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The lower levels of Coruscant breathe like a beast exhaling from ruptured vents. Light doesn’t fall here so much as bleed, scant and artificial, smearing itself across puddles as well as the chrome of abandoned speeders.
Anakin Skywalker moves through the streets with Ahsoka by his side — boots picking their way between rusted conduit coils and trash that has been soaking in oil runoff for days now. They’re supposed to be tracking an informant. A slicer who disappeared three nights ago after leaking intel about Separatist contact embedded somewhere deep in the capital city’s dark underbelly.
Ahsoka pauses rather abruptly at the mouth of a branching alley then. “Master…” she murmurs, already stepping forward “I sense something amiss down there. I’ll circle around and meet you at the junction in five.” The young Togruta doesn’t wait for approval. She rarely does anymore, which he supposes is its own kind of wound and boost to his pride all at once. Padawans.
Once her silhouette dissolves into the neon haze, in any case, Anakin exhales slowly. There is no true silence to be experienced down here — but the isolation does tease his mind awake and drive him restless. His senses have since flooded with everything from a whining hovercart to the repeating holo-sign nearby that flickers on a low-powered buzz. He should be more focused and yet? Stillness always seems to have this strange effect on him. It pries open the cracks that he works very hard to keep sealed.
Regardless. Leaning against a graffiti-tagged duracrete wall, eyes narrow and scan several surrounding walkways as he reaches out into the Force. Multiple possibilities open up to him, time moving in a concurrent state until—
A burst of steam hisses from an overhead vent, warm and spiced with some nearby kitchen’s runoff. It curls around him thick enough that he has to blink at the instant familiarity. Sweet. Caramelised. Thus he follows the trail before even consciously meaning to, down a shadowy pathway just as another unmistakable exhale of delicious smelling pastries beckons him forward.
A squat storefront wedged between two derelict droid repair shops meets Anakin then. He sees a hand-painted sign in Basic and poorly stencilled Naboo: HOT, FRESH, CHEAP! The bakery’s glass is fogged from heat within nonetheless, every inch of it glowing with an amber warmth that doesn’t seem to belong here on this level.
Anakin moves until he can peer through a clear seam in the condensation — and that’s when he sees what his nose already recognises. A tray lined with crescent-shaped cookies cooling atop a low counter, their steam curling like small ghosts in the ambient glow.
Padmé’s Their apartment feels like its own pocket of the galaxy, one insulated from war and duty. A sanctuary Anakin was never supposed to claim as his own — but every time he finds a chance to appreciate the sunset through their windows catching on soft cream curtains, and turning every square inch of space into a warm cocoon? He cannot bring himself to care about the rules.
Especially not when his nose picks up a delicious, new scent to accompany it this evening. Citrus peel. Warm honey. Naboo herbs he has only ever encountered through his wife. It all hits him with so ridiculous a force that his eyes flutter shut for about two seconds before something profoundly tender swells deep within.
Anakin follows it until their kitchen finally comes into view, where Padmé stands with cheeks a touch flushed from the stovetop and her curls pinned up in a way that looks eager to fall — which should have been illegal, honestly, given what it does to his self-control. A spoon is tucked between her lips while she stirs a pot of syrupy substance; another is balanced precariously on the edge of a mixing bowl.
Padmé Amidala. Former Queen. Senator of the Republic. The face of diplomacy and restraint.
… a young woman completely covered in flour.
He stops in the doorway just to marvel at this rare sight. After all, there exists a surreality in the way Padmé looks when she’s oblivious about being watched. Unguarded and entirely herself. “Angel.” Though the endearment slips as light as a feather, she still turns with a slight bounce.
“Anakin!” Her surprise immediately melts into a smile, gaze travelling over him, and it hits like sunlight breaking through dense cloud cover “I didn’t hear you come in.”
“You’re baking?”
“Yes, come see. These are Naboo winter cookies.”
He instinctively moves closer and nods toward aforementioned bowl “What’s the occasion?”
Padmé pauses to really look at all of it, the low lamplight framing her lashes. “I used to bake these every winter festival with my grandmother,” a sheepish laugh then “She baked, at least. I made quite a mess. Our homes would always smell like this around the cold season.”
She hesitates for a moment before her voice gentles significantly “I want us to have traditions as a family too. Something our children can inherit.”
Children. The word expands and fills every corner of their kitchen. He feels it press against him like a tangible presence now, reaching into his ribcage and squeezing tight. Padmé looks away, however, suddenly trying to smooth out the thumbprints she’s made in her dough “I know we can’t think that far ahead. Not now, but a part of me just wants to save little pieces for later.”
Sensing her insecurity, Anakin’s assurance comes with a finality that suggests none “We’re allowed to want that.” He sees the relief flicker plainly across her features then; how sincerely she desires that future with him even if it further adds to the list of oaths they have already broken.
Without another word, Padmé leans into his gloved hand as soon as it reaches out to rest upon her hip like she had been waiting for the contact — revelling in the way his broad chest presses against her back. “You know,” he murmurs “If we start on the family part now? That means the cookie recipe may be perfected just in time.”
She gasps and gently elbows him in the ribs, her smile only half-heartedly scandalised “Ani!” He grins into the curve of her shoulder. “What ‘Ani’? You brought it up.”
“What I meant, General Skywalker,” Padmé playfully decides to argue for argument’s sake “was someday. After things have calmed down.” His blood warms at the dip in her voice whenever she uses that title with him behind closed doors — drawing strong arms around her waist as consequence, and a tender kiss placed right below the ear “Hmm well, Senator Amidala, someday could be very soon if you keep wearing your hair like this around me.”
He will remember Padmé’s blissful laughter in this exact moment for the rest of his life. Her, and the smell of spiced honey that he memorises with a deep breath.
There is no war here.
No Jedi Council.
No Senate.
Only the possibility of a life simple enough to shape with both their hands, like dough.
It is all he has ever wanted — and will want.
Shouts from three blocks over ricochet and carve a fissure straight through the illusion then.
Anakin inhales abruptly. Memories collapse like a sandcastle beneath the tide as Coruscant’s underworld returns all at once in a rude reassertion of reality. How long has he been standing there, motionless?
The trays of cookies are still there — but the sight of them feels different now. Less like a memory, and more a reminder of what he cannot have.
He suddenly feels cold.
Ahsoka’s gait is unmistakable when she approaches, however, light and purposeful. She returns to view through the drifting steam and stops dead beneath a busted sign advertising cheap speeder parts. “Master?” Curious eyes dart from him to the bakery window and back “Uh… I didn’t know you had a sweet tooth.”
His jaw tenses. “It’s nothing, Snips.” Watching him brusquely turn away to head down the street without warning, she’s still casting confused glances behind them when he declares “Our target’s three junctions east. Maybe four, if he doubled back.”
Oh-kay. She practically jogs to keep up with his much longer stride “… and you know that how?”
“I listened to the Force,” he manages a flippant smile to ease her anxiety — and really, it isn’t a lie considering how bright he can sense an echo of panic in that direction right now “What else did you think I was doing?”
Thus in this empty-headed space between twilight and dawn, the city carries on. A low rumbling whir of asthmatic air-conditioners sputter in the back alley, choking crooked arteries peppered with trash. The scent of Naboo winter cookies eventually fade with them.