Chapter Text
It was over.
Padmé stumbled out of her ship, her stomach roiling and her legs shaking. Three years, she had worked for three years to strengthen the Rebellion, and it had taken one Star Destroyer to scatter them all. She didn’t even know if Bail Organa, her friend who had recruited her into the Rebellion against the Galactic Empire, was still alive.
As she took a few steps away from her ship, scanning the strange, bustling spaceport, she heard a few sad whistles behind her. She turned around. “Please stay and guard the ship, Artoo,” she said.
Artoo shook, letting out some concerned beeps. Padmé said, “I’ll be fine.”
She wasn’t sure that she would be, but she couldn’t risk losing her one lifeline in a lawless Outer Rim spaceport.
She forged ahead, fighting to keep herself numb for a few more hours until she felt safe enough to crumble. She turned her commlink over in her pocket—did she dare try to contact Bail? Mon Mothma? Had the Empire infiltrated even their secret frequencies? Were they somewhere in a spaceport looking for her, thinking those same questions?
Padmé careened into a nearby bar and sat on a stool. She watched the holonet programs on the projectors scattered around the bar. They all were showing some sort of pod race, no news.
The Twi’lek bartender leaned on the bar in front of her. “Honey, you need to order a drink if you want to keep that seat.”
Padmé looked around the bar for a moment before saying, “Um, I’ll have a…Corellian whiskey?”
The bartender poured her a shot and slid the glass towards her. Padmé downed a sip, wincing as the alcohol left a burning sensation down her throat. She glanced over at the man sitting next to her, tapping his fingers on the counter as he watched the pod race intently. She noticed the scar across his eye, and the fact that his fingers were made of metal.
As the pod race finished, a collective groan rose up from the bar, and some people stood up and tossed their credits onto the bar in front of him. “Too kriffing lucky,” she heard one man grumble.
Before anything else could be said, the bartender said, “Stormtroopers spotted a few blocks down.”
Padmé’s heart leapt into her throat. She stood up quickly, colliding with the man who was sitting next to her. She said, “Sorry, excuse me.”
She tried to move past him, but he put a hand on her shoulder. “It might be safer to hide here.”
She looked at him, and then at the door. She had always wanted to believe people were good, but did she dare trust a stranger right now? She made her decision and followed him into the cellars downstairs and then into a small closet hidden behind some vats.
Squeezed into the pitch-black closet with him, Padmé hardly dared to breathe. Her stomach fluttered as she pressed against him. She laughed breathily. “They’re probably after me.”
“Oh, they’re almost definitely after me.”
Above, she heard the door of the bar slam open, and then a chorus of marching footsteps. Subconsciously, she tightened her grip on his arm. After a few minutes, though, the sound faded, and a person knocked on the door. “All clear,” the bartender said.
Padmé stumbled out of the closet, and he reached out to steady her. Then, he offered his hand for her to shake. “Hi, my name is Anakin Skywalker.”
She took his hand. “Padmé Naberrie.”
They stood together, quietly looking at each other for a second. He rubbed the back of his neck. “Do you want to—you know—” He turned scarlet, and his next words came out in a rush. “Do you want us to get to know each other better? I, um, my room is upstairs.”
Padmé wasn’t sure why she agreed, whether an uncharacteristic recklessness washed over her, or she felt the pull of fate, but she took his hand and followed him upstairs. A part of her felt like she should feel guilty; she still didn’t know what had happened to her friends, and she was following a man she had just met up to his room.
But then, the way his hand shook as he touched her waist was oddly comforting. Padmé buried her fingers in his wavy hair and kissed him. She sat on the edge of his bed and let him settle between her legs.
When it was all over, Padmé sat on the edge of the bed, trying to fix the tangles in her hair while glancing at Anakin. Now, she had the time to notice the lines of scars crisscrossing his chest and the blaster mark on his shoulder. She took a deep breath and grabbed her clothes. “I’m going to go freshen up.”
She stepped into his small refresher and froze as she saw a tag stamped with the Imperial seal hanging from the mirror. Padmé reached for her blaster. But then, she thought of what he had said earlier—they’re almost definitely after me. She put on her clothes and kept her blaster in a place she could quickly get to.
She walked back into the bedroom to find him slowly putting his shirt back on. He seemed to struggle a bit with the buttons. Padmé took a deep breath. “What brought you here?”
Anakin looked back at her and pulled on his pants. “I was smuggling some hyperdrive parts in the area and got noticed by a patrol and crash-landed my ship to avoid them. So now I’m a pilot without a ship.”
“So…you’re not a very good pilot, then.”
“Are you kidding me? I’m the best pilot in the galaxy!”
Padmé laughed nervously at his offended tone at first. Then, he rubbed the back of his neck and said, “It doesn’t matter, I guess. No one needs a pilot around here, anyways.”
Padmé looked at him for a few moments before quietly saying, “Well, I need a pilot.”