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The heat is almost unbearable and she's not even close to the lava river eating everything in its path a few metres into the distance.
Padmé brings up a hand to wipe the sweat off her forehead, the gesture almost absent-minded, as her focus shifts to the soreness in her feet and the persistent ache in her back that she's learnt to tolerate as best she can for the past few months. Distantly, she's aware of Anakin prattling on in the background, a manic look in his eyes as he talks about power and governments and Force knows what else. She isn't listening.
All Padmé can think about is how inconvenient it is that her husband chose this moment to lose his mind and throw the galaxy into chaos. Couldn't he have waited a few more weeks? Until she wasn't heavily pregnant and sore all over? She wants to lie down and take a nap, drink some water, eat a snack – she's been craving blue milk lately, weirdly enough, a drink she only had once several years ago when she met Anakin’s family – anything but stand here on this hell planet in the middle of her husband's mental breakdown while the galaxy is going down the drain in the background of her family drama. She's so tired.
“-dmé? Are you even listening to me?”
Anakin sounds confused. Good. That means he's one step further away from total insanity.
“No, Anakin, I'm not,” she admits in an exhausted exhale, reaching down towards her belly to massage it when the baby aims a harsh kick. ‘It's your father you should be abusing, not me,’ she thinks wearily. “Look, why don't you get back on the ship with me and we can sort this out on our way to Naboo, hm? You can tell me all about the Jedi and the galaxy while I sit down and you rub my feet, how about that?”
Anakin seems to lose all momentum at her words, as if she took the wind out of his sails by failing to meet his lunacy with hysteria of her own. He blinks stupidly at her for a moment but Padmé is patient – as much as she can afford to be, given the present situation – because she knows she's won before he even has to say anything. Her Ani is quick to anger, as it's easy to provoke him and even easier to stoke the embers already smouldering, but Padmé hasn't been his wife for the past three years for nothing; she knows how to dump water on that fire and smother it.
While she waits for him to get back to reality, Anakin's face goes through a torrent of emotions, too quick for Padmé to identify, but he seems to finally settle on worry as his eyes drift down towards her belly and the hand she hasn't removed from under it. He takes a hesitant step forward.
“Are… are you alright? Is the baby okay? You shouldn't have come here, Padmé, the fumes aren't good for you.”
The look she levels at her husband could make Grievous cower.
“No shit, Anakin. I know that, thank you very much, but someone had to drag you back to reality and it looked like I was the only one set on actually talking to you. So get your ass on the ship if you care so much about the fumes.”
Padmé has had enough. Well, if she's being honest, she reached her limit a while ago, but she loves this homicidal idiot too much to let him destroy himself and everything she holds dear. There's nothing they can't fix together, no hardship they can't overcome, but only if he comes with her and lets her talk some sense into him. Padmé, more than anyone, knows Anakin's delicate in and outs, what to mess with, how hard to push, when and how and how much. Obi-Wan still sees an unruly Padawan, immature and impulsive, but Padmé knows what drives her husband, knows his fears and insecurities, because she's the one who was there to pick up the pieces, time and time again, when his former Master or the Council misunderstood and slighted him, when he inevitably lost his temper and fucked things up. Padmé understands the weight of responsibility placed on frail shoulders at too young an age, knows the helplessness and frustration of having no ally because everyone only ever has expectations and criticism but never encouragement and understanding. And yes, maybe it's not all the Jedi's fault – Anakin is deeply flawed, just like everyone else, and he can be stubborn and arrogant to a fault – but they were in charge of raising him right when Shmi handed him over and they failed to do that. Padmé has done more to help Anakin grow as a person in the three years they've been together – through holocalls and brief in-person visits, too! – than his guardians ever did in the thirteen he's been among them.
So when she sees him starting to close the gap between them, a measure of calm and guilt and realisation settling over his features, but he pulls away at the last moment and glares at something over her shoulder with fear and betrayal, Padmé is close to committing her own bout of homicide out of sheer frustration alone.
“You brought him here to kill me!” he yells venomously, face screwed up in the epitome of betrayal.
Padmé wheels around at his words and comes face to face with Obi-Wan, standing on the ramp of her ship in the most ridiculous, anger-provoking stance she's ever seen. The sight of him causes her eye to twitch; she can even feel a migraine starting to pound at her temples. To add insult to injury, the baby kicks again, this time harsher than the last, and the pain almost sends her crashing to her knees.
“Oh for fuck's sake, Obi-Wan!” Padmé doubles over from the baby's assault, face screwed up in pain, forehead sweaty again, and back more sore than ever. “You just had to follow me here, didn't you?”
For a second, the Jedi Master looks at her guiltily, but then his eyes drift towards Anakin, presumably, and his expression hardens.
“I did what I had to do, Padmé. To stop Anakin.”
“Stop me?! You think you can stop this, Obi-Wan? I-”
“SHUT UP!”
Padmé still hasn't straightened herself up, needing a minute – or twenty – more to gather herself, but she can feel the stillness of the two men even without looking.
“You will stop this madness this instant,” she commands, huffing and panting slightly. “Whatever you want to say to each other can be done from aboard my ship! I am seven months pregnant, every inch of my body hurts, my head is pounding, and the baby keeps kicking! So pack it up and take me inside before I pass out right here, right now! Anakin, get over here!”
For the second time today, Padmé's words seem to be able to knock some brain cells around in her husband's brain and he rushes over to her side almost immediately. Padmé leans into him gratefully, sighing in relief when he takes some of the weight off her feet and spine, and she closes her eyes for a second or two.
“I'm sorry, angel,” Anakin murmurs contritely.
“You will be, if you don't get moving,” she replies with less heat than before. She feels exhausted all of a sudden, and all she wants is to crawl in the bed waiting for her inside her ship, with Anakin wrapped around her and the lights dimmed low. “Please, let's just go. We will figure it out later. The baby needs you, Ani. I need you.”
Padmé lifts her head up, eyes half lidded, to look in her husband's eyes, and brown meets clear blue as he looks at her with guilt and love and worry shining in his irises. A few tears have travelled down his cheeks too, carving a path through the soot that has been building on his fair skin.
“Okay. Let's go home.”
Together, they make their way towards the ship and up the ramp, shouldering past a bewildered Obi-Wan, until they reach the bed. Anakin deposits Padmé on the mattress carefully, bending down to take off her shoes and rub the soles of her feet gently for a moment, then he helps her get comfortable and tucks her in.
“I'll take us to hyperspace then I'll be back,” he whispers.
Padmé nods and offers him a small smile. “Don't leave Obi-Wan here.”
Anakin's expression sours briefly but he visibly forces himself to remain calm, for her sake.
“Alright. But he's not coming in here. He can sit on the floor.”
Padmé laughs and almost doesn't regret it when her migraine spikes.
“Just go,” she says, waving a hand at him. “Oh, and shut Threepio off on your way back or he'll bully his way in here to look after me. He's a right mother hen, you know.”
“I will. Rest up, angel, we'll be on Naboo soon.”
Anakin bends down to kiss her forehead, hesitating briefly before he presses his lips to her sooty, sweaty skin, and Padmé closes her eyes gratefully and soaks up the contact. Her heart finally settles as he pulls away and disappears further into the ship, at last secure in the knowledge that her husband isn't completely lost to her. She still has him, and he her. Not all is lost.
Her hand seeks her belly, a habit she'll have a hard time ridding herself of once the baby's finally born, and sighs contentedly. Not all is lost indeed.