Chapter Text
The masquerades of Coruscant are blinding, beautiful things—a lure and a snare in the image of a haven, a gilded trap.
They’re built that way, of course, otherwise the Emperor wouldn’t allow them. He engineers them, creates an escape from the stranglehold of policy for the Coruscanti elite, an anonymous revel in which to hide and transgress. What better way to draw out one’s enemies—the plotters and the assassins and the rebels—out of the shadows than by offering them safety?
Everyone is bolder under cover of darkness, with masks and costumes and the roar of a thousand voices. Everyone is in more danger, as the watchers at the corners of the room draw near.
Padmé slips through the glistening crowd, silk brushing against silk, jewels against jewels. There is no better disguise than opulence, here—not visual disruptors, nor masks, nor vocoders, though she has those too. The expanse of her veil, bright with silver and blue sapphires, hides her hair, and her mask, silver as well, covers the whole of her face. Her skirts—paper thin and near-transparent, layered on top of each other to create a large, shimmering, vortex of blue— disguise the blasters strapped beneath them, and her stiff, cerulean, bodice works in her favor too, the embroidery on it so wide and elaborate that it hides the layer of cortosis beneath it. She looks perfectly ordinary amongst the thousands of other costumes like her own, and perfectly hidden from anyone who might recognize her face, or her stature, or even her voice. Only her husband could find her now, and only with the Force. She is as safe as she can be.
After all, tonight, not even her husband is trying to find her. Tonight, he is Darth Vader, right hand of the Emperor, and he is at work. Tonight, he searches for spies, and assassins, and rebels— anyone daring enough or desperate enough to fall into his master’s trap.
Which, she supposes, means he is looking for her, if in a roundabout way.
Padmé turns, looking for the garden where she’ll meet her contact, and slips through a doorway, skirts in her hands. It’s a risk, meeting them tonight—the Emperor’s dogs are on the prowl, and if she’s caught, she’s done for—but she doesn’t have any better options. The Emperor is closing in; he might even suspect her, which would be a death sentence if she were anyone else. The only thing that's still protecting her is Anakin. The Emperor won’t risk the loyalty of his favorite servant, not unless he’s sure.
But if he catches her...
Anakin loves her, but she is not the Emperor; his loyalty only extends as far for her as hers does for him. If he finds that she’s betrayed the Empire—betrayed him—he’ll be the first to order her execution.
So she’s nearly out of time, and nearly out of options. This masquerade, with all its wasteful, gluttonous, opulence, might be her saving grace. There’s a reason the rebels still use them for meetings; if you’re clever enough, careful enough, and quick enough, you can get away.
Padmé finally finds the exit she’s looking for, the old-fashioned double door swinging open at the touch of a hand. It leads into a patio, with a few steps leading off it into the soft grass of the courtyard. At the garden’s center is an old Alderaanian tree, with translucent leaves and luminescent white buds the size of Padmé’s fist, and there, under it, is a man with coppery hair and a deep red mask, encrusted with gold.
She adjusts her gait as she steps off the terrace, putting too much weight on the side of her foot instead of the ball, and she crumples right on schedule. It’s not a surprise that he catches her—not at midnight, not in the pre-arranged meeting place—but there’s an element of grace to his movements that throws her off, like he’d seen she was about to fall before she even stumbled. It’s the same way Anakin moves, just a little too smooth and a little too sure to be natural.
Padmé breathes out, and lets the thought fade away. If she’s right, then knowing will only put her contact in more danger.
"I'm so sorry," she says, shaking her head and letting a blush spread down her neck. "It's hard seeing in this mask, and the moons are dark." (They’re not, actually, though the light pollution blocks them out, but none of that particularly matters for her purposes.
She can sense rather than see his smile, and he responds with the other half of the code.
"We are lucky, then, to have the blossoms of the tarshee bring light." His voice is smooth, accent as Coruscanti as can be, and Padmé is thrown for the second time that evening. He could be faking it, of course, but it doesn’t sound like a vocoder, and he’d even gotten the peculiar tick up on ‘lucky’ that’s so peculiar to native upper-Coruscanti. "It's a pleasure to meet you, my dear."
"The pleasure is all mine," Padmé replies slyly, and the man chuckles, taking her hand and pressing his lips to the back of it.
They can’t discuss plans— not in the open like this, and especially not with listening devices around every corner, but they can flirt. A palm on a palm, a touch to the lapel, even a wandering hand all provide ample opportunity to slip an encoded comm over, synced to the one that she holds. When his hand pulls away from hers, there’s a tiny device in it, hidden between his fingers as he tucks it into his belt.
She turns to leave—something a little suspicious, perhaps, when the normal end to this conversation would be a still-masked tryst in one of the many salons available for just that purpose, but not altogether unusual. There are those that come just to flirt and fight, but not for the activities that usually follow, few and far between as they may be.
Then the garden stills.
It’s not a calm quiet, born of the gentle heat of the summer air, and the murmur of conversation from beyond the door, but something else. It’s the split-second of frozen blood and frozen sky, like the moment before a storm breaks.
The door opens, and in steps a tall figure, masked and hooded in black.
Padmé presses back her fear, lets it turn to unease and trickle down her spine, and lets a babble of unimportant work coat the surface of her mind. It’s automatic, now—letting her thoughts turn dull and shallow, uninteresting to anyone with the capability to look—but if they know why she’s here, if they know what she’s doing, there’s no hiding. She may have been doomed from the moment she stepped into the room, and worse, she may have doomed her contact.
The figure speaks, and the storm breaks, not a loosening of tension, not its washing away, but its conversion to an icy knife’s point, just above Padmé’s heart.
“Padmé!”
It’s Anakin—Anakin, not Vader, for his voice is bright and happy, with nothing of the burning heat of Vader’s intensity, nothing of its molten rage.
Padmé lets the tension dissipate, lets the fear worm its way into the lowest depths of her mind and fall asleep. She is not caught out. Anakin cannot lie so well—at least not to her.
“Ani!” The tenor of her voice rises, turning bubbly and excited, and she takes off her mask as Anakin does, running to him and letting him twirl her around.
It’s not been six hours since they’ve seen each other, but Padmé learned long ago that the best distractor for Anakin is an overabundance of affection, and that to supply anything less is to risk his doubt. It’s taxing, maybe, to anticipate his needs, to keep herself fully with him and one step away, analyzing the situation, but it’s not as if she’s having to pretend the rest of it.
When she was six, just before she began legislative schooling, she’d found a swamp kestrel egg and brought it home. She’d cared for it as it had grown, feeding it daily and nightly and all times in between until she could let it out to hunt. A week after, she’d come home to find her sister’s cat Maisie dead on the front path, intestines spilling out of its ripped-open stomach. Her kestrel had perked its head up, blood around its beak, and hopped over to her. She’d brought it to her room, cleaned the beak off, and fed it three frozen mice. Later, when her sister had screamed, and sobbed for two weeks, she hadn’t said anything. After all, she hadn’t been in control of it then, and the kestrel was just acting the only way it knew how.
Sometimes, she wonders if that was the moment she was destined to love Anakin—when she’d hidden the bloody tissues in the trash under an orange peel, and steeled herself not to say a word.
He sets her down gently, and she steadies herself on his chest, clutching just a bit tighter than she knows is necessary as she readies herself for the inevitable question.
“Who’s that?” Anakin asks, nodding at her contact, but he’s not suspicious, just a little jealous.
Padmé looks up at him, letting the moon and the glowing buds of the tarshee tree turn her eyes wide and lovely, and smiles, lovestruck. “A surprise.”
Anakin cocks his head, brow furrowing. “What do you mean?”
“Well,” she says, letting his large hand envelop her small one, letting him clutch at it as if he can protect her by that alone, “you know how, a few months ago, you mentioned that it might be fun to... experiment.”
Anakin blushes, eyes going a little far away as he remembers exactly what she’s referring to, and exactly their positions at the time. “You’re enough for me, angel.”
“I know,” she says, and her smile softens as she reaches up to touch his cheek. “But I thought... we could have a little fun tonight.” She glances over at her contact, who’s watching the two of them with just the right amount of trepidation. “I was stalling for time with him.”
“You were waiting for me to find you,” Anakin infers, and the glow of happiness in his face makes it easy for Padmé to play along.
“We don’t have to.” She bites her lip— if she’s too enthusiastic, Anakin might get jealous, and then both she and the contact are dead. “I just thought—”
“No.” Anakin glances at the man. “No, I want to. Just— not tonight.”
Padmé lets her shoulders slump a little, a pout entering her tone. “Are you sure you can’t slip away? Even for a moment?”
Anakin smiles indulgently, kissing her on the forehead. “Someone has to keep people safe.”
Padmé stands on her toes, telegraphing her movements so that he’ll meet her halfway. It works. He takes control, letting her melt into the kiss, and she can feel his heartbeat quicken under her fingertips.
“Stay safe,” she whispers, breathless, as he pulls away.
Anakin smiles before he replaces his mask and hood, and when he speaks again, his voice is muffled by the barrier. “Anything for you.”
Padmé watches him leave, not turning until the door swings shut behind him.
“Well,” her contact says, slowly approaching her. “That was... interesting.”
He could be referring to any number of things, really, but she knows which one he’s talking about. He has found out her name, found out her face, and found out exactly how risky her position is. If he kills her now, and disappears, taking all the information with him, he will be saved, and any information that might have been invaluable to the Emperor will die with her. She will not fault him for it. This is not a game that heroes win.
“Will it be a problem?” Padmé asks, not daring to look at him.
He turns to her, and removes his mask, revealing a foreign, but extremely handsome face. Were she worse-trained, she might startle, but Padmé Amidala has, above all else, an excellent sabacc face.
He trusts her. He’ll help her. She doesn’t have to die.
“No,” he says, not cold, not furious, but something in the middle—stubborn and sure. “No, it won’t.”