#rosearwenpadme

[rose-arwen-padme]

Suppression

The forbidden tale of Anakin and Padmé's AOTC courtship. A detailed expansion covering the movie, known deleted scenes, and many new scenes. If George showed 20% of their screen time, this is the other 80%. Told in Padmé's POV with ROTS awareness. Written for the enduring fans of Anidala.

Prologue

I don't possess the Force ability to influence minds, but my time as Queen, as Senator, and as Anakin's obsession has taught me there is power to be found in the consequence of my words.

Scrutinizing outsiders have judged my relationship with Anakin from the beginning. Our tale is like a misunderstood creature in a zoo, the spectators pressing their noses up at us on the glass. They gape with their pointed fingers. They're vocal with their opinions and privileged hindsight of how they would've handled the twists and turns differently.

They're unaware, or uncaring, of the elevated audience rows they hurl their uninvited speeches from.

Such detractors single out the warning signs as bombastic, obvious signs of doom. How resourceful they are at finding fuel for the fires they burn us in. As if blinded by these flames of their own creation, they do not pause to view their kindling as the moments they were as we lived them. What to us was one rough conversation in an endless day— our bodies and minds perhaps taxed from duties, unending travel, or even grief, mixed with natural hindrances like hunger, lack of sleep, etc— or a passing disagreement which was returned to after we'd had a chance to process and re-frame… to them, all of it only became chopped and isolated historical fodder. I imagine it's quite effortless to throw sentiments like stones at these events when you know they are events and understand their future importance.

How nice it must be, to absorb and contextualize simultaneously with the big picture... As the great Master Yoda might say, we had not that luxury.

Stand and judge me. Stand and judge Anakin. Force knows we both deserve it, to various degrees. It's easy to pass down the verdict when you weren't caught up in the wave yourself, hijacked in body and mind by forces beyond your control. We were all of us— and I include Obi-Wan in this— just trying to navigate each day as it came, doing the best we could with the information we had at the time. And so, I'll charge you to remember: Even the combined insight of the mighty Jedi Council never saw this coming. How could I be expected to?

{Are you an angel?}

No one knows the full story— our true story.

In terms of emotional presentation, what is the opposite of a highlight reel?

We were inexperienced, the both of us, and it handicapped us in precarious ways. Regardless, the cliché old adage stands frightfully true— when you know, you know, and Fate does not make allowances for how unprepared you are when It comes. We're told in romantic holomovies and wispy fables that such sudden, deep knowledge of finding your soul's intended sweeps you off your feet, making you dizzy with the butterflies and happy certainty of love.

We lacked such rapturous fortune.

Our recognition of fate came dosed in fear. It was absolute certainty wrapped tightly in nothing but the uncertain on all sides, with no air to breathe. It was the sudden lurch from familiar, solid ground to standing on the edge of a wet precipice, the wind ready to push us over at any moment. So we fought it. I swear it on the barren wasteland of all I hold dear— we did try. We fought it, until we… we couldn't. Until we had no choice but to either forfeit our sanity and suppress, or to give in to the abyss and hope we came out the other side whole.

We chose to hope.

Hope has always moved this galaxy forward. Always will. But in its progression, some get crushed beneath the wheel.

I would never separate my fate from my husband's. However, if I am allowed to speak in my own defense, he was far more prepared than I when destiny reunited us on Coruscant. He'd had a decade to process, to accept, to plan, to commit. I was late to the game. Popular thought seems to be that Anakin was the rash one— the unmanageable wild bull— and I the level-headed stoic. But I can never say enough how much I regret the pain I caused him, and the precious time wasted, as he struggled to stabilize me in the chaos alongside him. He knew we were inevitable from the first moment I stepped foot in Watto's shop. For a man infamously known for his lack of it, his patience as he waited for me to catch up to him was nothing short of astonishing. Albeit, that patience was far from perfect.

This realization of fate for a pair when thrust upon individuals in two very different stages of acceptance of it does not make for an easy-breezy love story. There were milestone moments that didn't play out like the glossy holomovies. Mutual inexperience coupled with raw intensity, making for clumsy actions and unpolished words.

But then there were those magical instances, which, unrestrained from knowing any better and ignited by our hungry want to experience, actually far surpassed possibility.

Those that would label us a toxic cocktail of abruptly rushed feelings and dramatic declarations knew scraps of the story. The closest people around us— the select few who knew— barely understood us, what we were to each other. The Jedi didn't even want to try.

So much has happened to him. To me. To us. I shoulder my share of blame without contest.

But I draw the line at any who would reduce us to shallow caricatures.

We were playful. We teased. We laughed. Oh, how Anakin could make me laugh. We bonded over losses, helping each other through grief. We fought— furiously. We made sacred amends. We peeled back sides of ourselves we hadn't yet shared with another soul. And we desired. Gods, Anakin and I desired like we'd invented it. We burned for each other like two stars going nova under our very skins, a touch both acting as the curative relief and as the explosive trigger for craving more. Professionals in the Red District of Coruscant practice for years to do with their entire bodies what we could do to each other with a single look. 'Boring' was not a word in our relationship's vocabulary.

I've been accused of falling for him too fast, before I really knew him. Such a charge is wrong on two counts. First, I knew exactly who Anakin Skywalker was when I married him. I saw firsthand glimpses of the wraith that would consume him long before most others did— even Obi-Wan. But, just as clearly, I likewise saw the good, the exorbitant amount of light in him that others failed to see. Even Obi-Wan.

And second, I did not fall for Anakin. One does not meet with the life-altering experience which made me feel more alive than anything ever had before and call it a fall. It will be difficult for the hindsight spectators with their superiority complexes to believe, but Anakin brought more excitement, passion, and joy into my life than anything I had ever known. Whether running a planet or a blockade, the nervous energy of addressing the Galactic Senate, or being surrounded in a war zone, it was all paltry compared to the rush I'd feel when his gaze simply met mine across a room. One does not fall for a man, a lover, a— forgive me, but— born pilot like Anakin Skywalker. I flew.

I acutely know this because the fall did come, only much, much later. By that point, the glorious height to which we'd soared became fatal once the descent began.

There are plenty who would have my Ani suffer eternally in hell for his crimes. I am not here to invalidate their reasons, nor to silence their cries for justice. I know what he has done. If they get their wish, my only request is this— let his same flames engulf me as well.

For this angel will gladly burn in hell by his side.

Continued at AO3 Link and Fanfiction.Net Link

[rose-arwen-padme]

Suppression

The forbidden tale of Anakin and Padmé's AOTC courtship. A detailed expansion covering the movie, known deleted scenes, and many new scenes. If George showed 20% of their screen time, this is the other 80%. Told in Padmé's POV with ROTS awareness. Written for the enduring fans of Anidala.

Link to Prologue at FanFiction.Net and AO3

I Coruscant. Chapter 4: Fleeing

I didn't realize how lonely I was until Anakin came back into my life. I pushed away my personal wants and desires for so long that these freedoms became strangers to me. I poured all my breath into my political efforts and left none for myself. The fight and the successes sustained me, but I was a woman half-alive. My love for democracy beat in my heart like a furnace but it did not set fire to my blood— not like he did.

After years in a Senate filled with backstabbers who gave the holomovie actors a run for their money, I was unaccustomed to such an unfiltered soul, much less one deep in the pursuit of courting me. I remind myself of that whenever my regret berates me over the coals for the time I wasted resisting his charms. I was the elder, I tell myself, it was the right thing to do.

Right. Wrong. Truthfully, I'm too biased to decide such verdicts. All I know is, I was so lurched to the side of selflessness that when a chance came to finally want and take something for myself, I grasped at it like a woman starved. I thought I was rebalancing myself. But all I did was go from abstaining to gluttonously craving. Right and wrong increasingly didn't matter.

It certainly didn't to Anakin.

I was his, as he was mine, and he wasn't going to let a little thing like my penchant for self-sacrifice stand in his way.

Captain Typho, Dormé, and I ranted and raged together against the directive until we at last burned ourselves out. It took a while— we had plenty of fuel to feed our ire. No one liked the idea that I was being separated from my security retinue, especially when all duties and responsibilities were to be handed over to an unproven (last night's saber skills notwithstanding) teenage apprentice. I lost count of how many times Typho yelled, "He's not even a Knight!"

As to be expected, I was the most crushed over being forced off-planet at the crucial time of the MCA vote, but even the captain was openly dismayed by it. He usually kept himself more focused on the particulars of my protection rather than on my political labors, but even he was disheartened that the past year's work might come to naught. Ironically, considering he'd been the one most "grateful" and pleased when the Jedi got involved yesterday, the turn of direction they'd taken with this move significantly soured his appreciation. His switch to livid disapproval would've been comical, if all of it wasn't so frustrating.

I learned that Typho was informed of the situation by the chosen apprentice himself. It seems Ani comm called the captain while en route from the Chancellor's office and filled him in far more than the Chancellor had me. I got the impression this came more from Typho refusing to let Ani end the call until his list of demanding questions had been sufficiently answered— even Ani knew better than to hang up on an angry and incredulous Captain Typho. The specific order to go into hiding and travel as refugees on unregistered transport came from Mace Windu. Obi Wan had advised that Dormé take over the appearance of my continued presence on Coruscant, to be protected by Typho and the rest of the staff. They wanted to keep the bounty hunter's focus on the capital planet as much as possible while Obi-Wan carried out the investigation by himself. Beyond that, my fate was to be in the hands of Anakin Skywalker.

The official word would be that I was very much still on Coruscant but recovering from back-to-back assassination attempts. If the investigation took longer than expected, then the story would become that I was properly sick with some non-fatal but serious illness. Both the fighter and the truth-teller in me bristled at such excuses.

Throughout all this, Dormé would take over sleeping in my room and occupying my apartment during the daytime, which would remain on heavily armed lockdown. It was the compromise I fought hard for after the rant session when the last schematics were being figured out. Everyone agreed that Dormé didn't quite look enough like me to pass as Amidala in the halls of the Senate. Nevertheless, I'd made it clear that even the idea of Dormé walking through the city in my stead with the threat so close would result in my immediate refusal to hide, Chancellor's or Jedi's orders be damned.

At present, Dormé and I were in my room, splaying black suitcases across my bed. "It doesn't even make sense!" With my last word, I threw the first garment I randomly grabbed from the closet into a luggage box. "If it's so important that I go into hiding, why am I going to my home world? It's the first place a hunter with half a brain will check if they figure out I'm not on Coruscant."

With a somber smile, Dormé retrieved the thick snow jacket I'd flung into the suitcase and put it back on the hanger— I wouldn't need it where I was going. Softly, she offered, "Perhaps they know the planet most willing to hide you is your own." She paused, regarding me for a serious moment. "The people of Naboo would die before they let any harm come to you."

"Let's hope it doesn't come to that." Then I swallowed painfully, realizing it already had.

Dormé shook her head from side to side. "I still can't believe their putting your safety in the hands of a Padawan."

I didn't comment. My frustration at Ani had cooled since earlier, and, in truth, I felt some shame for the anger I'd directed his way after the order came down. He couldn't help his age, nor his status as an apprentice. Besides, if Typho's second-hand account was correct, the Council had given him this assignment unasked. He was following orders, same as me.

Not only that, but the longer I ran the situation over in my head, the longer I begrudgingly began to see where the Jedi and Palpatine were coming from. It didn't mean I liked it, but it was my job and my nature to consider the other's side in a disagreement or else be blinded by stubbornness.

Staying would mean going back and forth between last minute meetings and the Senate, increasing the risk of vulnerability to my entourage when most Senators already had their minds made up.

Leaving meant those left behind could lock down the apartment and stay put. Stay alive.

{More so than anyone, I've faced the pushback, the arguments, and worked out the compromises.}

Did I feel owed? Is that what this stemmed from? Pride?

My tenacity to see the defeat of the Military Creation Act through, while being something I indeed prided myself on, could put Dormé, Typho, Jar Jar, and the rest of my dedicated staff in lethal danger. Their lives weren't worth my glory moment in the sun.

It had already cost us Cordé and six others.

"Where do you think you'll go?"

I shot her a wry look. "You heard my travel agent."

While the Chancellor's suggestion that I see this as a vacation made my skin crawl, I couldn't disagree that the Lake Country made for a remote, secure hideout that was beyond idyllic. Not only was it beautiful, but it was possibly the safest place on Naboo for me, spare the palace. It was also home to where I always I felt the happiest— my family's lakeside house.

"Does that mean…?"

I nodded. "Varykino."

Continued at FanFiction.Net Link and AO3 Link

[rose-arwen-padme]

Suppression: Chapter 19. The Meadow

I bit down on my lip as I quickly weighed the potential pros and cons of this conversation. "Alright," I acquiesced, diving into the unknown as bravely as if I were jumping into one of the cold pools of water behind us. "I was twelve." I looked over to see Anakin smiling in victory. Something about that successful grin prompted me to discover a new advantage in my answer. "His name was Palo. We were both in the Legislative Youth Program." My voice became more suggestive, and I purposefully drew out my description. "He was a little older than I. Very cute." Anakin's chin visibly clenched. "Dark, curly hair. Dreamy eyes—"

"Alright— I get the picture."

He shifted his gaze grumpily. I couldn't help it— I smiled.

Anakin still couldn't look at me. "So, what ever happened to him?"

He asked as if there were massive odds that anyone would still be with their very first kiss, twelve years after the fact. "I went into public service; he went on to become an artist."

"Maybe he was the smart one."

I knew Anakin's joking tone at this point. That wasn't it. "You really don't like politicians, do you?"

He visibly sized me up with a haughty raise of his chin. "I like two or three… but I'm not really sure about one of them." This was the jester I knew, and we chuckled lightly as his veneer broke. But I was surprised, although not unpleasantly, when he continued, solemnly saying, "I don't think the system works."

Anakin and I hadn't had a discussion yet about politics, amazingly. I was genuinely curious on his thoughts. As I leaned back on my elbow, I sincerely queried, "How would you have it work?"

He settled himself into position, as if he'd been waiting for me to ask such a question from day one and had finally found his moment. "We need a system where the politicians sit down and discuss the problem, agree what's in the best interests of all the people, and then do it."

I wasn't expecting such naivete from him. "That's exactly what we do. The- the trouble is that people don't always agree."

"Well then they should be made to."

This I openly balked at. "By whom? Who's going to make them?" He was mocking the idea of democracy to a woman who'd spent most of her life defending it.

"I don't know, someone."

"You?"

He judged me as if I was the ridiculous one. "Of course not me."

"But someone?"

He nodded. As if that cleared up everything. "Someone wise."

How could he not see where such a system would lead? "Sounds an awful lot like a dictatorship to me."

For the very first time, Anakin fixed me with a stare which— despite its familiar intensity— was neither charming nor alluring. "Well?" Cobalt eyes searched my face, tentatively seeking out a morsel of agreement from me. "If it works?"

He said it with the air of someone who knew exactly what kind of system he was talking about. Unexpectedly, especially given the warm sun, I felt cold shiver go down my spine.

He seemed confident in his question, which unnerved me to no end. However, the longer I looked at him, the more the gleam returned to his eyes, ultimately ending in a smirk. And he was caught.

The breadth of my relief stretched my cheeks back with my amazed smile. I owe an apology to a galaxy for my lack of foresight, and for what I said next. "You're making fun of me!"

He shook his head in a false show of defense, his foreboding look giving way to curved lips and white teeth. "Mmm, no! No, I'd be much too frightened to tease a Senator."

Anakin looked down at the blades of grass littering his lap, chuckling to himself still. The lightweight innocence returned to our picnic as if it had never left. My gaze lingered as I silently watched him, a soft smile adorning my lips as I reflected on how easy it was to feel this way around him. I drifted my focus back to the tall grass I danced with in my left hand, the tips brushing against the pads of my fingers.

"So, you think I should suggest my reformation idea to the Chancellor?"

Now I really knew he was teasing me. "Oh, you're so bad!" I reached behind his waist for the uneaten fruit in one of the drawers of our container. I threw it at him, but he caught it with a laugh.

"You're so serious all the time."

"Me? Serious?"

My intention inflamed, I reached behind him again and threw yet another ball of fruit, and another. Anakin reacted by juggling the weapons of assault with maddening ease. Determined, I grabbed the last two fruits Nandi had packed for our nourishment and tossed it at the jester. Finally overwhelmed, he let the balls fall around him in a rain of fruit. Two bounced off his shoulders and rolled into the grass, but I howled with laughter when one landed squarely on his head.

I listened to the sound of my glee as if the noise were coming from someone else. It had been an immeasurable amount of time since I'd heard myself laugh so freely.

Anakin rubbed the crown of his head, but he seemed to be enjoying the sound of my unrestrained merriment as much as I was amazed to hear it. After a moment, he asked, "Do you have anything planned for what we do after this?"

My laughs subsiding, I turned away in order to suppress yet another smile. He hadn't asked if I had anything scheduled for myself— the notion that whatever happened next, we would do it together was simply, naturally implied. Surprisingly, despite the fact that we'd spent almost every waking hour together for almost five full days, his presumption did not bother me. The only person I usually spent this much unbothered, consecutive time around was Dormé and— previously— Cordé, and despite the vast differences in their personalities, I still didn't find myself wanting a break from Anakin.

I finally met his gaze, and my smile grew again of its own doing. "No. Do you have something in mind?"

Continued at AO3 Link and Fanfiction.Net Link

Suppression

The forbidden tale of Anakin and Padmé's AOTC courtship. A detailed expansion covering the movie, known deleted scenes, and many new scenes. If George showed 20% of their screen time, this is the other 80%. Told in Padmé's POV with ROTS awareness. Written for the enduring fans of Anidala.

[rose-arwen-padme]

Suppression

The forbidden tale of Anakin and Padmé's AOTC courtship. A detailed expansion covering the movie, known deleted scenes, and many new scenes. If George showed 20% of their screen time, this is the other 80%. Told in Padmé's POV with ROTS awareness. Written for the enduring fans of Anidala.

I Coruscant. Chapter 2: The First Night

Twice. I'd barely escaped dying in horrific ways twice today. I made my peace with death years ago, and I'd never been dissuaded by it nor second-guessed my service. I knew I was fighting for the right cause. But staring at my almost deathbed, for the first time since the attacks began, I felt the cold, mortal fear of being prey.

Just because I'd made my peace with death did not mean I wanted to die.

I'd just spent an evening making consolation calls to seven families. Who would be the one to call mine? Typho? Queen Jamillia?

I tore my focus from the bed to the spots on the floor where the halved Kouhuns landed. With a brush of paint, the wall might be spared from the corrosive residue. But there were faint stains on the carpet fibers below— a permanent reminder of what would have been had Ani arrived a second later.

I looked up at him. Ani was staring at the same mark on the floor where my eyes just left. The ivory light coming through the blinds cast horizontal lines across his torso and face. His expression was hard, almost frightening in the dark, but his features softened as his gaze trailed up to meet mine.

There's a unique intimacy that forms between two people when one of them has saved the life of the other, and we looked at each other for a long moment as the weight of it sunk in. A silent yet poignant communication passed between us.

Would Anakin and I have bonded so quickly and deeply over the coming days if he had not saved my life in the first eight hours of our reunion? I can only offer that it didn't hurt the odds.

This wasn't the first time someone had rescued me from possible death. I could still remember the name of every person who ever stood by my side and fired a blaster (or swung a lightsaber, though that list is much shorter) in my defense. I'd been a target since I was a child-queen, but I'd never forgotten the face of any soul who used their skills to keep me safe. Across ten years of activism, this roster had gotten long. But maybe because it happened in the sacredness of my own bedroom, maybe because the Kouhuns got so close, maybe because we'd schemed together and tempted fate to bring the whole thing about— maybe because of the way Anakin's intense stare affected me… this just felt different. More intimate.

Continued at AO3 Link and FanFiction.Net Link

[rose-arwen-padme]

Suppression

The forbidden tale of Anakin and Padmé's AOTC courtship. A detailed expansion covering the movie, known deleted scenes, and many new scenes. If George showed 20% of their screen time, this is the other 80%. Told in Padmé's POV with ROTS awareness. Written for the enduring fans of Anidala.

I Coruscant. Chapter 3: Executive Order

It was the familiar savory smell that roused me awake. When my eyes squinted open, I saw Dormé's oval face looking down on me from her stance next to the sofa. A promising mug was in her right hand. "Caf?" she asked, sweetly.

Oof. Did I fall asleep looking at drafts on the couch again? This was hardly the first time Dormé had found me on the yellow bench, greeting me in the morning with a pleasant smile and a hot cup of my favorite spiced brew.

The apartment was cast in yellowish amber, as the emerging sunrise entered the space like gold filling a basin. It was going to be a beautiful morning. For a wonderful moment, life was as it had been. Normal. Uneventful. I was too recent a visitor of the mind-numbing sleep world, and I didn't yet remember the events of the landing platform. The deaths. The grief. The close call of the second attempt. But the ignorant spell was broken when a shiver went through me and I realized how frigid the room was, and why. Normally, I kept my apartment at humid, slightly warm temperature that mimicked Naboo's southern climate. It reminded me of home. But the busted window in my bedroom— an area that was merely one open corridor away— must've allowed Coruscant's chilly dry air to infiltrate throughout the apartment during the night.

And with that dawn of understanding, reality came rushing back. Because it was a window broken when a bounty hunter— or their accomplice, I was still hazy on the details, especially now— tried to assassinate me. Had tried again— after slaughtering innocents yesterday.

Cordé. Bern. Torin.

Seven faces flashed before my eyes in quick succession. I stared momentarily at the deep blue ceiling, composing myself, halting the way my lungs seemed to constrict and fill with rocks in my chest. Then I swallowed the grief back. I propped myself up on my left elbow— like I'd prophesied, I had indeed rolled over in my sleep to better adjust myself to the "C" curve of the sofa— and with a grateful smile, I reached up. Dormé carefully passed me the purple mug of caf, just like she had for hundreds of mornings. Some routines just carried on. "Thank you." I wrapped all my fingers around the cup luxuriously— it warmed my chilled hands.

That's when I noticed there was a second, thicker blanket draped across my lower half, covering the thin one I'd brought with me from the veranda's couch. It was the purple top linen from my actual bed. That was unexpected. Without it, I might've frozen through the night. I credited its presence to Dormé. She must've placed it on me while I slept.

Unless…

"Where's Ani?" My eyes scanned around the room, failing to find their target.

Dormé studied me for a moment, pausing ever so briefly before she answered, with a directional tip of her head, "He's just outside. I think he's doing some morning reflection ritual."

Careful not to spill my drink, I sat up enough to peek over the rim of the furniture at the figure out on the balcony. His back was to us, and his hands were clasped low behind him. His brown robe floated around him in the breeze, showing us that his feet were spread shoulder-width apart. There was no hint of tension in his frame. The sunrise rays illuminated his dark blond hair, making the short strands appear almost crown-like around his head.

When Dormé answered me, her voice had been quieter than when I'd asked my question, and I knowingly matched her low volume now. "He's meditating."

Dormé shrugged. "Like I said."

I sat up fully, my aching back protesting but also reveling in the chance to straighten out. I stretched it as best I could while sitting and holding a cup of hot fluid in my hand. At least my neck seemed to have decided not to hurt anymore. I ventured the mug to my lips, but the toasty air before I made contact alerted my senses that it was still too hot. I blew habitually on the liquid, then dared to take a sip anyways. I licked my scorched lips and looked expectantly up at Dormé. "Any news?"

Only her eyes betrayed Dormé's otherwise stoic countenance. "Hundreds of messages of condolence came during the night. Honestly, it might be in the thousands by now. Even some of the factions who don't like you sent words of sympathy. And there are numerous requests for interviews from the media."

I sighed. "So, word has gotten out."

At least the families of the victims knew— I'd made sure they'd been contacted before I gave my speech to the Senate yesterday. In my opening remarks to the assembled chamber, I'd publicly announced the seven lives lost. It would've been unforgivable if the families found out either that way or through some back channel.

"Should we tackle the media all at once? Call a press conference?"

"No," my tone was adamant, imperative. "No, not with the vote in the balance. I don't even want to give the appearance of capitalizing on tragedy."

The life of a politician mandated that press conferences be a part of the diet, but instigating them when it wasn't absolutely necessary was the style of other Senators, not me. Besides, the threat was still ongoing, and there was no need to make Obi-Wan and Ani's job any more difficult.

Dormé nodded, and I knew she both understood and agreed. "A memorial service is going to be held at the Naboo embassy this morning. There's to be moment of silence, time for remarks, as well as grief counseling for anyone seeking it. The service is going to be semi-private— Naboo only at this time."

I knew the staff at the embassy extremely well, and I was proud and glad that they were putting something together. The shock and brutality of this attack would be felt by all who called Naboo home, and I was grateful that those here on Coruscant had a place to come together.

I took another sip of caf. "I'll be there, too." Dormé's lips twisted, and lines appeared on her forehead. I was about to take another sip, but as I studied my handmaiden the mug stayed paused before my lips, inadvertently heating the tip of my nose. "What is it?"

"Nothing. Well. I just think— yes, it would be good of you to go."

I gave her a wary look. "What are you not telling me?"

A rushed sigh suddenly escaped through Dormé's nose. "Last night the embassy held a candlelight vigil for the fallen at Lucian Park— completely open to the public. The crowd was… large."

I didn't believe my ears. "Our embassy? The embassy for Naboo?"

The look on her face was all the affirmation I needed.

I gaped at her, incredulous. "Why wasn't I told?" I should have been there!

Dormé was immediately apologetic. "I'm sorry. You were in your room eating dinner when I found out, and the Jedi and Captain Typho told me not to."

My lips straightened into a thinly pressed line, and then my voice rang out clear and loud. "Ani!"

Continued at AO3 Link and FanFiction.net Link

[rose-arwen-padme]

Suppression

The forbidden tale of Anakin and Padmé's AOTC courtship. A detailed expansion covering the movie, known deleted scenes, and many new scenes. If George showed 20% of their screen time, this is the other 80%. Written for the enduring fans of Anidala.

I Coruscant. Chapter 1: The Reunion

That first day of reunion has played over and over in my mind so many times that I could run the memory backwards in my sleep. I cannot stop the search for clues pointing to what was to inescapably come— the light, and the darkness.

I was vulnerable when I met again with Anakin. Underneath a senator's armor was a walking open wound silently yearning for a salve. Cordé's death was a brutal blow. For all the trials I'd been through and the assassination attempts over ten years, I had never lost a handmaiden before. And so violently! My grief was compounded by the dark incredulity that she died believing she had somehow failed me. I barely had time to compose myself before formally dressing and rushing to the Senate, pouring a fierce display of my heartache into a speech to the assembled chamber. I'd learned well from my time as monarch the power of costume. I specifically chose something as regal and stately as when I was queen, using any tool I could to imbue passion into my plea. But this meant a lightning-fast change into subdued attire after, something more appropriate for a meeting in the Chancellor's office alongside other members of the Loyalist Committee. More rushing. Then we were hastening back to my apartment to meet the Jedi, who would surely waste no time once they learned of their new assignment. You don't drag your feet when you've learned you're in charge of keeping someone alive.

Rush, rush, rush.

I didn't mind. Speed and distraction kept the tears further at bay. Not that I needed the activity— I was good at suppressing my feelings. Too good.

Stalled as we waited in my receiving lounge, the late day sun bathing us in a warm glow which betrayed our emotions, all could only feel the cold of heartbreak. Typho, the dutiful captain of my security, was still frazzled but hiding it under a soldier's disciplined composure. He, along with his uncle Captain Panaka, had recruited all seven of the lives lost, hand-picking them over the years for service. And he doted on Cordé. She'd been the only one of us who could break through the hard exterior and regularly make him smile. I knew that as much guilt as I brought on myself for her death, for all their deaths, he would carry more.

Dormé, normally the talkative, sassy joke-maker of our bunch, had been relatively silent all morning as she'd dutifully helped me hurry from one location to another. Busy hands did their best to compensate for the absence of the second handmaiden who should've been there to help. But as I finished the last fastens for my dress on my own prior to our departure for the Senate, I'd heard her crying in the bathroom. I hadn't needed to ask her to don black garb. She knew she must mourn for the both of us right now.

My heart went out to Jar Jar. He'd matured in the last ten years, especially in his time of public service, but he never lost his child-like way. He'd been on the transport ship timely coming to meet us at the landing platform. Jar Jar had seen the cruiser explode on approach, been there to frantically usher us aboard as we escaped. But even through the mist, he'd seen. The broken bodies. The carnage.

The hustle of the day had helped us all stay distracted. But in the private period as we awaited Obi-Wan and Ani's arrival, we sat or stood without speaking in my receiving room, each of us fighting our own quiet battles with grief. Here, in my Coruscant home, among those who intimately understood, I felt my composure start to slip. The adrenaline of the rushed day was wearing off.

It was too easy to remember the searing heat of the explosion, as if a star had spontaneously combusted mere meters away. I'd been flung backward by its shock wave. I couldn't see them through the heavy sleeves of my blue gown, but I knew my elbows were bruised. They ached. Even with my flight helmet still adorned, my head had collided with the ground hard— it hurt if I turned my neck a certain way too quickly, and my stretched headpiece wasn't helping. The smell of smoke was still in my nose, and a wave of nausea hit me. Needing fresh air, I escaped to the balcony outside. Coruscant's smoggy oxygen flow would have to do. At least we were high up, far from the worst of the traffic congestion. The cold wind was strong enough to bite at my eyes. I blamed it for the reason why they were glossed over.

A wave of pain threatened my reasoning and my resolve. I leaned into an old coping mechanism and imagined opening a drawer, seeing myself place the distress in there as if it were a bundle of twisted cloth. It was a tried-and-true move anytime I felt truly overwhelmed by sorrow or anger. I'd been using the technique since before I was queen. When I was a preteen, I volunteered for an off-world humanitarian mission to relocate several children and their families to a new planet. The move was supposed to be their salvation. When those relocation efforts failed and they all perished, I couldn't stop crying. I morphed into a faucet incapable of shutting itself off. At the end of the second day of this, my father lovingly sat me on his knee and shared his secret trick with me. At the time, I think he mostly just wanted his daughter to stop sobbing on her bed and come to dinner— I hadn't been eating during my lamenting, either. He couldn't have known how deeply his words would sink into my psyche. Now, I could've taught a class at Theed University on Emotional Compartmentalization.

Once my breath returned to a steady rhythm, I tepidly loosened the valve on my emotions again.

Continued at AO3 Link and Fanfiction.Net Link

[rose-arwen-padme]

The forbidden tale of Anakin and Padmé's AOTC courtship. A detailed expansion covering the movie, known deleted scenes, and many new scenes. If George showed 20% of their screen time, this is the other 80%. Written for the enduring fans of Anidala.

Prologue

I don't possess the Force ability to influence minds, but my time as queen, as senator, and as Anakin's obsession has taught me there is power to be found in the consequence of my words.

Scrutinizing outsiders have judged my relationship with Anakin from the beginning. Our tale is like a misunderstood creature in a zoo, the spectators pressing their noses up at us on the transparisteel. They gape with their pointed fingers. They're vocal with their opinions and privileged hindsight of how they would've handled the twists and turns differently.

They're unaware, or uncaring, of the elevated audience rows they hurl their uninvited speeches from.

Such detractors single out the warning signs as bombastic, obvious signs of doom. How resourceful they are at finding fuel for the fires they burn us in. As if blinded by these flames of their own creation, they do not pause to view their kindling as the moments they were as we lived them. What to us was one rough conversation in an endless day— our bodies and minds perhaps taxed from duties, unending travel, or even grief, mixed with natural hindrances like hunger, lack of sleep, etc— or a passing disagreement which was returned to after we'd had a chance to process and re-frame… to them, all of it only became chopped and isolated historical fodder. I imagine it's quite effortless to throw sentiments like stones at these events when you know they are events and understand their future importance.

How nice it must be, to absorb and contextualize simultaneously with the big picture... As the great Master Yoda might say, we had not that luxury.

Stand and judge me. Stand and judge Anakin. Force knows we both deserve it, to various degrees. It's easy to pass down the verdict when you weren't caught up in the wave yourself, hijacked in body and mind by forces beyond your control. We were all of us— and I include Obi-Wan in this— just trying to navigate each day as it came, doing the best we could with the information we had at the time. And so, I'll charge you to remember: Even the combined insight of the mighty Jedi Council never saw this coming. How could I be expected to?

Continued at AO3 and Fanfiction.net...

[rose-arwen-padme]

10-18-22 The Prologue

Padmé is here, and she has a story to tell.

At this time, I don't plan on revealing when in the timeline Padmé is speaking to us, but it's safe (and rather obvious) to say it's after Anakin has fallen. As much as I am excited to tell the AOTC courtship story, I wanted to explore it from the perspective of a Padmé who knows the devastating big picture like we do-- someone who sees the moments on Naboo, Tatooine, etc. through the context of what will come. It brings a whole new level of gravity and bittersweetness. This awareness will be subtly used in the majority of chapters, but fully delved into in the prologue and eventual epilogue.

At just four pages, this is the shortest "chapter" in Suppression. But I cannot underscore enough how many times I revisited it before publishing. It needed to sound like Padmé. It needed to have the hook. But while I did not write this story for them, there's also a little gauntlet-throwing to the many, many detractors of Anidala. The Star Wars fandom is notoriously, ahem, how should we say this? Opinionated. And they've been downright cruel to Anidala, especially pre-Clone Wars show. Being an Anidala fan has been hard for the past twenty years. We've all been there-- sometimes, it's awkward just to admit you're a big Star Wars nerd to non-nerds. But to feel hesitant amongst your own SW tribe to voice your support for the characters/couple you like, knowing the judgement is coming? Rough. I don't think I've ever brought Anidala up in person to a fellow SW fan and not been met with eye rolls and arguments. When I say Padmé is my favorite character, at best I'm met with polite but confused nods. For a while, I lied and said another character just to avoid it.

No more.

That said, I want to make a point clear: Padmé is not breaking the fourth wall in the prologue. I find it very plausible that, in-world, Padmé experienced or expected the perspectives she's defending her and Anakin's love against. If she'd lived through Polis Massa, unfortunately, I have no doubt she would've been met with confusion and judgement almost everywhere she went. She had her counter-arguments ready.

Padmé is very much alive in Suppression, and she has a story to tell. For as long as it takes to tell it, she's got the floor.

[rose-arwen-padme]

10-18-22 Welcome!

Suppression is live! Okay, so what is this tumblr? I am an author who posts on FanFiction.net. I started reading and writing stories twenty years ago in various fandoms, but the center of my heart belongs to the Padmé/Anakin (Anidala) ship from Star Wars. After a near two-decade hiatus, I've begun posting an Anidala story called Suppression. It's an expanded, detailed narration of Anakin and Padmé's courtship during Attack of the Clones from Padmé's point of view. If George Lucas showed us 20% of their screentime, this is the other 80% (with a rating bumped up to a light 'R' by the MPAA ratings scale). And it has a tumblr home! I'd like to keep the story post itself minimalist, so I'll be directing all interested in reading author's notes to this tumblr. This page will be used exclusively for this, including posts I'll write for each chapter giving insights into my writer's process.

Below is a link to the prologue. If you're here, you probably came from FanFiction.net. But if you found this page through tumblr hashtags or were referred here, I hope you'll check the story out!