Chapter 9
The dead silence of the waiting room contributed immensely to Padmé's state of uneasiness.
The passing by nurses and patients made her feel lonely amidst a great crowd. The annoying white that covered all walls made her feel depressed.
As she waited for Clovis to be tended, she remembered she had someone to see in that place.
She had permission, she knew the room number, she just had been too afraid the day before to pay her a visit.
A nurse accompanied Padmé towards Teckla's room, when she saw the young girl was asleep, Padmé asked the nurse to be left alone with her.
Once that was accomplished, Padmé sat next to her friend on the small bed. "Oh Teckla," Padmé sighed, a few silent tears rolling down her pale cheeks.
After a while, Teckla started moving around the bed, which prompted Padmé to immediately get up from the bed and distance herself from her friend. Teckla was awakening, without making a single noise, she slowly rose, lifting her head to get into a sitting position without opening her eyes. When she did, she only rubbed her face with her small hands, and she stared down at the white blankets that covered her.
"Teckla," Padmé quietly and cautiously made her presence known.
Like a deer in headlights, Teckla was immediately startled, she set her broken gaze upwards, on the direction Padmé was standing, and in a second, she released a sound that would've been a scream, had she had the vocal chords to do it.
Instead, what Padmé had in front of her was a livid face, trembling with terror. Mouth wide open. Skin paper white. A shrilled cry that made every single hair on her body rise. Teckla was shouting, but in an odd way, as if someone was pressing at her neck, holding back any real sound. She pulled at her own hair in a desperate fashion, as an endless sea of burning tears flooded her teen face.
Padmé didn't even know what was happening. She never expected that reaction and she just stayed there. Standing, crying, unsure of what to do. She tried to apologize but was interrupted by Teckla, not with any words, of course, but by the poor girl's raised hand that was pointing behind her.
Padmé felt the air in the room turned cold, and she started trembling as much as her broken friend. She slowly and reluctantly turned around, and she almost fell back, the sudden tall figure shocking her to the point of screaming.
She shrunk back and climbed next to Teckla, the two girls helpless as during that awful black night when they were attacked.
"What's wrong?" Anakin asked, swiftly running to the two frightened girls.
"Anakin!" Padmé cried, her voice shaking. "You scared me!"
"Why?" he asked, oblivious. "What's going on?"
"What is going on?" another voice, a much more pulled together one asked. It was Teckla's nurse. She immediately asked Anakin and Padmé to leave.
They did so, Anakin pushing Padmé out as she saw the nurse struggle with her wild and frantic patient, till she injected something into her bloodstream.
When they were outside, Padmé was still crying, though she didn't exactly know why. Anakin's confusion brought her some sanity—or something similar to it.
"My love," Anakin softly whispered, comforting Padmé on his strong arms. "What the hell was that?"
"I don't even know…!" Padmé muttered, nestling deeper into his chest, sniffing like a child and forcing her eyes closed till they turned red and hurt. "You came out of nowhere!" she exclaimed.
"I'm sorry," he said, keeping a loving tone. "I know I promised you I'd leave you to handle Clovis. But I couldn't bear letting you alone with him after what he did. I saw your car outside but when I was told he was alone, I figured you'd be with Teckla. And I wanted to see how she was doing myself. I didn't know she was so bad… I guess it's to be expected. I mean, the attack was so little ago…"
"Yes…" Padmé agreed and sighed.
"Am I going to have to expect you screaming like crazy every time I see you now?" Anakin darkly joked. She laughed nervously and shook her head.
"Yeah… I have to stop doing that," she said and practically fell into his arms. "I'm so tired," she said. "You drove here?"
"I took a cab just in case."
In case what?
"Let's go then. I rather think Clovis can find his way home alone. Come on, let's see if we can still catch a few classes."
Anakin drove them back to campus, Padmé maintaining her odd ways on the way there. Luckily for both, walking around a great crowd forced some normality into Padmé.
"Hey Padmé!"
"Hey Anakin!"
Every two minutes somebody greeted them.
"Hey Anakin, catch!" they would hear before a ball appeared out of nowhere and Anakin caught it with ease.
They were such an attractive couple! Everyone knew who they were. Girls envied Padmé, her beauty, wealth and boyfriend. How would they envy her mental health? Hmm. Her state of mind and actual happiness?
Anakin was just as admired. Though he wasn't rich, and not really that much of an academic, he was a brilliant football player. The star of the team. Skywalker… some people joked with him, saying he would walk on the moon if he wanted to. He could easily reach space should he choose to. He was the kind of man that just appeared capable of anything.
So it is natural for the two of them together to get a lot of attention. Anything they did was carefully watched—most of the time.
"At what time are you gonna be free?" Anakin asked as they paced outside the building in which Padmé had class.
"Uh," she mutter, unsurely. "I am not sure… I-I'll call you."
Of course her answer upset him.
"What?" he snapped. "What's that supposed to mean?"
The last thing she wanted was anger him, but she felt she desperately needed some time alone. And as much as she tried, she couldn't help sounding so distant and careless—but it was better than cold and hurtful, or unsettled and frightened…
"It means I will call you when I'm free," Padmé said simply. "Anakin, do you realize how far behind I am? I have missed so many classes. I have a million papers to do, and it's all because—"
"Because of me?"
"That's not what I'm saying!"
"But you're implying it! I'm sorry. I didn't ask you to travel to Nevada for my mother's funeral. You offered to go, remember?"
"Ani…"
"And I offered to take that low-life to the hospital but you insisted on driving him yourself—!"
"Anakin, be quiet," she pleaded as many eyes stared at them and their sudden argument.
"You keep putting distance between us," his ache was palpable in his voice. "You use any excuse to be separated… Why don't you just say it, Padmé?"
"Stop," she begged, feeling sick to her stomach, the world around her becoming again unreal as her eyes twirled from the sky, to Anakin's hurt-filled eyes, and then the floor.
"This has not exactly been sudden, Padmé."
"Oh stop it! I have class!" she tried to turn around and leave him but he grabbed each of her arms, clasping her in an embrace she couldn't escape from.
"It was since," Oh don't say it! Her mind cried. "I proposed to you!" she breathed out in relief. "Isn't it?" he demanded.
She didn't know what to say, she just weakly shook her head.
"I knew it when you said yes," he said, a tear escaping his eye. "You didn't mean it. You never wanted to marry me…"
She said nothing but he read the truth in her eyes.
"If that's what you want, Padmé," Anakin said, bitterly. "You can have your way," and without saying anything else, he turned his back on her and left.
Padmé stood there for about five minutes, doing nothing, breathing rapidly.
What'd just happen?
She missed the class and when she entered the next one, she just sat without hearing the lecture for about twenty minutes, she then went to the bathroom, cried till she almost couldn't breathe, and escaped to her sorority house.
In the safety of her bedroom and the comfort of her bed, she laid down, too injured for even tears. She stayed there like dead, apart from the world till her roommate entered, carrying two small puppies in her arms.
"Nice to see you're as good as I am," Dormé said with bitter irony. "Found them outside the house," she said, dropping Artoo and Threepio on Padmé's bed. "Better watch that, you know. A lot of cars pass by and they don't stop not even for a cute puppy. Not to mention our dear old psychopath's still out there."
She received nothing but silence to all that.
"Police called again, you know. They're gonna keep a patrol car outside after it gets dark. Luminara is pretty comforted by that. Of course, I don't think she has much to cry about. Now that old Mothma is gone she's almost ruling this thing."
Silence.
"I heard about those frat boys, by the way. It's good to know Vader is not targeting girls only."
Vader?
"What?" Padmé at last spoke. "Who?"
"Oh, don't you remember, honey? That's the name… He gave us. Must be fake, I am sure. Who would call their child that? Maybe it's a nickname… I don't know…"
Vader… Vader… She felt she had heard that name before, but not during those creepy phone calls… When, then?
"Oh Christ," Officer Piett sighed at the police station. "Another one?" he frowned.
"It was just at the end of the street of that sorority house," Officer Ozzel informed him.
"When was she found?"
"About an hour ago… She was found by her own mother!"
Piett shuddered. "How old was she?"
"Thirteen…" Ozzel rubbed his aged forehead. "Dear God."
"What the hell was she doing on that campus?"
"The child and her mother were visiting her older sister. One of the sorority girls from the house we went to before."
"Which one?"
Ozzel went through some papers and then said the name. Piett sighed again.
Night was approaching, they asked for more coffee and drank cup after cup as they discussed what time would be more appropriate to go to Kappa Kappa Delta.
"No use in postponing this," Ozzel said dryly. "Let's go, man."
"Afternoon, gentlemen," a voice said calling them back, it was one of the younger officers. "Heard what happened in campus now?"
"Yeah," the two policemen said. "Poor child. Poor woman who found her…"
"Err—no," the newcomer said. "About the Professor."
Ozzel and Piett froze as they were reaching the door. What now?!
"A professor from the university got beaten today just after his first class."
"Good grief, man!"
"He's alive?"
"Yeah, he's fine. Won't be showing himself in class all week, though. He looks pretty bad."
"What'd he say? Pressed charged?"
"That's the strangest thing. He claims he was robbed, but couldn't say anything about the guy. Odd thing, since it happened in broad daylight. Another weird thing, nobody saw."
"Well, Kenobi," Piett said. "If you don't mind, we ought to go now. Come on, Ozzel."
"Where are you going?" Young Kenobi asked.
"A sorority house—but I reckon it won't be very fun times there," Ozzel snarled.
"Oh," Kenobi was curious. "Is that the…"
"Yep, the one. See you, young man!"
Officers Ozzel and Piett left.
Officer Obi-Wan Kenobi sat there for a while, finishing the coffee that remained. Even though he was new in the force, he had great abilities and a desire to serve. He read the report on Kappa Kappa Delta's missing House Mother and young Sorority Sister. Then of what happened to the fraternity boys. The little girl who got murdered earlier. The Psychology Professor that got robbed and attacked. And after thinking about it for hours, he managed to make a connection.
"They're here!" Dormé cried, staring from the window of the living room, all girls were sitting around there, drinking tea and eating sandwiches.
Padmé sat on the floor, sadly, and softly stroking her little pets. The sight of Artoo formed a knot on her throat. Oh Ani…
The night went on, seemingly uneventful, then the phone rang.