Not a chapter for readers who are younger or readers who don't like graphic details - CG

"Only happy days for now on," Anakin declared. He and Padme huddled closed to each other, her head parked on his chest, fingers tracing little circles on his skin. He kissed her on the forehead.

"It would be my most fervent desire, my love," she replied.

Anakin cracked an eye open to stare down at the crown of her head. "And no more secrets."

Padme hesistated, then slowly brought her eyes up to meet his own. "No more secrets..." her voice trailed.

The metal from his mechanical arm pinched the fine hairs on her neck as he tensed. Padme winced. She was keeping secrets from him, he thought. He sensed it. And she was afraid. Little chill bumps rose on her arms.

"Do you trust me, Padme?"

"With my life, my heart, and soul," she answered, as though it was the most ridiculous question in the world. "Why would you ask such a thing?"

"Just wondering," he replied in a flat voice.

A video surveillance camera rolled away in a nearby window.

"Is something wrong, my love?" Padme asked.

"I have a bad feeling. I feel like we're being watched."

Padme gave him a look of false surprise. "Watched? But... by whom? Who would do such a thing?" she had a feeling who would, but tried to bury the answer deep. She hated lying to her husband. "If you mean the security cameras... I had them installed on the veranda-"

"Why?"

Padme rolled over to lay flat on her back. She folded her arms behind her head and stared at the ceiling. "How long until they send you back to the Outer Rim?"

"I'm not sure," he answered.

Padme rolled over again, curling her body beside him. She rubbed a hand along his flesh arm and pressed her head against his shoulder.

"Can we go to Naboo? Just you and I... at my villa where no one can bother us and we can be together and forget this awful war?"

Anakin smiled. "I have a few days off. I think it's a wonderful idea."

"Then what are we waiting for? We'll leave now."

"In the middle of the night?"

"The sooner the better," Padme replied. She pulled out of his embrace to climb out of bed but he pulled her back. Anakin gave her a playful smile and brought his face close to hers.

"Anakin..." Padme laughed. "There's plenty of time-"

"There's never enough time," he murmured against her lips. He could die out there in the Outer Rim. He wanted to make love to his wife as often as he possible could before he went back. A mechanical hand pressed into her shoulder. She slid her arm around his neck and Anakin planted kisses beneath her chin and trailed to the curve of her shoulder. Padme laughed at the tickle of his tongue as it flickered against her breasts.

If there was a benefit to being married to a Jedi, it was the fact that he could sense her deepest pleasures and apply himself to them. Or sometimes to many places at once.

"Anakin-" she started. But was silenced with a "Shush..."

"Lie still..." he whispered.

"Why? What are you doing?" she asked.

Anakin laughed. "What do you think I'm doing?"

He climbed over her and let his hands roam up her legs to her waist then stared for a while... She's mine, he thought with some satisfaction. Mine and no one else's...

And he sat there. Hunched over. Staring. Intensely. One muscular leg on each side of her body. One mechanical arm held both of her hands over her head. She was barely visible, save for the moonlight that struck her just so... Anakin flexed the muscles of his flesh hand then focused... concentrating on his fingertips until small blue electrical currents crackled between them. Just enough, that she saw his face flickering between the charge.

The mechanical hand released her arms and Padme stretched out to reach him as he leaned down to meet her... again darkness enveloped them and disappeared as instanteously as atoms crashing and exploding in an ion engine.

His body was taunt and hard against her own. He pressed into her and Padme gasped. The energy from their bodies flowed through every cell of her body. Then suddenly, he was focused on her again, his eyes exploring the depths of own.

"Do you fear death?"

Padme exhaled as he lifted himself to his elbows. "I wouldn't be a politician if I feared death." How many times had she faced death? How many times had she faced death with Anakin at her side? "Why do you ask?"

He ran a mechanical hand through the tendrils of her hair, wrapping the strands around his finger. He lowered his eyes and brought his voice to a seductive whispered as he moved his lips close to hers.

"If the Order ever found out -- about the two of us... they'll try to kill me."

"They're your friends, Anakin-"

She didn't know what she was talking about, Anakin thought. Sometimes he wished she kept her uninformed opinions of the Jedi to herself.

"It doesn't work that way," he whispered. "Being married to you is considered a betrayal of my oath. I would become one of the lost. There are twenty. I would become the twenty-first. They'll then decide the only recourse is my destruction and will send someone - perhaps even Obi Wan to kill me."

"Would the Jedi dispatch someone to kill the chosen one?"

"They never liked me," he said lowering his eyes. "They fear me. They fear my power," he continued. "But... the reason I'm telling you this is because... I wonder what will happen to you when I'm gone?"

"You make it sound as though we're doomed. Anakin, you'll retire from the Order someday and marry whomever you want. They won't have any objections-"

"But we're already married and that's against the rules. You don't understand how they work!"

"I'm sorry..."

"I don't want to kill anyone. Not Obi Wan, none of my brothers..."

Padme nodded. "What are you saying?"

Anakin positioned himself, waves of pleasure flowed through him from her body... "We should make a lover's pact."

"We already have a pact. Our wedding vows."

"Exactly. And our vows stated... until death do us part."

Padme didn't like the direction the conversation was taking. "Did you mean what you said? Or were you merely reciting the vows with no feeling behind them?" he sounded bitter.

"I meant every word!" she objected.

"If the Jedi ever learned the truth about us..." Anakin held his flesh hand before her, the charges crackling between them, "All you would need to do is take my hand. And it would be over. Everything."

Padme trembled. But not in the way he wanted her to. "You're afraid," he commented, sensing her sudden dread. "But I'm not. I face death everyday. Do it Padme, take my hand."

If the Jedi killed him, she'd go on to marry another man and have children without him and then he will have died in vain. How is that fair? They didn't have to go to Naboo. They could leave the world behind them, this awful war, the Jedi, the Senate. Then it would be over. All of it. Though not for the trillions of beings still under the threat of the Separatists.

Padme gazed at Anakin, a look of paralyzed fear in her eyes. Was he insane?

"I'm crazy," he answered, reading her thoughts. "I'm crazy for you."

"But, if I were to take your hand into my own..."

"The charge would course through you, and from you back to me and kill us both."

She couldn't believe he was saying this to her. "But if I were to do it now, someone... perhaps even Obi Wan might find us here. Like this."

Anakin groaned. Why did she always have to bring him up?

"I don't think you should wish Obi Wan to find you in my bed," Padme continued.

The charge between Anakin's fingers dissipated.

"Do you agree or not? If the Jedi ever learned our secret, we'll have no choice but to execute our lover's pact. Do you love me at all?"

"Of course I do." Padme pulled him close.

"I would die for you, Padme."

And that was a truth that couldn't be denied.

"Fine. If that is your wish, then I will follow. Hopefully that should never be the case."

Anakin smiled. "Very well then."

Anakin walked into Padme's Naboo villa and set their suitcases on the mosaic floor. He looked around... at the pictures on the wall that moved like images on a holonet screen. Pictures of Padme's family... the in-laws he would never meet. At least, for the time being.

Padme raced into the room, a look of excitement on her face then grabbed Anakin by the hand and pulled him out onto the balcony.

"Isn't it beautiful, Ani?"

He looked out and saw nothing but a field of wild overgrown grass. The villa had been neglected since Padme took permanent residence on Coruscant. Not even servants remained.

"I should love if we could be here all the time. The place where we fell in love!" Padme caressed his face. "Take a walk with me," she demanded.

Anakin grimaced then followed her lead. They took an overgrown path to the field where lush waterfalls fell near the lake. Anakin slipped an arm under her leg and swung Padme around. There was a light in her eyes that he hadn't seen in a long time. Her joy was contagious, making him as happy as she.

Suddenly he tripped over a log and both went crashing into the ground below in a fit of laughter. Padme pulled a stalk of grass and twirled it between her fingers before tucking it into Anakin's hair. He clamoured over her, like a boy in a wrestling match.

"Behold, the mysterious powers of the force," he said, a fire in his eyes. Anakin stuck his flesh hand into the dirt beside her head and a small marsh flower began to sprout and bloom right before her eyes.

"Ani..." Padme said, suddenly weepy.

He leaned forth and kissed her on the mouth. From afar, they looked like two animals, hiding in tall stalks of grass. There, on Naboo, all their troubles, all their sorrows seemed worlds away. There was only the two of them and their love.