Ch. 7

She swung the door open, nearly hitting him square in the face. "What are you doing here?" Padmé instinctively reached and grabbed his arm as he started stumbling backwards.

"Hey!" Anakin pointed his finger toward her, solid on his feet again. She stepped outside, quietly shutting the doors behind her.

"What?" The faltering smile on his face, his eyes barely opened wide enough to see her, reminded her of the first time they'd gotten too drunk together. He was as full of it now as he was then, but he was… much more toned, much bigger, much… Oh, god. Keep your attention on his face, she reminded herself. Anakin never was pleasant for long like this anyway.

"I got a question," he said, stumbling back toward her. She knitted her eyebrows together, catching his wrists to hold him. He took a deep breath, pulling himself back away and wobbling around. Now he was making her a whole different kind of nervous. Nervous that she would be responsible for him cracking his head open, or worse when he went falling, and she wasn't strong enough to catch him.

Padmé couldn't wait to hear what his intoxicated state of mind had compelled him to want to ask. "Fire away, since I'm already here and all… But I really think you should go back home, seeing as you're… practically naked."

"Oh, so you noticed?" He grinned, flicking his glance between his bare chest and her now flushed face.

"How could I not…" she mumbled, concentrating on not looking at the small imperfections on his skin inches away from her hands, not letting even a fingertip brush against him, not giving him any further encouragement or amusement. Despite how badly she wanted a solid minute to stare without question. "Anakin, what do you want? Throwing rocks at my window, making a scene. What is it?"

He leaned in, his face hovering above hers. Her face scrunched up at the smell of tequila on his breath. Her palms came up to press into his collarbone, pushing him away. "I wanna know why you hate me," he said, his words slurred together.

What? Hate him? Why would he think that? She didn't hate—

The corners of his mouth drawn downward; his smile gone. "'Cause you always act like you do," he interrupted to Padmé's dismay as she realized she'd spoken her internal thought after all.

She held her face in her hands, muttering a plea for help from any of the deities that wanted to swoop in and save her. Lifting her head, she met his gaze, still fixed on her.

"Anakin, I do not hate you…" Now it seemed they were playing an opposite song and dance compared to their usual rounds. She reached for his hand as she stepped closer. "Come on, let me take you back home. You need to go to bed and we shouldn't be talking about this now."

He twisted around her clumsily, shaking his head, "I don't believe you."

"You… How can you not believe me?" She continued following him in a circle, unsure how he was doing this drunk with how dizzy she felt sober.

"Because." He pointed, practically contorting himself as he moved. "Because all you do is get mad at me. Push me away. Like always."

"What are you talking about?" Padmé asked, exasperated. 'Like always?' What was that supposed to mean? He stopped abruptly, causing her to fall into him and send them both falling backwards toward the railing. His eyes went wide when his feet slipped, Padmé's eyes doing the same before she grabbed his wrist and yanked him back toward her with all her strength. She pushed her hands back against him to steady him on his feet when he began to fall forward instead. "Anakin! Don't! Why don't you just…" She shook her head. "Just stand still."

He rolled his eyes, holding his palms up as she did in front of him. "See. Mad at me again."

"That's—If anything, this is proof of how much I don't hate you, or I would've let you go falling into the hedges, you moron! You annoy me because it's the middle of the night. But I'm not mad at you. And I do not hate you." Padmé put her hands on her hips, staring at him. "If anyone should hate someone, it's you hating me."

"Why the hell would I ever hate you when I can barely stop thinking about you?" He said, shaking his head with a scoff.

Her jaw slackened, blinking a few times as she stared at him. Padmé waited to see if there was a follow-up to the comment, or… a walk back. When none came, her mouth went dry as she spoke. "Wh-what did you say?" Those two things weren't exactly mutually exclusive. He might be thinking about exactly how much he hated her.

"Jesus… What's wrong with you sometimes…" He groaned, taking a step forward. "I don't hate you, Padmé. Why would I?"

"I don't know, Anakin, you're the one that started asking irrational questions. Maybe because I… I…" she stammered, trying to find her words as he silently mouthed words at her, shaking his hand like that would help force them from her own lips.

"What? Because you…?" He said, adjusting his boxer shorts, though she tried to not watch as he pulled at the legs and waistband. How he could still carry what was feeling like a very serious conversation right now was beyond her.

"I thought you'd hate me since you never reached out to me, ever, after… our last summer," she managed, reminding herself to breathe and forcing her eyes to focus on an insignificant hole in the ceiling over the porch. Anything to not look at him. "I thought you… hated me for giving up on you. On us."

"You still hung up on that? That's your problem?" He stared at her, dumbfounded.

Her expression hardened, lowering her eyes to glare at him. "That? As in the last day I ever saw you 'that'? I'm telling you why I've spent the better part of a decade thinking you despised me, and that's what you have to say?"

"What you said is ridiculous, who the fuck hates someone over a stupid childish breakup?"

"Who…" Even if it had been stupid and childish, there were millions of people committed to hating a person over something like that while he was pretending it was unheard of. Padmé took a deep breath and reminded herself to not take advantage of his wobbling legs to shove him back over the railing she'd just saved him from. What an oaf. What an asshole. "A stupid, childish breakup? Stupid? Childish?" She said slowly, drawing out each of the words.

"We were kids, Padmé. Yeah, childish is what comes to mind." His voice coming out in a strained, hushed tone.

"We were not kids! I was in law school, we lived together! You were my entire life, and you think of that as something stupid and childish? Maybe you're right! You were a child."

He hit the railing with his palm. "Here we go now, tell me how you really feel then! I was a child, huh? Always me, was it?"

She balled her fists at her sides, biting back a groan. "Don't start twisting my words. This is exactly why I said what I said, because you are mad at me!"

"This was a mistake. Goodnight." He grumbled, waving a hand at her as he turned away and started toward the steps.

"Oh great, walk away now. You confront me without wanting to, so now you'll leave? Is that it? Here I was just telling Dormé how much everything had changed…" She crossed her arms against her chest. No longer the playful banter she expected, this had a strong current of reality surging right down the middle.

He whipped back around, brow furrowed. "Things have changed! You don't know what you're talking about."

She stepped forward into him, towering over her. She practically felt the heat coming off his body, heard his shaky breaths, the fast rhythm of his heartbeat. Or was that her own? Or both. "Yeah? Like what? Because right now, things sure seem a hell of a lot like they always were. Especially with us."

"They are with us. You know it. You always wanted to see the bad stuff instead of what's right in front of you." He pressed forward, and it took all her concentration to resist moving backwards. Her breath coming as heavy as his as she held his eyes, his finger still vaguely pointed at her face.

"Tell me, what's changed? You flirt with me, you become unavoidable, you want me to admit my feelings, then you get mad at whatever I say and leave instead of having the actual conversation. Doesn't that sound familiar to you? I always wanted to see the good, yet here we are."

"No, I'll tell you what's different."

"Great! I'm waiting!" Padmé said, opening her arms wide to gesture to the open air around them.

He huffed loudly, his nostrils flaring. "You don't admit your feelings. You just go through the motions with me while I sit around and wonder and wait for any sign that you feel anything, Padmé. That's how it's been, that's how it is! You get everything worked out in your own mind the way you want it, and you don't want to talk about it, so no one can!"

"That is not true. You know that is not true," she growled through gritted teeth.

"Then tell me what is true!" He shouted at her, letting go of any restraint. "If I've got you wrong, tell me what's true."

"When have I ever hid any of my feelings from you? You want to go there? Really? Right now?" She shouted back, poking the center of his chest hard with her fingers.

"Right now. Sure. Tell me what I've gotten so wrong about the all and powerful Amidala all these years. I'd love if you proved me wrong," he said, taking a tiny step back as his fingers wrapped around her wrist.

She wanted to scream. Not with words, just… scream. At him. Outwardly. At the sky. Anywhere Their street was dark, and silent, save for a barking dog off in the distance. She needed to fill the void. The audacity of…

"I have never been the 'all and powerful' anything. That is so…" She groaned, clenching her fist tight. "Why are we doing this? Why do you want to fight with me?"

"Because you make me angry! And I don't like it!" His grip tightened on her wrist; his eyebrows drawn together as closely as her own.

"Well, too fucking bad, Anakin! I don't like being angry either, but I don't come marching over in the middle of the night to yell at you about it. What are you even angry about?"

His eyes lit up, and he raised a hand. "So you admit it! You are mad at me!"

"You just… called me manipulative after you called the end of our relationship childish. Of course I'm mad at you now!" She pulled her arm from his grasp and smacked his hand away from her face. "I would've done anything for you. I loved you so much. And you said we were kids. Is that what it was to you? Something children do? Because if it was, then I've been wrong about you for a long time…"

Padmé stepped away from him, walking the length of the porch to put some distance between them, to catch her breath. He might go away for good then. Expecting Anakin to be the rational one was a mistake. Listening to half her sentences and leaping to absurd conclusions on top of it, their 'conversation' was on the fast track to nowhere. She should've stayed in bed. Should have stayed on her strategy call. She could be listening to Saché tell her about some cute guy instead of being forced to rehash something that clearly hurt her more than it ever bothered him. Tilting her head back, she was determined to keep her tear-filled eyes to herself.

She braced her hands on the railing at the edge of the porch, forcing herself to look down the street. To focus on the flickering light in the streetlamp. The soft whistle of the wind as it filtered through the trees. Something to take her away. Nothing but silence came behind her as her questions became the new elephant in the room for the two of them to avoid.

"N-no. It wasn't," he finally said, his voice a near silent whisper.

She swallowed hard, pursing her lips together. "So, why would you say that?" She brushed away a stray tear with the back of her hand, closing her eyes tight. His heavy footsteps trailed closer to her, his shoes scraping against the concrete. She tensed up, expecting his touch that never came. "You're so pig-headed when you drink…"

"And you're a know-it-all when you don't." Anakin fumbled his way closer until his arm brushed against her. He laid his hand beside hers on the railing, flexing and relaxing his grip with his eyes fixated off in the distance. She didn't dare turn her head, only seeing the vague blurred outline of his face out of the corner of her eye.

"Why, Anakin? Why did you say that? About us."

He cleared his throat, running a hand over his chest. "I don't know."

"Bullshit…"

"What?" He ducked his head.

"You heard me the first time."

He leaned closer. "No, don't think I did."

"I said that's bullshit," she said, raising her voice and leaning toward his ear.

He stood back up, nodding. "Huh. Bullshit."

"You're so irritating…"

"Makes two of us then."

She shifted her weight, turning to shove his shoulder hard. "I was perfectly fine tonight before you showed up! Now, I'm irritating you? Go home."

"No," he growled.

"Then tell me the truth. I know why I would say something I didn't mean, so… your turn, buddy. Unless you meant it and if you did then say that, too."

He snapped his attention to her, his eyes narrowed. "If you got it all figured out, stop asking. Padmé, always having all the answers. Always put together. Always right. Always perfect."

"Oh, right. Right. And Anakin, always quick to jump the gun. Always so damn arrogant. Always impatient. Always impulsive. What a mystery that we didn't—"

"I wish I hated you," he said, turning to fully face her.

She frantically wiped her now sweaty palms on her robe, feeling the color drain from her face. "Y-you what?" Did the words really come out of his mouth, or was this all a gigantic nightmare? Better, it was a gigantic nightmare where those words did really come out of his mouth.

"I want to hate you. I wanted to. I did. I tried. I tried so hard." He sighed, rubbing a hand roughly across his face, fingers pressing into his forehead. "My life would be so much easier if I did."

She stiffened, her back colliding with the pillar at the front of the porch as she let out a choked laugh. "Wow. Well, thank you. I—"

"Shut up, I'm not done." Her lips sealed tight as he stared at her. "I tried for years to be mad at you for every bad thing. But I can't. Never could. I did it." He stepped toward her. "I messed everything up."

Padmé let her head fall back with a thud, bringing her hand back to cover her eyes. "No, you didn't. I could've done… something. Different. I should have… You should hate me."

He carefully pulled her hand away, holding her chin and tilting it up toward him. "No, I did it. I hurt you. Say it."

The forcefulness in his voice was the same tone she never liked. She wrapped her hands around his arm, her lip trembling while she tried to collect her thoughts. "We shouldn't do this Anakin… You're drunk, I'm tired, you're angry, I'm—"

"What? You're what? Say it." He pressed on. If he stepped any closer, they'd be sharing air, his chest nearly touching her as it rose and fell with every breath. The blame game looming between them was a trap. A mistake. A giant explosive ball of fire waiting to happen.

"I don't want to do this. Please. Let me go." She tugged on his arm, his eyes holding hers so intensely it made her that much more uncomfortable. "We both made mistakes. You hurt me, but I hurt you, too. We weren't good together…"

"Because of me. I pushed you. I couldn't… I wouldn't keep it together, couldn't keep us…"

"Ani, stop. I wasn't perfect, I don't… I don't think I am or try to be. I make mistakes, lots of them, all the time. And I made them with you, we didn't… Sometimes love just isn't enough," she said with a sigh.

"I loved you. You were… I needed you, and I…" He laid his forehead against the pillar, his hand moving to her shoulder. "Fuck, I wanted it to be…"

She watched the muscle in his jaw twitch, felt his trembling fingertips pressed firmly in her arm. She could almost feel his inner turmoil, maybe since it so closely mirrored hers. Taking a deep breath, she wrapped both her arms around him tight and pulled him close. "I know… I loved you too. I know."

He all but fell into her, crushing her in his arms against his chest as he buried his face in her shoulder. "I'm so sorry Padmé…" He choked out, taking a shaky breath. She shifted her arm to wrap around his neck and smooth the back of his hair while he started to crumble.

She held onto him tight. It felt like a lifetime had passed between then and now and no time at all in the same way. Underneath the layers of avoidance and pretending they weren't what they were, the pain just lay there unresolved. She pushed her own feelings down, ignoring the lump in her throat as best she could. She'd loved him so damn much it may have been illegal. It should've been. To care about someone else until it's all-consuming and destructive should be. And they had done it together, naïvely so.

Anakin wasn't the only one that held onto the wish that their love could've been enough. It was the same thing she'd replayed in her mind a million times, what more could've been said or done. If she'd stayed home, if she didn't give him an ultimatum, if they'd worked it out days, weeks, months later. The same ifs and buts and almosts and maybes flooded through her mind again now as she threaded her fingers through his hair.

"You need to get some rest, it's too late for us to do this anymore." She rubbed soothing circles on his back, gripping the back of his neck with the other. "Let's go." He had changed, but beneath the older, more polished surface, was the same hurt and the same conflicting feelings she'd been avoiding herself.

"Go where?" His breath was hot against her skin, his voice echoing from the crook of her neck.

She gripped his shoulders and pushed him back up to his full height. He wiped his face quickly, sniffling and avoiding her eyes as he did. It gave her a moment to do the same before she slid away from him and moved toward the door.

"Inside. You clearly don't want to go back home. But I'm done standing out here, so come." Padmé offered her hand, glancing between her open palm and him repeatedly until he caught on.

"I'm a grown man, I don't need you to take care of me…"

She ground her teeth together to keep from snapping in response. "Lucky for you then, I don't want to take care of you. I'm asking you to come with me." She shook her hand, wiggling her fingers in his direction.

"Fine…" He hesitantly laid his hand in hers and without waiting for him to second guess, she tugged him along behind her into the house, locking the door. That was more of a chore than she thought, his reluctance shocking her more than anything else he'd said or done.

"Go lay on the couch. I'll be there in a minute," she said, pointing toward the living room. She dropped his hand before shuffling off to the kitchen as quickly as possible.

Once he was out of sight, her eyes went wide again as she paced around the center island, rubbing her temples. What the hell. She braced her hands against the counter at her back and tried to get her breathing under control, despite the panic overtaking her thoughts. Drumming her knuckles on the countertop, Padmé went through her grounding routine to remind herself what she saw, felt, heard… The cold stone under her fingers. The soft drip of the water from the faucet. The reflection of the lights around the pool shining in the window. Breathe. Just breathe. She repeated the process twice before taking a final slow breath, in through her nose, out through her mouth until she soothed the tightening in her chest. She assumed it was the humid summer heat getting to her but maybe it was the intensity of it all instead.

Her grip on reality back intact, she rummaged through the fridge. Everything between them was always so emotionally charged, so easy to set aflame. It was draining. Part of her wished she hadn't invited him in, the other part still regretting going outside. She should've thought all of this through better. Maybe she should've tried having this conversation with him already, instead of discussing it with everyone else. Or maybe he should've picked a better time to force it, like one where they were both sober. Too bad he wasn't drunk enough anymore for her to think he wouldn't remember in the morning, and they'd try again later. But at least she wouldn't be the only one stuck with the memory…

Taking a couple of bottles of water, ibuprofen, and crackers with her, she walked back to the living room. Anakin laid stretched out on the sectional sofa, his feet propped up on the armrest at the opposite end, with what had to be their smallest blanket they owned thrown across his lap. She grabbed a much larger one on her way before taking a seat beside his head. He rolled over, propping himself up on an elbow. "What's all this?"

"Drink. Crackers. Meds. Drink. In that order. I haven't cleaned up after someone's good night out in years and I'm not starting now. And Jobal would never forgive you if you ruined her favorite rug." He followed her directions, staring at her all the way while she waited, handing him the second water bottle when he finished the first. "Now, come here…" Padmé looked at him, patting her lap.

Anakin took a moment to flick his eyes between her face and her hand. "You sure?"

"Don't if you don't want to, but I'm not asking again." She shook the blanket loose, throwing it over her feet as she curled up in the sofa's bend.

"Alright…" He murmured before slowly laying his head down in her lap, taking the offered top half of the blanket to throw over himself as she adjusted it for him. "Padmé."

"Anakin."

"I'm sorry about tonight."

"Which parts?" She asked, smoothing a hand over his chest.

"Most of them… I don't… think it was stupid. Us. Just hurts to think about," he said, bringing his hand from under the blanket to cover hers.

"I shouldn't have said you were a child… I didn't mean that." Padmé pulled her hand from under his and brushed the hair away from his face as he peered up at her. "For the record, I did want to hate you, too. I wanted to forget I even… ever knew you. But it never really worked out."

He chewed on his bottom lip. "Shit, well, sorry about that, too."

"I didn't mean it like that. You just weren't alone in wanting to, is all. Apparently, that's the one thing we were on the same page about, back then and now."

"Guess so…" he said between yawns as he shivered. She pulled more of the blanket off her to push further toward his feet. He wiggled his back around, jostling her as he moved until finally settling in with his eyes closed.

Padmé yawned, stretching her arms above her head before bringing them both down, one behind his head and the other on his chest. She sat for a few minutes just watching the rise and fall of his chest, letting her eyes trace every line, scar, marking on his still visible skin for once. The last thing on her summer to-do list was to end sleeping with Anakin, metaphorically or literally. She could almost hear Dormé's laughter about it, even if this wasn't the 'down and dirty' sleeping she was talking about. And she could get up at any second, but… Maybe she'd leave out all the yelling that got them to this point in the first place when she retold it to her friends. Ugh. He made her so mad, to no end. And yet... "Hey."

"Hmm?" He turned over, his eyebrows drawn together.

"I'd never be able to hate you," she said softly, kissing the tips of her fingers before pressing them to his forehead. "I want you to know that."

"Me neither. It's always been you," he said with a small smile.

She rolled her eyes at him. Liar, she thought in jest. "You better quit while you're ahead and go to sleep." She yawned again, slipping her fingers into his hair as she laid back.

"Hey."

"Hmm?" she mused, playfully mocking him.

"I missed you," he mumbled. He reached around for her and, without giving it much more thought, she met his grasp, twining her fingers with his and letting both of their hands rest on his bare chest.

"Missed you too." She closed her eyes, feeling his thumb gently sweeping across her hand, twirling his curls around her other fingers.

She didn't even want to think about what time it was. Or how badly her back was going to hurt when she woke up. Or the many questions she will have to answer when her parents came down the stairs in a matter of hours. No, none of that really mattered. Not like the giant, heated blanket of a man in her lap did now. With so much of their dirty laundry flung around in each other's faces tonight, she wondered what this meant for them going forward before ditching the entire train of thought. Some things were better left for another day.