"Good evening, Mr. Palpatine. Here are the tapes from this afternoon."
"Anything else besides these tapes, Gragar?"
"No, that's all."
"Then thank you, you may go."
Sheev put the CD into his laptop, started the download, saved the file and opened it.
How Padmé and Anakin greeted each other was not visible on the recording, Gragar did not turn on his recording equipment until then. He only recorded the conversation from that point on...
-May I ask who the woman was who kept you company?
-I don't know her, I was sort of ambushed... as I often am. I told her I was meeting someone, hoping she would leave me alone, but as you could see, I had to think of something.
-I'm glad I could help... By the way, I looked for you this afternoon, but you left a little earlier than usual. I wanted to compare the jet stream readings for the last five years.
-Come, Padmé, let's sit down. I have lapsang souchong today as if I knew you were coming.
-Premonition?
-Perhaps, but what did you want to compare?
He listened to the expert banter, fast-forwarded to hear more of it, and then the discussion about the tea... what nonsense, tea is tea, he thought. Then he saw her get up and her call to Panaka. The sound faded, but he saw them standing in the lobby waiting for Panaka. They walked out and Anakin helped her into the car. He was still standing, watching the Cadillac drive away. Why? Actually, he had an idea why. Dr. Skywalker loved his wife. He did not love her and was not jealous, it was just a feeling of ownership. He knew she did not love him, and that was irrelevant, but she was his wife, she belonged to him, just as his mansion, his cars, his company belonged to him... without feelings, just to fulfill a purpose.
Oh yes, the purpose. The heir has not yet appeared. He has decided to have himself examined, and if all is well with him, Padmé will have to undergo an examination as well. The clock is ticking.
"Gregar !"
"Yes, Sir?"
"Keep it up, and next time record everything."
"Yes, Sir."
For Anakin, the ride home was on autopilot. He thought about everything they had talked about and concentrated on her beautiful face instead of concentrating on the road. Something could have happened. He wasn't hungry that night, so he didn't eat anything; sandwiches and Padmé's presence were enough to satisfy his hunger... well, not quite. He had loved her for so long and wanted her in his bed. He knew she knew that all these little flirtations were not as naive as they had been in high school. When you are a student, you flirt, maybe a little bolder and more explicit, but how do adults flirt?
On Monday, she called together the group of meteorologists she led to compare the last five years' assessments. Anakin was responsible for jet streams, Aayla and Kit for air and soil temperatures, and Plo Koon and Adi Gallia for water temperatures and salinity. The last two were especially challenging. Padmé kept comparing the data and suspected that the Gulf Stream might be turning earlier than the models showed.
"As we can see, all the data indicate that global warming is indeed taking place. In the last two years, temperatures have risen an average of 32.9F more than in the previous five years. Plo and Adi have yet to compare the last five years of Argo buoy readings, which are currently only those in the Atlantic. It's the Gulf Stream. It's slowing down..."
"You mean because of the higher temperatures that are melting the Greenland ice sheet and reducing the salinity of the water?"
"Exactly. . We'll meet on Thursday."
Until Thursday, everyone worked on their tasks in the large room full of monitors; only Padmé and Anakin had rooms separated by glass, albeit opaque.
The meeting went as expected, the data showed changes in the direction of not good.
"Before anything is published, we need to talk to Dr. Windu."
That evening, they all went to the Quarry House Tavern for a drink, except Kit Fisto. As usual, they talked about work, but not only.
Friday was short for everyone, as usual, and Anakin enjoyed his tea time at the Marriott Marquise, as always.
Padmé was the last to leave the office. She sat there but didn't work. She thought about Anakin and how he was sitting alone in the hotel lounge... or was he? And then she felt the urge to go to the Marriott lounge. She leaned back in her chair, looked at the ceiling, and wondered how someone almost thirty could be as much in love as a teenager. It was simple: she had loved him for years and remained a teenager.
Then she picked up her bag, put on her coat, and called Panaka.
"Hi, Quarsh, please wait for me at the entrance. Ten minutes." She didn't wait for an answer and disconnected. Then she wondered if she had become like Sheev to him.
She got into the car downstairs and said, "Thank you, Quarsh. Please take me to the Marriott Marquise."
"Yes, Ma'am." He grinned slightly.
"Questions, Quarsh?"
"No, Ma'am. I'm here to take you wherever you want and make sure nothing happens to you."
She got out in front of the Marriott entrance and walked through the revolving door. Then she stopped. Should she really do this? Hell, yes. She walked purposefully to the corner of the lounge, where the Chesterfield-style armchair made of ruby red velvet and a low round table stood, to see Anakin.
When he saw her, he stood up. He was surprised. "Padmé... Have you forgotten something?"
"I missed tea time."
"Did you miss me too?"
"Your flirting is so refreshing," she laughed.
"Wonderful. I ordered Assam today, I know you like Assam."
"Let me see what you know about Assam."
After entering the lobby, Gregar Typho followed her at a safe distance to the lounge area. He sat down on the stool and turned on his recorder. He couldn't record anything until the Assam tea arrived; he had to set himself up first, which didn't go unnoticed by Anakin; he was a Marine.
"Waiter..."
The waiter came.
"Please bring me a notepad and something to write with."
The waiter raised his eyebrows, wondering about the unusual request... "Coming right up."
Anakin put his index finger to his lips and Padmé understood that she shouldn't speak. When he got the notepad, he wrote:
Don't turn to your right or left or behind you, don't act surprised. I have a feeling someone is watching me, you, or us. Don't look in his direction. It's a man sitting at the bar, he was there last Friday. He was leaving the hotel as you were leaving. We talk about tea and the weather and the expedition and things like that. He must not hear anything suspicious.
He made a circle with his hand and a dot on the paper. He wanted it to look like he was explaining something to her. Padmé took the notepad, read the lines and wrote very briefly: "Understood."
So their tea time remained strictly businesslike, with two dominant topics: tea and the weather. They left the hotel at half past six. She was driven home by Panaka and Anakin drove home in his Grand Cherokee.
That evening, Gregar Typho gave Palpatine the recordings. Gregar explained that he had not been able to record the first few sentences. If he wanted to, he would have to get there before Padmé, and she would definitely notice. He also suspected that Dr. Skywalker must have noticed his presence because he wrote something down and gave it to Padmé to read, which was also visible on the recording. Sheev finished the CD and it was clear to him that Anakin had noticed Gregar Typho. He had to change his strategy. He thought about it. On the first Friday, they talked only about business and tea, unaware that they were being watched. On the second Friday, when Anakin noticed the observer, the topic of conversation was the same. So nothing special. But why did they meet in the hotel to talk about the same things they talked about in the office... and then about tea, tea time and sandwiches. Nonsense. There must be something else. Something must connect them. They studied at Cornell University at the same time and spent time there as graduate students. Maybe they were lovers. He wanted to find out, but how? Then he remembered that he knew a woman who had also studied at Cornell. She worked as a meteorologist, a so-called weather fairy, for NBC4. He decided to talk to her. Until then, Padmé would not be under such obvious surveillance.
"Gregar, you've got enough men at your disposal, so this is what you're going to do: every Friday, or the day my wife meets with Dr. Skywalker, another one of you is going to follow her and post up in the lobby to keep an eye on all the elevators. I want to know if she goes up to a room with him.
"Of course, Sir."
Afterwards, Sheev called this acquaintance named Barriss Offee and arranged a meeting.
That evening, he came to Padmé's room with a rose in his hand and told her it was one of the five nights.
Padmé was already in bed, brooding over what had happened. What would she do now? Did it mean she couldn't see Anakin anymore...even though there was nothing going on between them, no affair? ...or would she do it anyway? Maybe it wasn't appropriate, but they were colleagues, former classmates, they had known each other for so long, and Sheev was seeing other women too, and she didn't know if he was sleeping with them, not that it would bother her.
For the first time since they had been married, she rejected him. "Sheev, I can't tonight. I have a terrible headache." The excuse was a cliché; she knew it and he knew it. It's the most common excuse women give when they don't want to have sex.
"Oh?"
"Honestly, but come to me, take me in your arms and stay with me." ... just as much as she could take at the moment. …
Best regards from Germany