Schmii's son was not a good man. He used to be. But when Schmii died and his Master Obi Wan Kenobi told him to "let go", in the place where his love for her had been there was a void. A black spot that darkened his heart... Anakin's love for Padme filled this void and made him whole again. And now that black spot threatened to become a black hole. A void so wide and so vast, that not even light could escape.
Padme would not escape.
A chrome colored durasteel hand turned into a fist. Schmii's grieving son wanted to crush her. And how easily he might -- in the same manner that he slayed those horrible sand people. But it was years of Jedi training that held him back... the same number of years that he loved Padme.
"Wh-Wh-what do you mean?" he asked. The voice was not his own.
Padme had not yet turned to look at him. But she trembled. Her husband's anger flowed across the room to her in waves of tangible energy. That was power. Raw power - his power... and she was afraid of it.
The power got closer and he was but a breath away. His flesh hand pressed into her cheeks as he pulled her face close to his and kissed her.
"I knew you were keeping secrets from me," he said, looking into her eyes. He was so close in fact, their eyelashes touched. The black hole opened. He stared at her face, his eyes lowering to her precious deceitful little mouth. The black hole closed. "I love you too much to let him have you." So that was Obi Wan's plan to steal her from him... use the tenets of the Order to keep them apart, convince the council to send him off to war so that she's alone and vulnerable and he could have her to himself. It wasn't Padme's fault, it was Obi Wan's. Obi wan is jealous of me, he thought. I have it all, I have the power, I have Padme's love, you have nothing.
"You have me, Anakin. No one else. I'm yours," she pleaded. Couldn't he trust her? Just this once? He was too busy brooding.
"Trust you?" he asked, with a wry twist of his mouth. She should be grateful she's still alive, he thought. How the black hole wanted her...
When the love was gone and there was nothing to replace it, only darkness remained in its wake.
Padme pressed the palm of her hands onto his bare chest and gave him a pleading look. "I love only you," she said.
He felt the love, sensed it even, but didn't know what to believe. She was keeping secrets, and there was only one way to find the truth - go to the source. He was ten times more powerful than his Master, Obi Wan Kenobi. He would show him that power.
Anakin turned on his heels and strode to the bedroom. He dressed quickly then clipped his lightsaber onto his belt.
He felt Padme's presence lingering in the doorway just behind him. "Where are you going, my love? Stay here with me," she begged.
As much as Padme wanted to, she couldn't tell him the truth. The truth would bring so much trouble... but this... was just as bad.
But Anakin brushed past her. His durasteel fist knocked over a lamp as he stormed through the living room toward the veranda where his ship waited. Padme winced and hugged her arms to herself. When the danger passed she gave chase again, but he had already closed the hatch and powered up.
She ran, then stood precariously close to the edge fighting the emission from the bottom of his starfighter and the wind that blew her hair about her head. She waved and jumped as the starfighter climbed the sky to places unknown. To trouble.
Padme collapsed to the marble floor and curled into a ball. Her hand covered her face and she sobbed. The stress was too much.
Could she have told her husband, that the clothes had not belonged to Obi Wan Kenobi, but to Cobra Sien who had placed them there? That she lived under the stress of a bribe that would have ruined their lives? Would have destroyed her husband's chances with the Order? That Sien stood on that very balcony, his hand caressing her shoulder, his lips dragging along the curves of her neck as he promised to destroy them if she didn't comply?
She could tell her husband these things but what would happen? He would kill Cobra Sien. And what of his chances then? Wherever she turned, her husband seemed to be under threat. Because of her. Because he loved her and she let him.
So Padme protected him the only way she knew how. She told a lie. She manuevered the way politicians do. But Cobra was more than she could handle at the moment because he had something she did not. Leverage. He had the high ground.
Cobra Sien wanted her badly. And even more than wanting her, he wanted to destroy her secret husband. Secret was the operative word - a powerful word, a tool that gave him all he needed to control her.
"Leave these clothes on your bed."
"Whose are they?" she asked.
"They belong to Obi Wan Kenobi," Sien answered.
"But-why?" she gasped.
"I want your husband to see them."
She gave him a blank stare. A curious stare. An sympathetic stare. Sien knew something she did not. That Anakin was already back on Coruscant. Padme complied because she thought she knew something Sien did not. That her husband was off fighting the war, and he would not see the clothes.
"If you tell him that I put them there, I will tell the Jedi Council about your..." he cupped her chin, a sneer on his face, "secret wedding."
"And what do you hope to gain from this?" he would never have her, she thought.
"Pleasure," he replied. He was going to destroy Anakin skywalker. Brick by brick.