For a moment there was nothing but silence between both; for Anakin, it was a relief he was back with his beloved wife, for Padme…it was like being in a dream, a wonderful dream, but one she'd always been bitter about because whenever she woke up she found Anakin was still missing.

Padme had to pinch herself. Hard. She flinched at the pain. She gazed at Anakin for a moment lost, but then her mind snapped back into place.

"Where the hell have you been?" Padme had to bite down the urge to yell since it was the dead of night, and the shouts might alert her security team, she was scared some would shoot first and ask questions later. "Six years, Ani! Six years!" She began hitting Anakin, beating his chest with her fists.

Anakin flinched but he grabbed her hands and held them gently but firmly. "I know, and I'm sorry. But it's me, I'm real. But could you keep quiet a moment?"

Padme watched as Anakin closed his eyes and concentrated. She had been around the Jedi and other Force-sensitives enough over the years to know when they were deeply immersed in the cosmic energy field she had never truly understood.

She watched as many very small surveillance drones and microphones were pulled out of different parts of the apartment. Some of them were here in the sitting area and lounge area and a few flew in from other places. Padme watched them in growing horror.

Like all senators, Padme and her security team lived in separate places, but she was constantly under guard. And she hated it. She hated being watched. She had even hated it nine years ago when Obi-Wan and Anakin were assigned as her bodyguards after Jango Fett and other bounty hunters had tried to kill her to stop the military creation act from being stopped. Padme remembered covering all the cameras, knowing Anakin had such a transparent crush on her, it was almost pathetic, but what she remembered most was how excited she had been to see Anakin again after so long.

But while she hated the attention she knew she couldn't stop it. The security team couldn't protect her if she removed every piece of spyware, could they? And in the age of the Empire, she needed all the protection she could get, and her connection and ties to the growing rebellion were likely already known and suspected anyway.

Padme watched unsurprised as the pieces of spyware floated into Anakin's hand. She had suspected they were here for a long time, but there was nothing she could do about it. She had been tempted to just find them and destroy them, but that would have told Palpatine she was onto him, and that would have caused more trouble than it was worth. In the end, she, Mon, Bail and the others had to find other ways to keep in touch. She had told them to never meet and discuss the rebellion in their apartments, telling them they were bugged.

She came out of her thoughts when she heard a sound.

Anakin was using the Force to crush them.

"Just deactivate them, Anakin," she told her husband quickly. "If Palpatine finds out they've been destroyed, he'll either arrest me or plant new ones."

Anakin bit his tongue, looking for all the world like he wanted to argue, but she sent him a piercing look. Finally, he relented, and he stopped. He then just turned them off.

"I felt them when I came in," he explained. "I was trying to find them when you shot at me."

"Sorry about that," Padme said to him sheepishly.

Anakin waved her off. "It's okay, just a flesh wound."

"Let me see it," Padme was already rushing off to get the med kit she kept in the fresher. There was a supply of bacta patches as well. As she found the pack in the fresher, the reality hit Padme hard.

Anakin was here. He was still alive. But where had he gone, and what had he been doing since? Why hadn't he gotten in touch with her? And did he know what had been going on?

Padme swallowed her questions and took the pack into the lounge. She found Anakin sitting on a couch, his cloak and robes off, and even though she wasn't sitting next to him, her first aid experience told her it wasn't that serious. She sat down sheepishly, ashamed she had shot her husband even if she knew she couldn't be to blame. "You're right, it's just a flesh wound," she sighed as she dabbed at it.

Anakin couldn't resist being smug. "Told you so."

Padme rolled her eyes as she applied the bacta. "Anakin, what happened to you? Where did you go?" She asked.

Anakin rubbed his eyes, and she noticed….he didn't look a day older than when she had seen him last. "It all happened so fast I'm just as surprised as you are it happened, Angel," he sighed. "I was called away from Felucia by Palpatine himself."

Padme stiffened at the mention of the Emperor.

Anakin felt her hatred at the mention of the Sith Lord who was ruling the galaxy now, but he didn't comment on it. "He judged it as being too dangerous," he said. "He made up some excuse that doesn't really matter now, but he made it an order I couldn't refuse. So I returned to my ship, and ordered for a shuttle to take me back to Coruscant."

Padme frowned as the details returned to her mind. She had memorised the whole thing and thought about it over and over again. "The ship was attacked by the Separatists, right?'

"Yes. I was in the transport at the time. The clones told me to stay put, but then the hanger was suddenly infiltrated by a bounty hunter ship. They detonated a number of thermal detonators around the hanger, firing repeating blasts around at the clones. It was utter chaos," Anakin's eyes were shuttered as he remembered the scene. "But then I was attacked from behind, and I felt this….this injection in the back of my neck, and I started to feel dizzy. I fell unconscious."

"How's that possible? Shouldn't you have sensed it through the Force?" Padme asked, stunned that anyone could sneak up on a Jedi.

Anakin chuckled humourlessly. "Believe it or not, there are people and things out there that can shut down or nullify the Force. I didn't see who came up behind me, but whoever hired the Separatists had done their homework. They'd chosen someone who had the power to mask themselves from me, and it worked."

Padme wondered if there was some way they could use this against Palpatine, Maul, and any other dark sider to shorten the gap between non-Force sensitives and Force-sensitives. She made a mental note to look up any way they could truly use these methods to fight the Sith and beat them now so many Jedi were gone.

"Go on, Anakin," she urged.

"I was unconscious for most of it, but from what I was able to piece together from the records of the bounty hunters' ship, they threw me onboard and they put me into a carbon-freeing chamber they had onboard. The bounty hunters didn't waste any of their time doing it, either, but as they were starting the procedure, clone fighters attacked the bounty hunters' ship," Anakin said.

"What? But they must have known you were onboard?" Padme protested in outrage.

"They did. I think they did it to disable the ship; I honestly dunno what went wrong. But anyway, they shot the engine section pretty badly, but then they jumped into hyperspace; really, really stupid and risky, not to mention dangerous. The damage would short out the hyperdrive very badly. And it did. From what I could tell when I got a look at it later, the hyperdrive was so badly damaged that the navigational computer's coordinates were out of sync, and the ship was thrown off course."

Padme listened in horror. She had grown up hearing about the dangers of lightspeed travel, and while she didn't understand how hyperspace worked, she knew enough to know pilots and navigator crews worked with great care to make sure the ship didn't end up in the centre of a planet, or crashing into a black hole.

Anakin was truly lucky, but it was no wonder they hadn't found him in the months Palpatine had poured so many resources into trying to find him, even now Padme wasn't sure if even with the whole Republic searching they would have found him. Not that they would. While Anakin had been one of the greatest champions of the Clone Wars, he was only valuable to Palpatine, and even he couldn't avoid people stopping him searching for Anakin. In a horrifically short span of time, the Jedi had largely moved on. It was only Ahsoka and Obi-Wan who really tried to put in as much effort into finding Anakin.

Padme knew they had never truly believed Anakin was gone any more than she had.

Now she knew he was the Sith Lord, Padme only had a few ideas of why Anakin was valuable to him, and she guessed he was as expendable a pawn as the clones herself. It wasn't until the end of the failed clone rebellion a few years ago, Padme realised the whole war was a con trick designed to ensure the Sith dominated the galaxy.

She pushed that aside, happy her husband was back. "You were lucky, Ani," she said sadly.

"I know," Anakin rubbed his face as he thought of the potential what ifs. Hyperspace travel was dangerous and since he was off course by a massive degree, he could have died, hopeless and trapped.

A question popped into Padme's mind. "Who hired them anyway?" She asked.

Anakin looked at her. Dead pan. "I honestly don't know. I didn't have time to ask. I was unconscious."

Padme nodded, accepting the answer. "How did you wake up?"

Anakin groaned at the memory despite his gratitude. "Hondo, the Weequay pirate who tried capturing Dooku. His ship was loitering near the Outer Rim when he found the ship I was on. I later found out it belonged to a friend of his who was lost a while ago."

Padme felt that made sense. "And he woke you up?"

"He boarded the ship and found me trapped in carbonite. He woke me up in his excitement, but truthfully he wanted to sell me off. I could see it in his mind as I recovered."

"How long have you been awake?"

"Three weeks, now."

"Three weeks!? What have you been doing?" Padme couldn't believe all of this.

"Oh, have a heart, Padme! I'd just come out of carbonite. I was suffering from a severe headache and long-term hibernation sickness. I couldn't see and I was cold all over," Anakin protested.

Padme had begun feeling bad about her outburst and she looked at him apologetically. "Sorry, Anakin, it's just been so long since I saw you. Did Hondo tell you about what had been happening in the galaxy?"

"Yeah. He seemed to be in the mood to give me information. He showed me a recording of Master Windu leading three other Jedi Masters into Palpatine's office, threatening to kill him if they didn't give them power over the senate. As I watched I could tell it was a fake," Anakin said.

Padme had seen the same recordings, and even if she hadn't seen just how violent the clone's attack on the Jedi Temple had been on that terrible night she would never have believed it. The Jedi Order had been falling apart, especially during that mess with Barriss Offee, but they wouldn't have taken things to that degree.

Anakin turned to face her, his expression serious and Padme had the feeling she was in the presence of a man lost. "Hondo told me about the Empire and the rise of Palpatine. He's the Sith Lord, isn't he?" He asked seriously even though he knew the answer.

Padme nodded. "He is, Anakin." With a tired sigh, she leaned back on the couch, drawing her knees up to her chin, lost in thought. "After you vanished there was a massive search. The whole galaxy seemed to revolve around finding you. Palpatine was desperate. I assumed at first he was trying to find you, his old friend. But it didn't last long, and suddenly the war was being fought again as if nothing had happened. The Jedi continued leading the clones into battle, with worlds being destroyed, and lives ripped apart. Ahsoka became Obi-Wan's apprentice, and there was even a funeral for you."

"Did anyone go?" Anakin's uncertainty almost broke her.

Padme chuckled. "Oh, millions went. Obi-Wan and Ahsoka, and I….we became closer, and eventually, I told them the truth. I told them we were married. I didn't see the point of hiding it even if I didn't believe you were dead. Obi-Wan and Ahsoka definitely didn't. I know they and the 501st kept their eyes open whenever they went on a campaign, looking for signs of the bounty hunter's ship. But the war went on until it began to change around the Battle of Coruscant," her expression darkened as the memories of that terrifying day popped into her mind.

"The Battle of Coruscant?" Anakin repeated.

"It just came so suddenly, Ani. Nobody expected the separatists to attack the capital like that. The fleet guarding the planet was overwhelmed, and Palpatine was….kidnapped," she said the word bitingly knowing now Palpatine had staged the whole thing while the rest of the galaxy was ignorant of how they'd been played by the evil tyrant now ruling the galaxy, "but Masters Windu and Yoda managed to kill Grievous and Dooku. The battle changed everything for the war."

"Hold on, Yoda and Windu killed them both at the same time?" Anakin held up a hand.

Padme nodded. "Yeah. At the time I wondered what they'd been waiting for, and why the Invisible Hand didn't just jump back into hyperspace with Palpatine as a prisoner, but when he was returned to the senate, he immediately began milking the experience for all it was worth to get more power for himself. And it worked. In just under a week, Palpatine had begun pushing through legislation to begin conscripting and recruiting ordinary citizens and also looking to building a droid army."

"What? He was already looking to phase the clones out?" Anakin asked, not so much in surprise since he knew of the stormtroopers already, but he hadn't known it happened so far back. "I mean, I already know the army's composed of ordinary people and not clones, but I didn't know it began that far back."

"He didn't start it then, but it began then….and it gained a lot of traction. Clone production was expensive and it was costing more and more to produce the numbers we needed to fight, and millions were dying all the time. The Kaminoans in the senate weren't pleased, but there was nothing they could do," Padme replied.

Anakin knew enough about the Kaminoan party from the time and knew their head representative had been a nasty, sarcastic piece of work. "The droids?"

"It was just a suggestion, Ani. It wouldn't have taken much to deviate the droid industries in the Republic to build them and to hold off the droid armies of the separatists for a while so the Republic could fortify itself; Coruscant had suffered from a lot of damage and people were scared, and Palpatine seemed to want to allay their fears by putting through different measures to prevent it happening again even if Grievous and Dooku were both dead, he even said nature abhorred a vacuum, and someone else could take their place in the Separatist leadership. But in the meantime, the war went on, and the Jedi were continuing to lead the battles," Padme said.

"But that didn't happen - what Palpatine said about someone taking over from Grievous and Dooku; I mean, yeah, I understand what you mean, but it sounds like he was planning on putting someone else in charge and continuing the war for a little longer; it would have likely worked, as Gunray, Shu-Mai, and the others are politicians, business moguls, tech giants and bankers without any real expertise in military strategy and would have been hopeless as generals." Anakin pointed out.

"No. I don't know what made Palpatine decide against continuing the war for longer. Sometimes I get the impression, when I think about those days, Palpatine would have preferred the war to last longer so then he could personally see the non-clone units put into battle early instead of later," Padme said.

Anakin had had three weeks to get used to the fact Palpatine was the Sith Lord, the Master of the monstrosity that was Maul who'd murdered Qui-Gon Jinn such a long time ago now, which now seemed like centuries ago, and the master of Dooku who was pulling the former Jedi Master's strings behind the clone wars, and he'd slowly woken up to the realisation his so-called friend had never been a friend at all.

Suddenly he felt like a complete idiot.

"What makes you say that?" Anakin managed to ask while memories of how his own mother warned him about his habit of trusting people too much would return to bite him. She was right.

"He pushed it a great deal, Anakin. There was already talk about it before the battle above Coruscant, and he began appealing to the masses to join while preparing for conscriptions. He already had the ideal profiles for the people to join. He was already having military academies set up on Republic worlds, even going over the heads of worlds like Naboo and Alderaan, and other historically peaceful worlds," Padme said. "But then the war ended with Order 66. It later came out the clones had these chips in their heads containing a list of orders, one of them was to kill the Jedi generals who betrayed the Republic. It could only be activated by the chancellor. Anakin, I truly don't know what set it all off. Bail and I flew to the Jedi Temple when we saw it on fire. When we got there the clones told us to go, telling us a rebellion was being put down. Okay, it didn't make any sense to us since the Jedi were loyal to the Republic. I lost a large chunk of my respect for the clones when they began pointing blasters at me, but I lost it for good when a young boy, a padawan appeared and tried to escape the carnage in the Temple. He managed to kill a few of the clones before he was shot down," as she had been speaking, Padme's expression had grown progressively darker and sadder and through the Force, Anakin could able to sense her anger, and her sorrow as she finished discussing the scene.