her father's approval. Though that, in itself, was not Padme's fault, it did naught to help the situation. In hindsight, she should have seen this coming.

Should. Would. Could.

It made no matter now. He was angry and hurt and it was all her fault. It reminded her of the way she had acted out in jealousy when she had first met Aayla Securra. That, she knew, was silly and irrational. Anakin's reaction was completely justified… to a certain extent. He shouldn't have spoken to her like that; he had no right to demand things of her, and then insist that he was merely just asking. She was just being honest with him. Hadn't Sola said it was better for him to hear it from her instead of someone else? If so, then why was everything in such a mess?

As Padme sat on her bed, she realised she needed to fix the entire situation, and fast, because she couldn't relax knowing that Anakin was angry with her. It made her sick with grief. Especially when she was the cause. Her fingers trembled as she held the card. What was the point of all this? Was finding out why Clovis had treated her so badly worth risking her relationship with Anakin? Of course not, an insistent voice told her immediately. Anakin meant everything to her. She could sacrifice her own selfish needs in order to make him happy, couldn't she?

He should have more trust in you, another, more cynical voice informed her. As much as she didn't want to dwell on it, the fact that Anakin had thought she'd actually leave him made her sad. The thought of leaving him was inconceivable to Padme, as impossible as the thought of being without air. He had to know that. A part of her was insulted that he'd even thought to doubt her. But, the guilt was eating her up inside, consuming her every thought. She had to do something.

And so, biting down hard on her lip, she tore the card in half, and then the halves into halves, and again and again until her bedspread was dusted with little squares of confetti. Inhaling and exhaling deeply, she felt a sense of calm wash over her, and knew she had done the right thing. She wouldn't let Clovis force his way back into her life. She wouldn't contact him. She'd forget it ever happened.

Sweeping the remains into her hand, Padme hurried over to the bin under her desk and tipped them in, removing all evidence of Clovis from her room and from her mind. She looked out her window to Anakin's house, wishing she could see him, tell him she was sorry, beg his forgiveness. Vaguely, she wondered if he was sleeping, or if he was just as troubled as she was. Some part of her hoped he couldn't sleep, that he was tossing and turning, or lying awake and staring at the roof, because she deserved that, didn't she? If she was tormented by the fight they'd just had, it was only fair that Anakin was as well.

Realising the ridiculousness of the situation, Padme decided that the only practical, yet slightly irrational decision, was to go over to his house and make things right. Even if he had told her he needed to be alone. Because she needed Anakin, she needed to know that he still loved her, and there was no way she could sleep without some sort of resolution. So, with a determined set of her jaw, she crept downstairs, making sure not to wake her nieces, and hurried out into the freezing night. As she sprinted next door, she silently cursed herself that she'd forgotten a coat. Her toes grew numb from the ice-cold ground and shivers ran tremors up her body.

Rubbing her hands up and down her arms to soothe the outbreak of goose-pimples on her flesh, she did the only thing she could think of, and pick up a lump of snow and aimed it at Anakin's window. It hit the glass with a dull thud. Nothing happened. Not giving up, she did it again. Still nothing. Come on, Ani, she pleaded, wanting nothing more than to get out of the cold. After the third attempt, the window opened and Anakin peeked his head out, rubbing his eyes. "P-Padme?" he mumbled groggily. So, he'd been asleep. That only served to make her angry.

"How d-dare you, Anakin Skywalker!" she shouted up at him, her teeth chattering and her body shaking, both from rage and the cold. "How d-dare you s-sleep after what j-just happened! I've b-been crying for t-two solid hours and you're up there, s-sound asleep!"

Anakin groaned. "What are you doing out here?" he asked her, incredulous. "You're going to get a cold! It's freezing."

Padme shook her head even though she couldn't feel her toes. "I d-don't c-care," she stammered, stubbornly and pointed her finger at him. "You s-should be r-restless and… and – "

"Stop shouting at me, will you?" he frowned. "I'm coming down."

She scowled at him, but snapped her mouth shut and waited for him. A few moments later, he opened the door, and pulled her inside roughly by her wrist. She was too busy trying to keep her teeth from clashing together to notice that he had wrapped a thick, heavy coat around her shoulders and was rubbing his hands along her arms, the friction warming her up. He didn't look at her, and concentrated solely on the task of keeping her warm. There was a frown on his face, was it frustration? She didn't know. But she didn't like it.

After a few minutes, she stopped shivering, and Anakin sighed, taking his hands off her. "Better?"

Biting her lip, she nodded reluctantly. "Thank you," she said in a small voice, trying to catch his eye which he was avoiding.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, all the softness gone from his voice. "It's the middle of the night."

"I…" she began, before her body was wracked by another violent shiver, no – sob – and she inhaled deeply before regaining composure. "We can't end it like this, Anakin," she said. "Nothing's resolved. We… we have to talk about this."

He locked his jaw stubbornly. "I don't want to talk about him," he spat. So, he was going to act like a child then, was he? She decided to strengthen her body language. Two could play at this game and Padme was just as inherently stubborn as Anakin. Standing taller, crossing her arms, she glared at him with a stony expression in her dark eyes.

"I'm not talking about Clovis, Anakin!" she snapped. "We need to talk about us!"

He rolled his eyes and the gesture was so obnoxious that Padme wanted to hit him. "So. Talk."

There was a challenging edge to his words that made her cry out in frustration. "Are you being serious, right now?" she demanded, simmering with rage. Why was he being like this?

"I've said all I had to say," he replied, narrowing his eyes, which had turned a cold, icy blue, an unsettling contrast to his usual, warm gaze. A surge of guilt rose within her. She'd done that, she'd caused that expression. Anakin had put up his walls again, was hiding behind his arrogance, and it was her job to break them down.

"Don't be like this, Anakin," she told him. "You're acting like… like a – " he raised his eyebrow, egging her on, and she couldn't hold in her anger any longer.

"Go on. Say it."

"Like a petulant child!"

Anakin's mouth formed a thin line. "There it is. As long as we're being honest with each other, right?" He laughed, and it was a harsh, cruel sound that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand at attention.

Padme shrunk under his cold gaze. "Stop it, Anakin," she pleaded in a small voice. "Stop this. This isn't you." Her Ani would never talk to her like that. Whoever this was, it wasn't him. It was his pride speaking, shutting her out. She needed to reassure him, and not with her words. Words were ineffective with Anakin. He needed to feel her. Swallowing her own anger, just for the moment, she reached out, taking his hands in hers and rubbing them gently up his forearms, soothing him with her gentle touch. His body softened a little, and she felt a little pang of victory. "Ani…" she softly called his name, forcing him to look at her, and she almost crumbled when he did.

Biting her lip at the tortured expression in his eyes, she pulled him into her, wrapping her arms around him tightly and he buried his face in her shoulder. Anakin was shaking against her, and Padme realised that he was crying. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she heard him mumble against her skin, and she hushed him, stroking his hair as his tears fell wetly against her shoulder. His hands tightened around her waist, crushing her almost painfully as though he thought she was going to disappear, but she ignored the pain. He needed this. He needed her.

When Anakin pulled away, still keeping a tight grip on her hips, he hung his head and refused to look at her. With a pang of sorrow, Padme cupped his jaw, caressing the skin gently with the pads of her fingers. Sighing heavily, he leaned into her touch, bending to press his forehead against hers and then, very slowly, he opened his eyes, gazing right into her soul. "I'm sorry," he told her again, his voice quivering with emotion and yet his eyes were steadfast. Dipping his head, he nuzzled her nose, ghosting his lips over hers, silently asking her to kiss him, but she was far, far, too worked up to give into him.

Removing her hand, Padme stepped back and ran a hand through her undone hair. "Anakin… we can't keep doing this." She knew the words were not what he wanted to hear, and yet she had to say them. She'd been blinded by love for too long to see the cracks that had slowly been getting deeper and deeper in their relationship. Only now, was she becoming aware of Anakin's biggest flaw, the great demon that resided in him. His insecurities. She should have seen it before. Underneath all his bravado and arrogance, he was terribly insecure, and she'd overlooked it, even encouraged it, unintentionally of course, but she still felt guilty.

Anakin swallowed, his eyebrows furrowing. "W-what do you mean?" he asked quietly.

Padme groaned and shut her eyes. She didn't want to talk about this, not when he was still so visibly hurt from their fight, but if she didn't say anything now, there would never be a right time. "We can't keep going on like this," she explained. "We need to learn to trust each other. Every time we're together, we're always fighting about something…" It was only once she'd said the words that she realised how true they were, the evidence staring her right in the face. She'd gotten jealous about Aayla and they'd fought. He'd felt insecure about not being good enough for her, and they'd fought. And now this.

Anakin frowned. "We always make up though, we get through it. That's… that's what matters, right?"

If only it was that simple. "You can't just buy me flowers and think everything will go back to normal. You need to trust me. A relationship isn't a relationship without trust, Anakin."

"I do trust you," he responded immediately, placing his hands on her shoulders. "It's him I don't trust."

Padme sighed. "I threw it out."

He frowned. "What?"

"The letter, Anakin… I threw it out. I won't see him, Ani. I'll never even mention his name again."

"Good." He visibly brightened, nodded his head, gave her a small smile. "Good."

Padme didn't reciprocate his joy. There was still so much they needed to talk about, to resolve. "You shouldn't have spoken to me like that," she told him, sadly. "I'm sorry if I made you feel threatened, Anakin, but you… you need to let me make my own decisions. You can't just demand me to do something because you don't like it."

He looked down at the ground and rubbed the back of his neck. "I know," he admitted sheepishly. "I'm sorry, Padme. Really, I am. I don't know what came over me… I just sort of… snapped."

"I love you, Anakin," she told him earnestly. Her eyes stung as they grew moist. "But I don't know what else I can do to make you believe me. You're determined to think that I'm going to leave you. And not just now... but… other times, too. I just – I don't know what more I can do to make you trust me."

"Padme…"

She reached out and gripped his forearms. "You have to believe me, Ani. I didn't have any ulterior motive for seeing Clovis. I truly just wanted to hear him out."

Anakin smiled softly, tracing her cheek with his thumb. "You always want to see the good in people… even when they don't deserve it."

Padme blinked back the tears that were threatening to spill over. She caught the double meaning in his words. He wasn't talking about Clovis now. He was referring to himself. That couldn't still be bothering him, could it? "Everyone deserves a second chance, Ani," she said kindly, catching his lingering fingers and giving them a reassuring squeeze.

Unfortunately, it wasn't the right thing to say. His expression hardened again and he grew terse. "Even… him?"

She exhaled heavily in frustration. "For god's sake Anakin, stop. I just told you that I won't contact him, why are you being like this?" He paused, bit his lip, swallowed thickly and then muttered something under his breath that she couldn't quite hear. "What?"

Suddenly, he gripped her shoulders roughly, staring straight into her eyes. "I can't lose you, Padme!" he blurted out desperately and the fear in his eyes was so clear, she wondered how she'd never noticed it before. "I… I can't. You're the most important thing in my life and I – I can't lose you. I won't."

Padme blinked at him. "Lose me?" He was so unsure, so broken standing before her, tremors of fear surging through him. "Anakin, look at me," she gripped the sides of his face. "You're not going to lose me, Ani," she told him, firmly, trying to erase his fear, his insecurities. "I'm not going anywhere, remember? I'm yours. Only yours."

His shoulders slumped and he rested his head against hers, inhaling deeply, letting her words wash over him. She didn't say anymore, let him absorb her and come to terms with it himself. This was her Ani, the beautifully dysfunctional and insecure owner of her heart, the man who needed constant reminding that she was his and his alone. Padme needed to show him. Nothing was okay, but she couldn't dwell on that now. She needed to remedy the situation. So, she tipped her head just a little and kissed his mouth. Her lips moved slowly, timidly against his own and she kept his face in her hands. He didn't respond immediately, but she didn't give up, instead, slowly coaxed him into returning her kiss.

"Padme…" he whispered in reverence and that sound, which normally would have made her smile, only served to break her heart.

"Make love to me, Ani," she asked him softly when they pulled away. He looked away and his hesitation informed her that he knew it was not what they should be doing, when there was so much left unsaid, left unresolved. But it was what they both needed. "Please," she begged. "I need you."

He nodded and scooped her up in his arms, as though she was as weightless as a feather, carried her upstairs to his room as he had done the first time they'd slept together. Only this time, it lacked the nervous energy that had consumed them, and was replaced by this raw, unspoken need to rewrite wrongs in the only way they knew how. Padme slung her arms around him and nuzzled into the junction between his shoulder and neck, pressing soothing, gentle kisses to his skin, tracing her nose along the length of his throat. When he reached his bedroom, he gently lowered her to the bed and crawled on top of her, cradling her face in his hands and kissed her. Only soft sighs and the slick sounds of lips and tongues moving together filled the room.

Anakin's knees trapped her body as they pressed down either side of her. She let her hands roam, trailing down his back and tugging at the hem of his shirt, pulling it up with a sort of slow deliberation that was unfamiliar to both of them. The slow pace of their lovemaking was indicative of their feelings; it was not an act of passion, but a necessity, and the longer it lasted, the longer than could lose themselves without addressing what was truly happening. Anakin leant back on his knees to help her rid of his shirt, tossing it aside, before sliding his hands along her sides, up underneath the fabric of her chemise. Despite all that had been said before, there was still that blatant desire in his eyes as he gazed upon her. No matter what happened between them, Padme knew that Anakin would always look at her like that. As though she was the only thing that truly mattered in the world.

Once again, he bent to cover her mouth with his, slowly pulling her chemise up, exposing her stomach. There was a burning urgency under every soft touch, a desperate possessiveness as he smoothed his hands over her skin. He mapped every curve, climbing higher and higher until he reached her breasts. Padme arched into him, telling him what she wanted without speaking, and released a soft little mewl as he cupped her in his palm and ran his thumb fleetingly across her nipple. It was not long before they were both bare and ready, and Anakin was nestled in between Padme's spread legs, his hands balling into fists beside her head as he entered her.

Padme cradled his face in her hands, never taking her eyes off him or letting his gaze wander as he thrust in and out of her at a slow, soothing pace. They were completely silent, neither of them said a single word or uttered a moan louder than a whisper. It was an unusual occurance, for Anakin normally couldn't help but talk to her as he fucked her, constantly praising her and telling her he loved her. Padme enjoyed those little half-conversations they had mid-fuck, the non-words and harsh cries that the passion of their love brought forward. But this was not the time for such things. It was about healing. Forgiveness. Words had already been spoken, too many words. Now, they just needed to speak with their bodies.

Wet drips fell on her cheeks and she realised that Anakin was crying. It was a silent sort of cry, and she wouldn't have even noticed, save for the glistening wet tracks that lined his face. She studied his face, saw his bottom lip quiver and then brought him down to her mouth, kissing away his tears. His breath was ragged and came in short, breathy gasps and he suddenly kneed up on the bed and slid his hands underneath her hips, lifting her up with each thrust, hitting her sensitive spot each time that Padme couldn't help but cry out. Her hands clutched at his firm backside, forcing him deeper, harder inside her. Anakin responded by burrowing his face into her neck, grunting softly against her skin as he increased the pace.

"Look at me," she whispered, taking his face back in her hands and running her fingers through his hair. The beginnings of her release began coiling in her belly. Anakin did as she asked, resting his head against hers, his blue eyes piercing her soul and she trembled at the sight of it. Sometimes, she forgot how powerful his gaze was, how it could affect her so easily. "I'm yours, Anakin," she told him. "I belong to you."

For some reason, it was those words that had him twitching inside her, jaw clenched tight, spilling his seed violently and she squeezed his sensitive cock in response, milking his release. As he came undone, he seized her mouth, claiming her and muttered, "always," against her lips and it was her undoing. She came and it was the most blissful, toe-curling orgasm of her life. Anakin's arms came around her as she rode out her release, and pulled her up so she was sitting on his lap. She was all but sobbing into his bare, heaving chest, clinging to his broad shoulders as though he was her life force.

He stroked her hair, all sweet and lovely. "It's okay," he reassured her, kissing her temple. "We're okay."

Padme nodded against him and pressed her lips against his skin, over his fluttering heartbeat. He was wrong. They weren't okay. But they would be.