AN:
Cheire – haha this is Palpatine yup
Guest – I'm glad you're enjoying Ventress and Anakin's encounters. Their interactions are fun for me too! You're right about Clovis just being a pawn. Palpatine is the mastermind
Angie – Palpatine plays the long game lol. Clovis finds out about the pregnancy here, not that they're twins though. Anakin is focused on providing for the kids now, which is nice yeah.
Rhythm of Change
You see, man made the cars
To take us over the road
Man made the train
To carry the heavy load
Man made the electric light
To take us out of the dark
Man made the boat for the water
Like Noah made the ark
This is a man's, man's, man's world
But it wouldn't be nothing
Nothing without a woman or a girl
Padme sat with her legs up on the patio chaise-lounge. The wind this morning blew from behind a cloud. One cloud in the sky hardly impacts the rhythm of change. Even when the wind is as varied as the sunrise's sheen. Padme felt warm and breezy as Anakin joined her on the terrace, carrying the breakfast tray and placing it down on the steel round table.
"Look at that." Her hand braced his arm. "Always taking care of us." Anakin sat on the chair her legs rested on and pulled them onto his lap. "My mother used to say, 'Don't marry the life of the party; marry the guy who makes sure everyone gets home safe.'"
"Are you sure that's me?" Anakin replied, his deadpan face laced with humor. "When you mention going to a party – just doesn't sound like me..."
Padme's smile broke through her restfulness. She then felt a piercing thorn in her side and moaned, causing Anakin to jump to the edge of his seat. His eyes soft with concern and transparency. "You okay?"
"Yeah," Padme breathed slow. "It's just Leia won't stop kicking."
"How'd you know it's her?"
"You saw the last sonogram. She's always down here, kicking up a storm." Padme took Anakin's hand and pressed it over the space above her hip. Then she led him back up the other side, to her obliques. "...And Luke is 'round here. He's always close to my heart."
Anakin felt this permanent awe as he gazed at her. This was living in images, not just watching an image pass you by. A masterpiece in motion. This was a seismic ecstasy he could possess. He wanted to make love to her, frolic in the symphony of emotions that clash in the most idyllic way when he sees her light up with a connectedness to her babies. It felt humanizing, balancing with this perfect blend of selfish and selfless joy he felt.
Motherhood looked great on her. A deep purpose she couldn't wait for. She'd have someone to sing to and dance with. Share this wisdom about her now. She had something to impart, to try parenting with the help of all her influences in life, something ancient, something free-spirited. Teach them to have a firm sense of self, an unwavering faith that kept them independent-thinking and brave. Be pioneers. And finally teach them, as Joseph Campbell said, never to follow the herd.
A pile of folders on Anakin's desk stared back at him. The tower precariously testing its balance. Anakin held it to stop it from swaying. But it wasn't much use. The papers fell out of their folders, littering the entire surface. "What is all this?"
Ventress stood against the edge of her desk, lifting her water bottle to her lips. "That top file is urgent. Everything you need to know before the meeting with the sports agent tomorrow. Palpatine wants you to sit in on this one."
"Really?" Anakin's gaze hopped upward. No one could understand what this meant for him. The days of him feeling locked in some opaque chamber, a structure designed for him to fail could now be dismantled. Being able to sit in on a meeting was a reminder of the endless doors that will open now he works at Palpatine. His spirit soared at the idea. He looked back down at the file on top of the mess. "Wait a minute... This is Grievous' sports agent."
"Yep." Ventress was so impassive about it. So far removed from the excitement bursting out of Anakin.
"It's Grievous!" He emphasized with chiseled lips. "He's only one of the best point guards of his generation, averaging 3.9 a game!"
"Basketballs aren't the only thing he juggles." Ventress lowered herself to her seat. "This is his third divorce – caught with the nanny." She had a gleam in her eye. She seemed to care more about what this marred material did for the case and how it left a lot of destruction in its wake.
"The agent doesn't want press..." She brought herself back to the point of the meeting, aiming to appear slightly professional with passivity.
But Anakin was barely listening to her, too busy scanning sheet after sheet. "Palpatine seriously wants me on this?" Big statuesque spheres replaced his eyes.
"You're fitting right in..." An obscure smile tugged the sides of her mouth. "Guess you did something right. . .they say adaptability is the greatest character trait."
"Adaptability is what I'm worst at. Not a big fan of change." Anakin chortled, placing one sheet behind the next. Although something told Ventress he'd be a fan of this change. "Besides... There are better traits worth having."
"Like?" She asked with a challenging edge, arching over her desk.
Anakin gave it some thought. "Padme would say integrity."
"And you?" She probed, watching him decide.
"...Loyalty." He replied eventually, clear and strong. "It's the most important thing in the world. I've had the same two friends since I was a kid. They may not have had much going for them, but they always had my back."
It always felt bittersweet whenever Anakin remembered his childhood with Kitster and Wald. He tended to suppress everything about the past because it hurled too many vile memories at him. But his childhood gave him some good qualities. Some he may even have lost now. The bold 19 year old adrenaline junkie who raced like a maniac without thinking twice about it. That guy seems to diminish more and more each day. He supposed it was only natural when the brushstrokes of responsibility have taken over your life's canvas. But adrenaline echoes deep within. The escape. And there was no better feeling than knowing that through every mad decision, your friends never left you behind.
Feeling nostalgic as he reminisced, he tried turning away from the voice in his head. Ventress had sat there for a long time now, silent. "You didn't answer..."
"Oh I don't believe in any of that." She dismissed. "Nobody cares about the best personality traits. No one ever really works on them. People are shallow. . .superficial in what they like – in each other, in their movies, in their books. It doesn't matter what you do as long as you look good doing it."
"I see you've lost faith in humanity." He watched her pick at her nails, disengaged. But after she heard him, there was finally a little flexibility in her features.
"Au contraire, I accept humanity. People are sheep – thus, easy to control."
He's lost in the wilderness
He's lost in bitterness
He's lost, lord have mercy now, in loneliness
Padme knew working from home would elicit some questioning but even she couldn't anticipate opening her front door to the third-degree. There was Clovis outside her door – except in place of his typical brand of cockiness, there was a hard, discontented face.
"Palpatine said you're working from home."
"Yeah..." Padme's placid expression seemed to contort his face with further anxiousness.
"You doing this because of me?"
There it is. Him studying her, looking for some hidden agenda. She had to roll her eyes at it. "Yes, Clovis, because it's all about you."
He didn't seem to wait for her response or even listen to it once it was spoken out loud. Her sarcasm seemed to slip past his plodded circular steps as he began searching the floor. Counting the tiles made some kind of return to logic. His thoughts becoming unfettered as he stepped over one tile. By the time he had done a full round circle and was back in her eye-line, there was some formless ray of truth.
"Look, I get it, okay? I didn't pay enough attention – you weren't getting enough attention for your work. You didn't feel seen. So you took off. You needed to discover who you were without all the bullshit. I get it, I really do. You've made your point. But now you're back..."
"I didn't come back for you." The bluntness ripped out of her, but even after she had stripped her words of any sugar-coated bubble wrap, her voice remained soft.
Clovis found himself staggering over the truth. It was complete and final and it left him with this paranoid feeling. He lost. He looked from side to side, trying to find a rebuttal.
"...He's just a kid." The bitterness poured out from his chest and seeped out of his face creased with frustration. "I mean, come on. You went off and married a kid. This is just lust – you can't possibly take this marriage seriously!" He irritably waved off, making her softness wane. Her fingers curled around her doorknob ready to slam it shut in his face but he elbowed it to stay where it was.
Her coldness paled his face. He was left mournful and ambivalent. "I... I'm sorry, I–" He stuttered. It took a minute for him to realize he had no other card to play but to put it all out there. He scrubbed a hand over his face until his thoughts came clearer to him. "I just. . . I want another chance. I.. I need—" His sudden tone had changed to something strange. He leaned over like a war was waging within and she felt two firm grips on either side of her shoulders. His lips were forced on hers. The grips along with the kiss felt sharpened, like nails.
She felt a quiver. Not good quivers over your body that take you out of reality. No—the kind that make you hyper aware of reality. Pervasive, unsafe quivers cautioning her of a threat.
It was an instinctual reaction to slap him across the face after shoving him off. The spine-chilling burn on her hand from meeting his cheek seemed to stay long after her palm had parted with his flesh. His cheek reddened, molding to the conflict. At the end of the slap was its translation. It was the final nail in the coffin. Nothing he said could pass through her heart now without coming out the other end scrutinized and abandoned.
There wasn't even a trace of forgiveness as she yelled. "Clovis! I'm pregnant!"
"P-pregnant?" In both words and look he was left stunned, defeated, shieldless.
"Yeah, pregnant." The confirmation was powerful and came from a voice of anger, vanity, disdain. A man's voice behind him. In a swift mere second later, Anakin's punch landed on Clovis. It took a long exhale for the terrorizing impact to submerge into Clovis' consciousness. Then it reappeared on the surface of his face with a vengeance. The room wobbled in a burgeoning tide of trained combat and cast a pall over the hallway before things came into focus for Padme. She yelled at them to stop. She even said please at one point but her voice swept over them like the light breeze of the morning.
She hadn't even heard the elevator doors open when Anakin arrived. But he was here, along with his fist and threshold for pain. It was something he couldn't outgrow. There was something about walking through fire that reinvigorated his spider senses. He needed this. To unleash fury on someone deserving. It reminded him of his bold 19 year old self. The adrenaline rush.
Things will slow down, they always do. That's usually when it was over. He'd been on dates with a few girls, who were always up for the wild ride across town in the fast car. But when the energy died down and he was just himself, brooding, lost, insecure, their attention died down as well.
Padme was the only woman who he could open up to, show his weaknesses without judgment. The woman who made slowing down feel good. Not only that. Slowing down felt safe. She made flowing to the rhythm of change easier. Ever since he became a father-to-be, feeling insecure felt like an ever-increasing sentiment.
But now he was establishing himself — as a prominent member of Palpatine's team, as a husband, as a father, as a man chosen to be involved in Palpatine's celebrity case. He had made it. He's a fixer again.
He was fighting for his wife's honor. Even if it also had to do with his ego. Even if she could handle it on her own. He was incapable of keeping it together, especially after Sebulba's assault.
With Clovis on the ground and being carried off by the building's security guards, Anakin felt like her protector. And the mark on Clovis' eye growing an alarming circle was a warning to all perpetrators.
Anakin faced Padme whose eyes remained on the security guards and Clovis vanishing behind the elevator doors.
"Let me have this one." He held his pulsing hand up, needing her to let his aggressive tendencies slide. He was out of breath, like he was dragging the words through mud. But whatever she felt now she seemed to have kept to herself. There was no reprimand, no look of disgust on her face. And it quickly redirected his focus.
"Are you okay?" He asked with gentle arms pulling her in for a hug. "I'm sorry. I should've come home sooner."
"I'm fine." She assured. She seemed calmer than he expected, shutting the door behind them. He followed her to the couch, slumping himself down beside her.
"When will you realize violence is not the answer?" She straightened her back and faced him nuzzling into her shoulder.
"You're the one who slapped him... So violent." He mocked with smirking eyes, and she managed a light laugh. "I should know. I've been on the receiving end of that."
"I told you, I can handle Clovis." She warned, gently.
"I know you can." He admitted with a soft murmur, taking her hand and interlacing their fingers. "But it's my job to protect you whether you can or not."
She looked down at their hands and brushed the scrapes on his knuckles with her thumb. "Now it's my job to take care of that hand." She got up to get ice with a passing smile of coquetry, sweetness yet ambition and faith. Proving she was far from the damsel in distress. But she also realized she was appreciative of his protection. Even when she couldnt see it, he's always taking care of her -- the breakfast tray this morning came to mind. It was, in fact, their respective strengths and vulnerabilities combined that made them a great team.
This is a man's world
But it wouldn't be nothing, nothing
Not one little thing without a woman or a girl
It's A Man's Man's Man's World - James Brown