Chapter Text
This is unbearable to watch.
It was supposed to be a lighthearted holoshow about a young boy moving to a new planet with his parents and learning how to make friends, so why is she watching… this?
Right now, the hologram portrays the child protagonist sitting uncomfortably by his uncle’s side, surrounded by a heavy atmosphere. They’re implied to be a slaver’s den, barely disguised as a bar. The uncle’s arm is squeezing the kid’s leg under the table, keeping him there.
The scene just before this implied that the mother was looking for her missing son, so hopefully it’ll be over soon…
Padmé glances at Anakin’s face, expecting a look of shared disgust, but he’s watching the hologram with laser focus.
At least one of them is interested.
She sighs heavily and hides her face into his neck, refusing to watch any longer. Her movement draws Anakin’s focus. His hand curls around her waist.
“Tired, Angel? We can stop watching if you want.”
“No, no, that’s not it,” she says. “It’s just hard to watch.”
He glances in between her face and the holoshow. “I guess it’s a little boring…”
“No, I mean…” For once, Padmé struggles to find her words. “I know it happens often, but it’s still upsetting to see this sort of thing.”
“This sort of thing?”
Padmé sits up to face Anakin properly, gauging his expression. He doesn’t look upset, just a little confused.
“You know,” she says tentatively, “relationships between adults and children.” A sick taste develops in her mouth at the muted description, but something about Anakin’s clear eyes makes her hesitate.
He looks at the holoshow again, where the old man now has his arm wrapped around the little boy’s lower back.
“Are friendships between non-related people frowned upon here?”
“What? No?”
“Then what’s wrong with this?”
Padmé stares at her husband for a long moment, mouth agape. Has she once again stumbled onto a cultural difference? But even if that’s the case, she can’t let this lie under the excuse of respecting another’s culture. What if Anakin is one day unable to help a child in need because he can’t recognize it as abuse?
She pauses the holoshow and turns on the lights. As she straightens up, Anakin’s hand falls off her waist and lays limp. He sits up with her.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, startled.
“This is kind of… a heavy topic,” Padmé begins by warning.
Anakin silently crosses his arms.
“You know about… pedophiles, right?”
“What? Yes, of course. But that old man didn’t actually do anything.”
“Yes, he did. I’m aware that adults can sometimes have good intentions and reasons to befriend a child, but— He was grooming that boy.”
“Grooming?”
“Manipulating him.”
“He just took him to a bar.”
“Exactly, he took a little boy to a bar!”
“Are you saying that when Obi-Wan took me to Dex’s when I was a kid, he was— what? Grooming me?”
“That’s not what I meant. I’m explaining this wrong,” she says, frustrated with herself. “Master Obi-Wan never knowingly took you to this kind of bar, did he?”
He makes a sour face. “Don’t remind me. At the slightest hint of trouble, he’d tell me to stay away or remain on the ship. I swear, it was so annoying. At least when the Chancellor took me— I mean,” he cuts himself off abruptly.
“What?”
“I would have been fine anyway,” he continues, pretending not to hear her. “Everyone constantly treated me like a child, but I would have been fine. I’d already seen worse.”
“No, no, go back,” she says. “What was that about the Chancellor?”
He gets the expression of someone who’s about to share secret mission details. “I'm not really supposed to talk about it…”
“Ani.”
“Seriously, I’m not supposed to…”
“Ani…”
He gives in. “The Chancellor sometimes took me to the lower levels when I was a kid. Don’t tell Obi-Wan,” he adds quickly.
“The lower levels?”
“Yeah. You know…”
He trails off leadingly. Padmé does know, and that’s why her mouth hangs open now.
“Like— like in the show we just watched?”
“Yeah, pretty much. I learned a lot thanks to him.”
Her mouth opens and closes soundlessly. “And Obi-Wan didn’t know?”
“Of course not. He would have been insufferable.”
“Did the Chancellor tell you not to tell him?”
“Uh… yeah, I guess.”
“How old were you?”
“I don’t know… Ten? Eleven? Something like that.”
“And he… acted like that man in the holoshow?”
“Yeah, why?”
Padmé sits there in disbelieving silence for a long moment, staring at her husband’s slightly nervous but otherwise unruffled expression. That nonchalance only makes the pain inside her chest sting more.
Did Anakin just confess, inadvertently, that the Chancellor has been grooming him since he was a child?
The thought makes her stomach roll. She can barely hold up the words against the figure of the man who, once upon a time, was a figure of democracy in her eyes — and to think of him acting this way with any child is… horrifying, and sickening.
She turns towards the holoprojector, and tries to replace the holoshow’s old man with the Chancellor. In the seedy underbelly of a corrupt city, dragging an innocent and already traumatized child — not even his own — into one of those establishments where sentient lives are exchanged in matters of seconds, laying a firm hand over that child’s thigh, like a shackle.
She imagines it with Ani.
That little boy who called her an angel, small and bony and rosy-cheeked.
She feels sick.
Maybe she’s seeing evil where there is nothing.
Is she?
She turns back towards Anakin. He’s watching her with a careful eye, holding her hands in his own. His thumb rubs over the back of her hands — as if she’s the one who needs comforting.
If the thought of little Ani being manipulated and abused by the Chancellor makes her stomach turn, the thought that it has been happening for years — is still happening to this day — has the bile already rising up her throat.
Suddenly, over a dozen memories of Anakin mentioning meetings with the Chancellor slam into her.
When their own relationship was just starting to take off, Anakin was eager, but recoiled away from any physical intimacy — and not just due to shyness. She’d thought, until now, that it was due to his past as a slave… but now, she’s not so sure.
Is the Chancellor to blame?
“Ani,” she says breathlessly, trying to find the words.
“Angel, I don’t know what you’re imagining, but the Chancellor is a good man,” he tells her, voice gentle but resolute. “He’s never once hurt me, and he would never hurt me. You don’t need to worry, alright?”
It’s clear that he’s only saying that for her benefit.
“Is this still going on?” she asks. “What am I saying, of course it is. Oh, Maker… I can’t believe this. Ani, I’m so sorry, I don’t understand how I couldn’t see it before, I—” She gasps to a stop.
“Angel,” Anakin says.
The calmness on his face only makes her anxiety grow.
“I’m glad you care about me, but I’m really fine. I would have noticed if the Chancellor had bad intentions. I was… wary of this as a child, and often tested him, but he never took advantage of me. I promise you he’s a good and honest man. He never once hurt me. When he took me to that bar, it was—”
He pauses, looking a little frustrated.
“It was just to help me learn how things were around here. The corruption and the greed. I’d never seen it being hidden like this before — where I’m from, you don’t need to hide this kind of thing. I guess the Chancellor must have noticed I was naive, because he taught me. Maybe it wasn’t the best way to do it, but— I don’t know. He was just being a mentor. I promise.”
“I don’t know…” she says.
“I’m not saying he’s perfect, but he was only looking out for me. Even to this day, whenever I need someone to help me, I know I can count on him to… I don’t know, at least listen to me. He gives me advice, too. Good advice. He’s a good man, Padmé.”
This time, she stays silent.
She wants to believe him. Genuinely, she does. The earnestness on his face is almost enough to convince her.
But.
Not only is she Anakin’s wife, but she is also Senator Amidala.
She has seen the way Chancellor Palpatine has acted in recent years.
She knows what many of her fellow senators are like.
And she can read between the lines.
Anakin may be convinced that Sheev Palpatine wants nothing more than to wax his boots and roll out the red carpet for him, but Padmé knows better.
Or at least, she’s starting to.
“Alright,” she says, trying not to let the dubiousness weigh too heavy in her voice. “If you say so. I’ll still keep an eye out, if you don’t mind?”
Anakin’s shoulders slump, a relieved smile breaking out on his handsome face, like the sun rising over the waters of Naboo. His arms wrap around her waist, and he drags her down to lie on top of him as he leans back into the couch. It feels like a pale imitation of their usual position — now with a heavy ghost hanging over them. Padmé still feels sick.
“I guess that’s fine,” he says teasingly. “As long as you don’t bother the Chancellor too much.”
“Of course not,” she lies.
She will not rest until she has definite proof that he won’t harm a single hair on her husband’s head.
And if her suspicions are confirmed…
So help her, she’ll make sure he never sees the light of day again.