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Movement startled Padmé, and her blaster was in her hands before she even registered who was standing there.
Anakin held up his hands in an innocent gesture, and irritation chased away the adrenaline. Padmé shoved her blaster back in to its holster, and deliberately walked past him.
“I didn’t change the codes to the apartment so you could amuse yourself bypassing my security,” she said.
“I set everything back,” he said. “I needed to talk to you.”
“I don’t think there’s anything we need to talk about right now.”
“I know you’re still mad, and I’m sorry. I never wanted to upset you, Padmé; you’re everything to me. And I’ll do anything you ask of me to make it up to you.”
“Except accept that we’re done, now.”
“I don’t understand,” anger crept into his tone, “I love you, Padmé. And I can feel that you love me. You can’t disguise your feelings from me, so I don’t know why you’re pretending.”
“I do love you, Anakin.” she said, trying to hold back bitter, frustrated tears. He wouldn’t understand them for what they were. “But I told you two weeks ago, I cannot live with you anymore.”
“Why‽” he demanded as he approached her. “Even through all our arguments, you’ve always come back to me before. What’s changed?”
You’ve changed, she wanted to say. But she wasn’t even sure if that was true. Maybe they’d both changed; maybe neither of them had changed enough.
“We were just crumbling,” she said instead. “It wasn’t just one thing. We just weren’t working, Anakin. I think deep down you know that.”
He paced.
“There’s someone else, isn’t there?”
“What‽”
“Who is it‽” he demanded, turning on her, boxing her in. “Tell me who it is, Padmé!”
“There’s no one, Anakin!”
“There must be,” he said, “there must be something taking you away from me, and it’s probably someone. So tell me who it is, if you’re going to break up with me like this, you owe me that much.”
She tried to push him away, but he wouldn’t budge.
“I don’t know how you got that into your head,” she said. “There’s no one. There hasn’t been anyone else since you came back into my life. Shouldn’t your Jedi powers tell you that that’s the truth? That this is only about us?”
“He tried to warn me, but I didn’t want to believe him,” Anakin said, mostly to himself, because that made no sense to her. He clearly wasn’t listening to her, either.
“What is the point of this, Anakin?” she said, a resigned weariness taking over. “You’re looking for one simple reason, a person you can pin all the blame on…for what? So you can, what, get them out of the picture and everything will be fine between us again?”
His expression darkened. “You admit it, then. There is someone else.”
“That’s not what I said.”
“Who? One of the other Senators? Is it Obi-Wan‽” his voice lowered to barely above a whisper, his eyes growing wide at even the thought of the betrayal.
“Are you even hearing yourself?” she shot back, “Obi-Wan? You think he would do that to you, to us?”
“I don’t know,” he said, his anger sounding colder now. “I don’t know anymore. Two weeks ago, I would’ve said you never would’ve left me, and yet…”
“I left for myself, Anakin. No one else.”
“That’s not enough!” he said. Padmé pressed herself back against the wall, and tried to ignore the twinge of her hand towards her blaster. It didn’t mean anything. Hypersensitive nerves too used to threats that they jumped at every turn. “You’re still not telling me everything. Tell me.”
Something pressed inside her head, and Padmé squeezed her eyes shut against it.
“Stop…it…An…a…kin!” she managed.
Slowly, the pressure released, and Padmé came back to herself almost doubled over. With effort, she straightened herself up, and met Anakin’s eyes again. Still full of cold anger.
“It doesn’t matter if you won’t tell me,” he said. “I’ll figure it out, one way or another. And I’ll fix this, Padmé. I won’t let them take you away from me. I’ll never give up on you.”
How could someone say something so horrifying in such a reassuring tone?
Padmé looked at him, trying to wrack her now tender brain for what drugs might induce this kind of paranoia and aggression in someone. For any reason why Anakin would go this far.
Just one simple reason.