Chapter 52. Table Talk

The words, 'I love you' become nothing but noise.
But that's why we kiss.
To say with our lips what we couldn't before.

— Iain Thomas, I Wrote This For You

The marrow cage expanded broadly. As bones ballooned away from one another, the newly formed spaces filled in with hot frustration. I sunk into an exhale with a huff, contracting my ribs once more and rushing the nested air out, but my disappointment remained. After all, a weighted sigh is but a symptom, not a cure.

Behind me, Artoo offered a binary melody of beeps from his corner of the cockpit. I turned in my chair to better look over my shoulder and mustered a meager smile, grateful as I was for his attempt to comfort me. A meager smile was the best I could do. Having borne it, I turned back to the streaming parade of stars and resumed my soundless tantrum.

Unfortunately for Dormé's bright idea, the dress she'd chosen for me never made it out the door, save in a suitcase. Its strategically long sleeves and sky-high collar had been perfect for my joint holo conference with Bail Organa and Chancellor Palpatine. Neither man had any clue as to my Jedi's sheathed love marks while we discussed the Tuffton-Maner Referendum. Greatly adding to my peace of mind, I'd banished Anakin to another room during the call. I was under no illusion that I possessed the ability to speak eloquently with my very handsome and very secret fiancé melting me with his stare.

But the same reason why the layered and ornate dress had been impeccable for my last duties on Coruscant was exactly why I didn't want to wear it on the starship. It practically broadcast "This woman is a Galactic Senator." Such a gown was one I might consider wearing for a speech from my Senate pod. It was designed for presentation, not for a young woman's romantic, private getaway with her betrothed.

Style wasn't the only issue I had with it. Not only would I struggle to move through the yacht's narrow doorways in its wide and busheled skirt, but it would be a military operation to attempt to use the lavatory on my own. While normally astute about these things, I don't think Dormé had all this in mind when she selected the ensemble. Her objective at the time was to pick something that would swallow me in its coverage— and in this mission, she succeeded marvelously. But by the first time I needed to excuse myself from Dormé and Anakin's company to use the fresher— and had to strip down to near nakedness to do so— I decided I'd be changing before we departed.

That's where the makeup kit had come in… Only for my scheming to backfire gloriously. My undoing wasn't even the result of Anakin's considerable Jedi intuition. No, my attempts to disguise the patches of color on my body fell apart due to a nemesis as ancient and biological as the very first human being— sweat.

Once all the holo calls were done and the real Senator Amidala wasn't going to be needed for anything else, I dropped the dress for good and pulled on a pair of dark green pants. The matching top had only short sleeves, leaving my forearms and the much more colorful wrists completely bare. I thought I'd ingeniously solved this problem by slathering the bruises with the makeup cream for good measure and then donning a pair of extended, brown gloves. I covered the marks peeking out at the top of my collarbone with the concealer cream until they disappeared from view. Thinking myself innovative, I attached a wide, golden choker around my neck. I smiled as I remembered it was the same piece I'd worn the day Anakin stepped off the elevator with Obi-Wan.

Despite all these extra steps, I was far from worried. I'd learned from my years in hand-to-hand combat training that bruises on my skin tended to fade rather quickly. Anakin's marks were visible but not deep. In a way, an irrational part of me— the nostalgic vixen who had never before carried evidence of a man's desire on her body— already missed them.

That feeling would soon pass.

Anticipating yet another chilly day, I'd worn a thick shawl for our journey from my apartment to the Nubian starship. But I'd underestimated the warmth of Coruscant's defiant afternoon sun; I was properly sweating by the time Anakin and I got onboard.

This wasn't necessarily an issue, except my would-be lover wrapped me in his arms the second the ramp door shut, barely taking time to set the luggage down before consuming me in a galaxy-tilting kiss. The rabid excitement was more than mutual. Our last embrace the night before felt like excruciating eons ago. Pent up need boiled over after poverty-stricken hours without true touch. Anakin's lips were lifeboats that never failed to carry me from decaying clarity to euphoric distraction. He unraveled my hair till loose ringlets spilled down my shoulders; I celebrated his victorious smile by devouring it.

Ecstasy at feeling his body again overrode judgment till it was too late. When his hand massaged down my right upper arm where the glove's hem met the skin, I gasped with an involuntary flinch. Sudden alarm that he'd discover the marks split through the intoxicated fog in my brain. I'd a sinking suspicion he would not be as quiet about them as Dormé.

Anakin had become well-versed in my library of gasps at this point, and he recognized a troubled one when he heard it. He refused to drop the subject until I told him what the cause had been. That's when I begrudgingly took off the glove. As I did, I could see that because of my innocent sweat, along with the having pressed my hand and forearm into Anakin's back to draw him closer to me, even the heaviest of makeup cream had been disrupted enough.

I watched the pieces fall into place behind his eyes. He figured out my grand design with the collar necklace without me saying a word.

I've never seen a hyperdrive explode, but I'm sure the shock value and energy output must be similar to what I witnessed next. If Dormé's reaction was a dainty ember, Anakin's was an inferno. Not that it was directed at me— no, no, not at all. He immediately turned all the retribution on himself. Gone was last night's creature of the dark, who'd been willing to play with fire whilst using me as the kindling. In its place was the scarred young man who still abhorred what his hands had done to Tusken children of Tatooine.

Our raised voices quickly frightened Artoo and Threepio to the front of the ship in retreat. Even the ambitiously helpful protocol droid didn't know what to do with this. He'd already been halfway out the door after Anakin and I pounced on each other post-boarding. But now the inexplicable humans were standing apart, using their reddened mouths to shout over one another. We finally had to take off from the landing platform before we began drawing questions from the air traffic operators. Anakin's grip on the controls as he navigated us into the atmosphere rivaled his clench in the speeder when we'd ridden to the rooftop.

Once in hyperspace, I thought I was finally getting through to him. The distinct vein protruding from his forehead had receded. He'd even let me get close enough to caress his cheek. Then, in a colossal mistake, I revealed that the makeup "covered most of the bruises anyways," and he lost his absolute mind. It didn't matter how many times I told him they didn't hurt, nor that my first reaction was to giggle when I saw myself in the mirror. Forget about those salacious hopes I'd had of Anakin and I crossing lines during the flight being utterly disbanded— he flagrantly refused to hold me. We might as well have been distant Senator and Jedi protector all over again. We'd had more intimacy pretending to be the Zulubs.

Hence why I was currently sitting in the cockpit of the ship, bored and befuddled. Anakin and I had come to an arrangement. A treaty. I got him to agree to touch me as a husband would once we reached the villa. In return, under his terms, we'd share a monastic flight to Naboo. To ensure we neither tempted each other nor kept fighting in circles, we set up a shift schedule to— if this can be believed— keep us apart. One of us would supervise the flight controls while the other slept. After one's rotation was up, whoever was done "flying" the ship (the ship which was perfectly capable of flying itself through hyperspace in an established traffic lane) would go wake the other and claim their own sleep. So on and so forth until we reached Naboo. My wedding night was at least secure, but for all intents and purposes, I was due for a long bout of solitude through space. It was hardly how I'd pictured spending extended hours of privacy with Anakin, especially after last night.

The first shift had gone to me. I found ways of distracting myself, usually in vain. Just when I finished skimming already-read messages from my data pad for the seventy-fourth time, a yell of great frustration snapped my head up.

I dropped the forgotten data pad on the counter and rushed towards the middle of the ship. But when I reached the crew bunks, I was surprised to find them all empty. The sheets of one bed had clearly been laid in, but my fiancé was nowhere to be seen. When I heard what sounded like a fist slamming on to a table, I hurried on into the gallery.

As I rounded the corner and made to enter the space, I halted when a back of exposed circuits and gray metal stood in my path.

"Master Ani, please, if I may suggest—"

"I said get out!"

"That will be all, Threepio." Habit dropped my voice into a soothing timbre. Authoritative yet calm, piercing the obvious tension in the room without adding to it. "Please leave us."

Threepio's weather-beaten torso shifted as the droid turned to face me. I didn't look at him. Anakin was sitting in the short, square booth. His golden was arm stretched directly in front of him on the table. Around his flat hand was a small assortment of empty cups and glassware. A yellow mug had shattered into five or six jagged pieces. His tan forehead glistened. The sideburns framing his face were darkened with sweat. The moment Threepio had stepped to the side and we came into full view of one another, he grimaced.

"Ani?"

"Miss Padmé, thank goodness you're here. I was only trying to explain to Master Ani that mechanical appendages are quite easy to operate. Indeed, he built me so magnificently, I don't even have to compute twice about moving my fing—"

"What part of 'Get—"

"You are dismissed, Threepio."

My tone was all authority this time.

I stepped out of the droid's way so he could exit, but without ever taking my gaze off his maker. He wasn't meeting my eyes, as his own were ransacking my neck. Thinking he'd been asleep, I'd removed the choker not long ago. Wearing it for hours at that point had become uncomfortable, so I'd gifted my neck a break. However, in the rush to discover the cause of Anakin's guttural yell, I'd forgotten to refasten it.

The growing look of self-disgust on his face made me want to lift my hands and cup them around my neck, just to hide it from him.

Once Threepio had grumbled away in his shuffle and we were alone in the gallery, I pushed the door's nearby button to close it. After a brief pause, I stretched my hand out yet again to press another button. This action— the locking of the door— made Anakin finally, warily meet my stare.

"Padmé—" Warning in his voice but pleading in his eyes.

"I just want to talk."

His brooding expression deepened. He rolled his wrist on the table so his palm faced up. In contrast to C-3PO's antique gray, this fresh alloy caught the reflections of the overhead lights. He moved each of the skeletal fingers slowly. Cryptically— like each digit played a different instrument only he could hear. "I'm Threepio's cousin. The broken model."

Blue eyes traveled up my gloved arms. The resulting contortion twisted his beautiful features, leaving the sentiment expressed even if no words were spoken aloud. Threepio had never and would never leave bruises on me, even accidentally. His programming would likely self-destruct before such a thing occurred.

Right now, Anakin looked like he was reaching such a level of self-destruction.

I approached him gradually, suppressing my urge to do the opposite. In the early days of our courtship, this young man had eventually grasped that speeding to my side only spooked me away. This time, it was I who implemented the measured strategy, for I feared he would leap out of the booth to protect me from the one thing I did not want or need protection from. Him. "Ani…"

Soft tone. Gentle.

I knelt beside him in the aisle next to the booth. "Please don't talk that way. You know it's not true."

A brotherhood of horizontal lines formed on his brow. I wanted to smooth them away with my thumbs, a sculptor molding idolized clay. Anakin's top teeth buried into his bottom lip as he shook his head. "Can't we stall? Find an excuse to detour to another planet before we reach Naboo?"

I wanted to spend as much time with him as possible, but he was being unrealistic. "We're already lucky we left Coruscant without a hitch interfering in our plan. If we linger on another planet and Obi-Wan finds out we left the capital… Ani, he might split us up— order you to find transport and go back."

Obi-Wan had been sufficiently convinced of my blossoming relationship with Jurue to leave us on The Credence. It was too much to hope he'd feel the same confidence if he learned his Padawan and I were sharing a private yacht on a trip we hadn't informed him we were taking.

Ani flexed his mechanical hand, the fingers moving from opened to closed as he spoke. "I'm not the master over this arm I thought I was. Nothing but absolute power over it will be enough." He wiped his human hand down his face. "I just a need a few more days before we have the ceremony."

"The ceremony?" As realization dawned, disbelief stunned me. "Our wedding ceremony?"

He refused to my eye, supplying my answer.

I struggled to keep my face neutral in order to hide my shock. Anakin had been so insistent on marriage— had wanted it from the beginning; fought me on it till it almost destroyed us— and now it was he who wanted to postpone? When every hour we could steal from Coruscant was precious, he wanted to risk delaying the ceremony for days?

I loved him no matter how much percentage of control he had over his arm. That he was still adapting to his brand new prosthetic was not a barrier which would keep me from accepting him as my husband. Still crouched, I placed a hand on his thigh. "I know this isn't what you wanted. But you'll become adjusted to it, just like you did with the first one."

"I find your lack of caution reckless, Padmé."

"And I find your lack of faith disturbing, Anakin." All my efforts would be futile if he didn't reclaim confidence in himself. I sighed and softened my features. No matter how fast this war was moving, I couldn't imagine him being pulled back into a lightsaber duel in the coming days. "You have plenty of time."

"No!" He slammed the golden palm on the table, visibly upset. "I don't!"

"What is this?" I reached to steer his chin with my fingers, encouraging his gaze to meet mine. "What's going on? I thought—" I paused, abruptly unsure. My hand dropped. "I thought you were like me… that you wanted to get married as soon as possible."

"I do," he strained, but his tone had completely lost its storm. He wrapped his left arm around my middle and drew me up onto his lap. My legs hung in the aisle. "I do, I do, I do." I rested my palms on his chest as he placed each of his on my cheeks— one warm and soft, one not. "More than you can imagine."

"Then you need to talk to me and tell me what's going on in that head of yours." I put my forehead against his, as if opening the highways to telepathy. "No more shutting me out, remember?"

Anakin pulled back just slightly, then traced his flesh thumb over my chin; my lips; my cheeks. When his gaze dropped to the red marks I knew were on the column of my throat, I brushed the tip of my nose against the tip of his, raising his focus once more.

He sighed deeply, finally relenting. I felt the exhale. "I can't let myself hurt you again."

"Hurt me? Anakin, we've been over this."

How do I explain to the man who values my physical well-being over all else that hickeys are safe territory?

"No, I know, it's just— I know I wouldn't hurt you. Never consciously. But what about it?"

"It?"

He took a profound breath. The words came out in a rush. "I want us to have a proper first time. I need to know the capabilities of this thing— if it can go too far. Squeeze too tight. I want to be sensitive to it, know its limits. I don't want to get caught up and accidentally…" His voiced drifted, and he lightly skimmed his thumb over my bottom lip again. His eyes searched mine like battered ships looking for a safe harbor. "What if I get caught up in the moment, and I go too quickly to grab your hand with it? What if I end up breaking your fingers?"

"Ani, listen to me—"

"No, you listen." He stilled, and we both shared an amused look. He'd used my exact fireside words in the same tone, and the humor of this lasted for a sweet beat. Too soon, he became serious again. "Remember? Anything is possible. Padmé… I have wanted this with you for a long time." His sincerity shone through as he captured my gaze in his spell. "I want to be a proper lover, one who exceeds all your expectations. I've imagined our first time together more times than I should probably tell you." His palms dropped from my face to my own hands on his chest. He interlaced his fingers with mine, caressing them in a fluid, continued motion. They bent and slid against one another like lovers basking in reunion. Anakin's heavy eyebrows rose in earnest. "I don't want all that built-up anticipation to come out, and I hurt you with this." He lifted our combined hold, hoisting the mechanical hand more prominently than the other and pursed his lips. "I could never forgive myself."

He was studying my face intently. Every micro-expression I made was on display. I hid nothing, so his investigative stare witnessed the grin before he heard it in my voice. "You're going to have to tell me more about these imagined scenarios."

Despite himself, Anakin rolled his eyes and smiled. Still, he admonished, "Force, woman, I'm trying to be serious with you."

"So am I."

He finally laughed. Good. More of this please.

But I was somber as I slowly moved in to place a tender kiss on his irresistible offerings. We held it for a long moment, even as we smartly stayed immobile. Ultimately, I ended the kiss in order to rest my forehead on his again. Soft breaths were taken together. I waited patiently as the last remnants of the storm relinquished his features to this invaluable moment of peace. The longer we simply lived silently in each other's presence, the more the tension visibly left his body. All the while, our fingers never ended their subdued, intimate dance. I wanted to communicate the words before I said them, and so I sent all the gentleness and love and confidence I could manifest into the mystical connection we had. At last, I whispered, "I don't believe you'll hurt me. You couldn't."

A heavy sigh from his chest moved us. Its airy trail blew across my nose and lips. "Can you understand, at least, why I'm taking this rehabilitation so gravely? If everything goes as we hope, I'll have enough days before I have to be back on Coruscant, and likely even longer before I'm dispatched anywhere to hold a saber." I smiled slightly, pleased once more at how similar our thoughts could be. Ani moved his warm thumb across my lips yet again, but now he dragged the bottom boundary to my mouth down with extra pressure. His eyes grew intent as his milder look fell away. "I don't want to wait days for what I want to do with you."

I had to remind my lungs to breathe.

"Alright," I consented. "You make a compelling case." I brushed my fingers through his hair. Residual spots were still dampened from sweat. He must've been exercising his concentration mightily before I walked in. My eyes took in the sight once more of the cups and glassware on the table. If Anakin wanted to forgo sleep to practice his grip, I had to leave him to it. A quiet cockpit beckoned me away. Reluctantly, I forced my body to eject, squirming my way out of his lap to plant my feet on the floor. "But don't run through all that built-up energy and tire yourself out, else it will defeat the purpose."

I accomplished two steps before he caught my hand in his left one. Instinctively, I spun on my heel quickly to adjust with the momentum. Before I'd even finished executing my turn, Anakin pulled me back down into my prior seat, smiling at me in that way which made me want to toss out my career for domestic bliss forever. He leaned forward to bring our faces a sin's breath apart. His low voice infiltrated my ears, dissipated into my bloodstream, and coaxed a ready fire to awakening. "My sweet, naive Padmé. In a galaxy where anything is possible… that… will never be. I promise."

His enticing vow hung in the air for an inflaming moment, creating a swirling vortex I willingly dove into. I watched reason and indecision war in the depths of his blue seas. My heart accelerated as the tides turned. Suddenly, he planted a surprisingly passionate kiss for a man who'd sworn to keep himself off me during our flight. But despite the fervor of his mouth, his repositioned hands only lightly roamed up and down my back. I wanted more. I did not know an Anakin Skywalker who knew restraint, and I did not want to meet such a stranger.

My hands flew to either side of his face as I crushed my lips against his. Tongues reacquainted with hungry excitement. The rim of the table dug uncomfortably into my side as I tried to twist myself more fully in his lap. I could've shouted with triumph when my brilliant choice of pants allowed me to maneuver my left leg across his thighs till I was straddling him fully. In the tight gap between Anakin's chest and the table's edge, it wasn't my most graceful transition ever, but it was worth it as I lowered into a sit. My knee caps pressed into the back of the booth on either side of his rear.

All my rearranging on his lower half seemed to be having an effect. "P-Padmé," he groaned, a request in his voice I chose to ignore. It called on me to be prudent. Cautious. Whatever decision he'd come to, my enthusiasm was more than he'd counted on. This wasn't the plan.

I'd never wanted to be disobedient so much before in my life.

Words discovered ways to leave my lips even as I refused to remove them from his. "I've missed you. I need you. I need you, Anakin."

Driving the point home, I purposely rocked the apex of my thighs against the apex of his. He hotly panted against my mouth in response. I felt his sculpted jaw tighten under the hand I was pressing along its edge. Anakin's hands dropped down to place themselves round my thighs. He squeezed the flesh under his hold in equal measure, but I could tell he was still holding back. Hell-bent, I moved against him again, elated to feel unmistakable hardness beneath me this time.

Molten desire traveled through my body, setting every inch of skin aflame. Our shortening breaths became audible in between kisses as his hands squeezed and kneaded my thighs with greater pressure. He ran his tongue along my bottom lip deliciously but then pulled back. A flushed face beamed into mine. Its eyes were tip-toeing their way into insanity. "You're insufferable, Your Highness."

I grinned back at him. Victory felt near. I drew closer again, pressing my chest into his as I wrapped my arms behind his neck. "I'm not a queen anymore."

"You'll always be my queen."

The utter devotion in his eyes was enough to guide my fever into more tender waters. Hands which could break concrete or wipe away tears pushed the hair back on either side of my head, tucking the strands behind my ears like twins put to bed.

I looked at him with ten lifetimes' supply of wishes I couldn't wait to experience together. He gazed back at me with a zeal of worship so extreme, it haunted his features with something akin to agony.

"I love you." The words moved from my lips leisurely, as if I'd been saying them all along. Once upon a lonely time, saying those three words had been dangerous, intimidating, and monumental. Now, they seemed insufficient to the point of embarrassment in describing how I felt.

The back of his skeletal fingers grazed down my cheek. I leaned into them just as adoringly as if they were made of flesh and bone. He swallowed, and his brows pinched inwards. Blue eyes conveyed my ownership of a soul I'd possessed long before I'd ever known to ask for it. "I need you to exist."

I was the center of his galaxy, as he was mine. His thumb rubbed an infinitesimal circle an inch under my left eye. I knew my face well enough to realize he was rounding the mole there. My eyes drew lines between the little brown dots on his own face, committing their mapping to my memory like it was my favorite constellation of stars.

We tilted in as one, our lips magnetically pulled to each other in a kiss born from a love that would make a stubborn Senator beg and a Sith lord cry. That need returned— not of carnal lust, but to experience that sacred intimacy with Anakin in the way only lovers can. To become one with him in the flesh as I already had spiritually. Inspired to draw back so I could see his face, I then moved my center against him again, absorbing my literal front row seat to the reaction. His expression descended into something primal with every repeated motion. I saw that same need ripen and multiply in his eyes.

Surrender was a tightrope's fall away.

So, of course, Threepio chose that moment to knock on the door.

"Master Ani! Miss Padmé!"

We froze. Anakin gave a brisk shake of his head, instructing me not to answer.

"I say, are you still in there?! This is quite important!"

"Guughhhh." I dropped my forehead on to Anakin's right shoulder.

He did me the courtesy of covering my ear with his flesh hand before he yelled, "Go away!"

The muffled voice carried over from the other side of the door. "I'm terribly sorry, sir, but isn't it time for me to prepare lunch?"

A pang in my hollow gut sprung to attention. Breakfast on the couch with Anakin had been hours ago. I lifted my head and exchanged communication with his bemused eyes. The bottomless love was still there, but the moment had passed. His swollen lips cracked a grin. "I am hungry."

"Of course you are." But I was smiling. "So am I. I'm just going to check the controls before we settle in to eat."

"Right. I'm just going to... ah. Sit here for another minute."

An appetite for food aside, only optimistic prospects for the future propelled me up this time. Maybe this flight wouldn't be as isolating as I'd thought. I planted my right foot on the floor to stabilize me as Anakin assisted with my departure from his lap. It was an awkward system of movement, as I was essentially getting up from the booth backwards in a narrow pocket, but hearing my fiancé's resulting laugh at the antics was worth it.

And, oh yes. I felt his eyes on my back as I walked the length of the gallery, pressed the buttons to unlock and raise the door, and said a brief hello to the protocol droid on the other side. 'Tis a time-honored tradition for me and Anakin, after all.

There's something one should remember when they give another the holy distinction of being the center of their galaxy. Large galaxies are made up of a multitude of particular planets and stars. Some stretch unfathomably wide, others barely make the classification. But despite their individual makeups, they all have one trait in common.

The center of any galaxy is not a home for security and illumination. It is a chaotic shredder of light, life, and even time. In the innermost core of any large galaxy is a supermassive black hole.

On very rare occasion— if this can be believed— the right person is worth being torn apart for. Unfortunately, you can never know for sure until the irreversible destruction has begun.

Choose your centers wisely.