Wicked Game

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“The truth is rarely pure and never simple.”

Oscar Wilde


The storm of the night before had broken sometime in the early morning hours and now the sun glowed softly as it began its ascension up into the soft lavender-blue sky laced with puffy clouds. Ghostly white wisps of mist drifted across the surface of the lake, spun sugar reflected in glass, and a lone bird swooped across the smooth surface with a melancholy cry. I was aware of everything around me but at the same time it was faded and unsubstantial like a remnant from a dream. Only the man in front of me was real. His pain was a living, breathing thing, a black oppressive cloud that darkened his features and weighed me down.

“I saw my mother. She’s suffering, Padmé. I saw her as clearly as I see you now. She’s in pain. I know it’s disobeying my mandate to protect you, Senator, but I have to go. I have to help her.” He trained his broken blue eyes on my face and the bleak desperation nearly sent me to my knees. “I have to go to her. I have no choice.”

The words were pulled out of me before I was even aware of them forming. “I will go with you.”

There was a sudden fierceness about him, a flash of something indefinable that sparked in his eyes like an exploding star and then he crossed the short distance separating us in one stride. The gratitude flooding his face held me captivated in a suspended moment in time. But when Anakin tried to slip his hands around my waist and draw me to him, I stopped him. Catching his hands before they could find their intended target, I gently but firmly pushed them away. “I am going with you, Anakin but as a friend and nothing more.”

A crooked smile full of heat pulled the corners of his mouth up but he did not try to reach for me again. Instead the cold hand of despair seized me in its tight grip as my future suddenly stretched out before me - an empty, lonely existence with no end. You are doing the right thing, whispered my conscience. But if that were true why did I feel dead inside at the prospect of never again knowing Anakin’s touch? It seemed I was damned no matter which path I took so would it not be better to go down in flames rather than slowly freezing to death?

Anakin’s warm palm curved around my cheek and it took all my strength not to lean into his touch. At that moment I wanted nothing more than to drag him back in my room and stay there forever.

“As friends then.” Anakin said simply and then he leaned in and placed a gentle kiss on my brow.

It was all so sweet and incredibly easy – too easy. After the passion of last night was I really expected to believe he was just giving up? I watched his tall figure walk away from me, his mind already moving a parsec a minute as he planned our imminent departure, and I felt a chill of premonition tingle down my back.

Anakin would try again, of that I had no doubt. But he would do so whether we were on Naboo or Tatooine, I reminded myself. At least on Tatooine he would be distracted by the reunion with his mother.

His haunting words came back to me. "She’s suffering, Padmé. I saw her as clearly as I see you now. She’s in pain."

I simply refused to consider that even should his dreams prove true we would not reach her in time. Considering the idea that Shmi was anything but safe and well was too awful to dwell upon and I dreaded what any other circumstance would do to Anakin. The guilt of leaving his mother behind had eaten away at him for ten years but if he were to lose her now I could not fathom what he would feel. I shuddered. He would look for someone to blame, someone to make pay if he lost her through anything but natural causes. Anakin was impetuous and rash. He had a short rein on his temper despite being a Jedi. What would he do to those responsible?

I moved to the balcony and absently tore off a leaf from one of the clinging vines, ripping it into little pieces before letting the bits of green fall from my hand. I watched them flutter in the breeze as they floated down towards the water and tried to fight the numbness invading my soul.

Everything was so fragile, so delicate. In the blink of an eye a living thing could be pulled away from its surroundings and callously destroyed on nothing more than a whim. Below me the tiny pieces of leaf swirled and then disappeared beneath the surface as if they had never existed. After a long moment of staring at nothing, I turned and followed Anakin inside. I turned and followed my heart.


The End

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